What is a recommended strategy for managing Azure Storage accounts and blob containers?

Creating Azure Storage accounts before deploying your application is a recommended strategy because it ensures that the necessary infrastructure is in place prior to application deployment. This proactive approach allows for proper configuration, testing, and integration of the storage accounts with the application.

When storage accounts are created beforehand, it provides the opportunity to set up access controls, networking configurations, and performance tuning to optimize for the specific use cases of the application. Additionally, having the storage ready allows developers to perform comprehensive testing, including verifying that the application can interact with the storage services as expected.

This strategy also contributes to a more streamlined deployment process, as the application can be deployed seamlessly with access to its data storage from the outset, leading to a more stable production environment. By contrast, creating storage accounts only as needed or after the application is live may lead to delays, potential misconfigurations, or access issues that can disrupt service availability.