Blob snapshots

One of the many convenient features of the blob storage service is the ability to create snapshots of the blobs that can be used for tracking changes done on a blob over different periods of time. Snapshots provide an automatic and free versioning mechanism. They work by saving any changes done on the blob on a separate snapshot along with its timestamp. Using snapshots, you can rollback any changes done on a blob to a specific point in time or even to the original blob.

The following is an example of how to get a blob by specifying a snapshot value (provided that the container has a public access level):

http://<accountname>.blob.core.windows.net/<container>/<blob>?snapshot=timestamp

We will demonstrate how to create a snapshot by using the Azure Client Library. First, let us create a blob:

CloudBlockBlob blob = container.GetBlockBlobReference("hello.txt");
blob.UploadText("Hello world!");

In order to create a snapshot, we need to reference...