Inventory scan uses Azure Blob Storage's built-in inventory feature to back up storage contents efficiently, specifically for large blob storage accounts with millions of objects, replacing expensive API-based scanning with native report processing.
Resource Requirements
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Azure blob storage permissions for inventory management
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Local storage for report processing
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Network bandwidth for report downloads
How It Works
- Commvault analyzes configured subclient content and automatically creates Azure inventory policies when content exceeds 500 million objects
- Azure generates inventory reports automatically based on the configured policies
- Change detection compares reports for incremental operations
Configuration Concepts
By default, if object count exceeds 500 million during Azure discovery, the scan type for the default subclient will automatically switch to inventory scan and use the new indexing schema for the newly created instance. You can modify this threshold using the entity setting nInventoryScanObjectCountThreshold.
For multi-billion blob accounts, split content across multiple subclients using container and prefix patterns to enable parallel processing. Inventory runs daily and stores reports in dedicated staging containers with automated cleanup.
Planning Considerations
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Inventory scan operates on scheduled reports (not real-time) and does not include soft deleted files.
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Inventory scan is not supported when the configured subclient content is an individual file path.
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Inventory backup is not supported for Azure Blob Storage when the authentication type is Access Key and Account Name.
Staging Container Creation Requirements
When inventory is enabled, Commvault automatically creates a staging container for Azure inventory reports. However, if your Azure permissions are restricted and do not include container creation rights, the initial job will fail. To resolve this, you must either:
- Grant container creation permissions to the service account, or
- Manually create the staging container using the container name provided in the job failure logs
This ensures consistent inventory processing even when automatic container creation is not permitted due to granular permission policies.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does inventory scan capture file rename operations in Azure Blob Storage?
No, inventory reports do not capture rename operations for Azure Blob Storage files. Renamed items may appear as new additions in subsequent inventory reports while the original paths may show as deletions.