Exercise - Create storage account and enable hosting

This guided project consists of the following exercises:

• Create storage account and enable hosting
• Upload and verify site content
• Update the site content

In this exercise, you create a resource group, set up a storage account, and turn on the static website hosting feature. By the end, you have a public URL ready to serve web content—even though you haven't uploaded any files yet.

This exercise includes the following tasks:

• Prepare the environment
• Create the storage account
• Enable static website hosting

Outcome: A storage account with static website hosting enabled and a public endpoint ready to serve content.

Task 1: Prepare the environment

Set up your Azure environment before you begin. You create a resource group to organize all the resources for this project together, which makes cleanup easier when you finish.

1. Sign in to the Azure portal with an account that has permissions to create storage resources.
2. In the portal search bar, search for Resource groups and select Resource groups.
3. Select + Create. Name the resource group rg-gp-static-website, choose your preferred region, and select Review + create then Create.

Task 2: Create the storage account

Create a general-purpose storage account that will host your website files. Azure Blob Storage can serve static HTML, CSS, and image files directly to browsers without requiring a web server.

1. In the portal search bar, search for Storage accounts and select Storage accounts.
2. Select + Create.
3. On the Basics tab, select rg-gp-static-website as the resource group.
4. For Storage account name, enter a globally unique name (for example, stgpstaticsite followed by your initials and a number). Storage account names must be 3-24 characters, lowercase letters and numbers only.
5. For Region, choose the same region as the resource group.
6. For Preferred Storage Type, select Azure Blob Storage or Azure Data Lake Storage Gen 2.
7. For Performance, select Standard.
8. For Redundancy, select Locally-redundant storage (LRS).
9. Select Review + create and then select Create.
10. When deployment finishes, select Go to resource.

Task 3: Enable static website hosting

Turn on the built-in static website feature. This creates a special container named $web where you upload your site files, and provides a public URL that serves those files to visitors.

1. In the storage account left menu, under Data management, select Static website.
2. Set Static website to Enabled.
3. For Index document name, enter index.html.
4. For Error document path, enter 404.html.
5. Select Save.
6. Note the Primary endpoint URL that appears after saving. This is the public URL for your website.