There are two options to do so:

• Upload data to Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS) using Data Explorer
• Configure the data lake to access blob Storage

Data Explorer is a new feature that allows us to navigate ADLS resources freely. We can upload or download folders and files, copy and paste files across folders or ADLS accounts, and easily perform CRUD operations for our folders and files. Azure Storage Explorer offers a traditional desktop explorer GUI from which we can also connect to blob storage and other Azure resources. In order to connect other Azure resources, you will need to install the newest Azure Storage Explorer bits from the product web page (https://azure.microsoft.com/features/storage-explorer/). Azure Storage Tool will not be covered in this chapter.

It is possible to copy data from blob storage directly to the Data Lake Store using the command-line tool AdlCopy. This tool allows us to copy data from the following sources:

• From Azure Storage Blobs into Data Lake Store.
  However, you cannot use AdlCopy to copy data from Data Lake Store to Azure Storage blobs.
• Between two Azure Data Lake Store accounts.

For more information, visit https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-lake-store/data-lake-store-copy-data-azure-storage-blob

So what's next...?

• We will show you two ways to manipulate data in the Data Lake Store:
  • From a job created in the Data Lake Analytics Resource
  • From the Data Factory

Both methods require U-SQL to be executed and U-SQL requires the Data Lake Analytics.