What if your organization still prefers a network file share? Consider the updated Azure File Services.

Many of the companies I've worked with have embraced cloud solutions due to their desire to "get out of the datacenter business." The ability to achieve better security and availability, and the speed with which they are able to deploy, is far greater than traditional on-prem options.

During and after that shift to cloud, though, one area that still poses a struggle for many organizations is what to do with their department file shares.  I'm sure you're thinking "there are all kinds of solutions," and most of them are far better than a traditional network share.  I'd agree with you; however, many organizations have a workforce that is accustomed to this old process.  While solutions like SharePoint, One Drive for Business, and Dropbox are nice and have additional features, most organizations still prefer the Windows file share. 

One solution that holds promise is Microsoft's Azure File Services.  The offering was originally intended to enable companies to move applications that interacted with file shares to Azure, and it was only accessible from Virtual Machines within the same Azure data center when it was first released.  But last year Microsoft released an update that leverages SMB 3.0 and enables users to securely connect to the shares from any location.

There are some limitations if you're looking to deploy Azure File Services within your organization.  The biggest that I found was that not all internet service providers (ISPs), such as Comcast and Charter Spectrum, will allow port 45 access across their networks.  (Here is a list of known ISPs that do and don't block this.)

The other major limitation at this time is while you ...