How to setup an external storage location

It is now possible for company administrators to configure a set of cloud storage locations (e.g. AWS S3, or Azure Blob storage) for your company. Storage locations can then be utilised by users/teams that have been granted access to the location, as an alternative to direct file downloads. If a storage location is selected, then files will be copied across to the preconfigured cloud storage location rather than downloading to the user's computer. The option to use a storage location is currently supported for:

• Point cloud and dataset file downloads
• Exporting
• LAS overrides
• Analytics result files

For more details and to enable this feature for your account, please contact your Pointerra account manager. You will require credentials to access your AWS and/or Azure cloud storage, so you may need to ensure you have IT support from your company.

The Storage locations can be found in the account section.

Setting up the storage location - Amazon S3

In the Storage locations click "Add a new storage location".

1. Give the location a name.
2. Choose Amazon S3 as the location type.
3. Provide the Location URL.
4. Click Validate. This will test the connection to that S3 location.
   • If the validation fails you may need to enter the Access Key and Secret Access Key
5. Enter a date for when your credentials are set to expire (optional).
6. The optional web link to your storage location. E.g., A link to your AWS S3 console
7. Select which teams you wish to have access to the storage location or leave blank for all teams to have access.
8. Click Add

Setting up the storage location - Azure Blob Storage

In the Storage locations click "Add a new storage location".

1. Give the location a name.
2. Choose Azure Blob Storage as the location type.
3. Provide the Location URL.
   • The URL needs to be to an existing folder within the Blob storage.
   • The folder needs to have both read and write access
4. Click Validate. This will test the connection to that Blob location.
   • If the validation fails you will then need to choose the Azure authorization method to use. See the section below for more information.
5. Enter a date for when your credentials are set to expire (optional).
6. The optional web link to your storage location. E.g., A link to your Azure portal.
7. Select which teams you wish to have access to the storage location or leave blank for all teams to have access.
8. Click Add
   
   

Azure authorization types

We currently support Azure authorization via SAS tokens, Service Principals (with a client secret) and Storage Access Keys.

For SAS token authorization, in the Azure Portal you must select "Write" under permissions, then click generate and paste the Blob SAS token into form on Pointerra. Please ensure the Location URL on Pointerra does not contain this SAS token.

For Service Principal authorization, your Tenant ID can be found under the Overview/Basic Information section of your Azure account settings (Also called Microsoft Entra ID). The Client ID is the Application or Client ID of your registered application. This application must be assigned the role of Storage Blob Data Contributor (or equivalent) for your desired blob/container/folder. Finally, the Client Secret is the "Value" (not the Secret ID) of a client secret generated for your application. Note: this can only be retrieved at the time the secret is first generated.

For Storage Access Key authorization, your keys can be found in the Access Key section of your Azure storage account. Note: this provides full read and write access to all data in the storage account.

Editing an existing storage location

If you wish to make changes to an existing external storage location then click the Edit button. Here you can update all details except the location URL. If you wish to change this then the storage location will need to be deleted and added again.