As it happens, I started implementing some new functionality on a project. For this functionality, I needed an Azure Storage Account with a folder (containers) inside. Because it’s a project not maintained by me, I had to do some searching on how to create such a container in the most automated way, because creating containers in storage account isn’t supported. That is, until recently!

In order to create a container inside a storage account, you only have to add a new resource to it. Quite easy, once you know how to do it.

First, let’s start by creating a new storage account.

{
    "name": "[parameters('storageAccountName')]",
    "type": "Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts",
    "apiVersion": "2018-02-01",
    "location": "[resourceGroup().location]",
    "kind": "StorageV2",
    "sku": {
        "name": "Standard_LRS",
        "tier": "Standard"
    },
    "properties": {
        "accessTier": "Hot"
    }
}

Adding this piece of JSON to your ARM template will make sure a new storage account is created with the specified settings and parameters. Nothing fancy here if you’re familiar with creating ARM templates.

Now for adding a container to this storage account! In order to do so, you need to add a new resource of the type blobServices/containers to this template.

{
    "name": "[parameters('storageAccountName')]",
    "type": "Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts",
    "apiVersion": "2018-02-01",
    "location": "[resourceGroup().location]",
    "kind": "StorageV2",
    "sku": {
        "name": "Standard_LRS",
        "tier": "Standard"
    },
    "properties": {
        "accessTier": "Hot"
    },
    "resources": [{
        "name": "[concat('default/', 'theNameOfMyContainer')]",
        "type": "blobServices/containers",
        "apiVersion": "2018-03-01-preview",
        "dependsOn": [
            "[parameters('storageAccountName')]"
        ],
        "properties": {
            "publicAccess": "Blob"
        }
    }]
}

Deploying this will make sure a container is created with the name theNameOfMyContainer inside the storage account. You can even change the permission to this container. The default is None, but this can be changed to Blob in order to get file access or Container if you want people to be able to access the container itself.

It’s too bad you still can’t deploy a Storage Queue or Table Storage via an ARM template yet. Seeing this latest addition of adding containers, I think it’s only a matter of time before the other two will get implemented/supported.