Microsoft’s Azure public cloud is providing free inward data migration courtesy of deals with Data Dynamics and Komprise.
An Azure Storage Blog by Karl Rautenstrauch, Microsoft principal program manager for Storage Partners, says these deals with “unstructured data management partners … help you migrate your file data to Azure Storage at no cost!” It’s recommended for use by customers with 50TB or more of data to migrate. Users with less data can use tools such as AzCopy, rsync, or Azure Storage Explorer.
He adds: “We intend this new program to help our customers and partners migrate from on-premises and non-Azure deployments of Windows or Linux File Servers, Network Attached Storage, and S3-compliant object stores to Azure Blob Storage, Azure Files, or Azure NetApp Files.”
This program “is a complement to the Azure Migrate portfolio which many Azure customers have used to automate and orchestrate the migration of servers, desktops, databases, web applications, and more to Azure.”
Customers who take up the program “will be given an onboarding session to learn how to use the software and will receive access to the support knowledgebase and email support for the chosen ISV and up to two support phone calls. We have also co-authored ‘Getting Started Guides’ and our ISVs have created ‘How-To’ videos to help you quickly begin your migration,” writes Rautenstrauch. The program “does not include professional services to help you configure the software beyond the onboarding session, Getting Started Guides and How-To videos.”
Data Dynamics uses its StorageX product while Komprise supplies its Elastic Data Migration (EDM) offering. EDM was launched in March 2020 and takes NFS/SMB/CIFS file data and moves it across a network to a target NAS system, or via S3 to object storage systems or the public cloud.
Komprise says EDM eliminates cost and complexity in managing file data by providing analytics-driven data migration to Azure:
- It provides analytics across existing NAS (e.g. NetApp, Dell, Windows) to identify which data sets to migrate and to which tier of Azure;
- Systematically migrates files and scales elastically according to the distribution of the shares, directories and files;
- Ensures data integrity by migrating all file attributes and permissions with full MD5 checksums on every file.
Customers can upgrade to the full product, Komprise Intelligent Data Management, which means they can transparently tier across Azure Storage platforms, cutting up to 70 per cent of cloud costs.
Find out more about the Azure and Komprise migration deal here. Let’s see if Amazon Web Services and the Google Cloud Platform follow in Azure’s footsteps.
