Microsoft greases skids for knowledge migration to Azure • The Register

Microsoft is introducing a brand new software meant to assist make migrating information and folders from on-premises programs to the Azure cloud that a lot simpler.

The brand new Azure Storage Mover, a managed cloud storage migration service that’s now in public preview, lets IT admins plan, launch, and monitor the migration by means of the Azure portal, PowerShell, or CLI, permitting for a one-time transfer or a repeatable operate.

Within the preview launch, Microsoft is focusing on the migration of an on-premises community file system (NFS) share to an Azure blob container, with assist for extra mixtures of knowledge sources and migration targets coming sooner or later, in keeping with Jurgen Willis, vp of Azure optimized workloads and storage.

“Managing copy jobs at scale with no coordinating service might be time consuming and error-prone,” Willis writes in a weblog submit. “Particular person jobs should be monitored and any errors resolved. It’s arduous to keep up complete oversight to make sure a whole and profitable migration of your knowledge.”

Azure Storage Mover makes use of digital machines as migration brokers that run within the community. The agent consists of details about the job migration run in addition to metrics and replica logs which might be accessed by means of the Azure Monitor service.

The VM brokers are deployed near the storage supply of the data and managed in a single place in Azure, no matter whether or not they’re deployed all over the world. The info is moved by means of the Azure Storage REST protocol, with every agent sending the information and folders on to the goal storage housed in Azure.

“Immediately sending the information to the goal optimizes the efficiency of your migration as a result of the information doesn’t must be processed by means of a cloud service or by means of a special Azure area from the place the goal storage is deployed in,” Willis writes. “This optimization is essential for migrations that occur throughout geographically numerous department places of work that can doubtless goal Azure Storage of their area.”

Extra options will probably be added to Azure Storage Mover, together with choices for customizing the migration, automated loading of doable sources into the service and provisioning of goal storage based mostly on the migration plan, and insights about chosen sources.

Microsoft additionally will embrace such post-migration duties as knowledge validation, knowledge safety, and migrating the remaining workloads.

The software is a component of a bigger push by Microsoft to make shifting knowledge into the cloud that a lot simpler, though this new software will compete with present instruments made by its storage companions.

In February, the corporate launched a program it referred to as Azure File Migration, giving customers and companions free entry to file migration choices from Komprise (its Elastic Information Migration software) and Information Dynamics (Information Mobility and Migration).

This system, which enhances the Azure Migrate service, consists of free software program licensing, an onboarding session, and entry to Kompromise or Information Dynamics assist. ®