Migrate the critical file data you need to power your applications

I could not be more excited to share the culmination of a months long effort with industry-leading unstructured data management partners – to help you migrate your file data to Azure Storage at no cost!

 

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. Our new 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.

 

What the File Migration Program IS

Customers and partners who need to migrate file data to Azure from Windows and Linux file servers, Network Attached Storage, and S3-compliant Object Storage whom we have engaged to provide you with their best-of-breed software at no cost. While there is no minimum file data requirement, due to the infrastructure and configuration requirements, we do not recommend participating in this program if you have less than 50TB of data to migrate. These smaller migrations can be accomplished with other available tools like AzCopy, rsync, or Azure Storage Explorer. You can learn more here.

 

If you have more than 50TB of file data to migrate, the supported destinations in this program currently include Azure Blob Storage, Azure Files and Azure NetApp Files. Files, directories, and access control lists are copied. Incremental synchronization is maintained until you execute a cutover and redirect users and applications. Note that migration to Azure Data Lake Storage is possible with these tools, but requires the extra step of configuring access control manually after files are migrated.

 

You 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.

 

What the File Migration Program is NOT

The file migration program does not include professional services to help you configure the software beyond the onboarding session, Getting Started Guides and How-To videos. If you need consulting services to drive the file migration hands-on work for you, you can engage with our ISV partners directly for a statement of work or leverage the Azure Migration and Modernization Program. The software is available for solution integrators and service providers to leverage when driving an approved AMMP project for you.

 

Our ISV partners in this program offer an extensive portfolio of services and capabilities for managing file data holistically. Their capabilities to lifecycle manage file data between on-premises platforms and Azure Blob Storage and continuously replicate files to support disaster recovery are not included in this program. Those capabilities are available through other offers in the Azure Marketplace for a fee.

 

How do I participate?

In order to take advantage of this great offer and accelerate your application migration, you start by following a few fundamental steps and then choosing the right solution for you from the Azure Marketplace.

 

 

 

File Migration Fundamentals

Migration is a journey, and we want you to feel confident in every step. As a result, we have built a series of guides to help you through each phase of the journey and I will quickly recap below. You can also see a 30-minute video walkthrough on the journey that you can view here and read our storage migration methodology here.

 

Phase 1 – Assessment

Assessment includes understanding your available bandwidth to migrate over the wire, capacity, feature, and performance requirements - based on your source environment – then, mapping those needs to the proper storage service and tier in Azure, and finally reviewing the available tools. Each of our file migration ISVs offer great software, but you will want to review the capabilities and interface of each.

 

To better understand the potential for moving data, and how quickly you can complete your migration, review our suggestions of tools to help you assess your available network headroom here (see “Determine unutilized network bandwidth”). If you are concerned about limited bandwidth and the impact that will have on your migration timeline, our ISV partners can still help by utilizing Azure Data Box as the target for baseline synchronization and then perform the differential and subsequent incremental synchronizations over the wire.

Your source storage platform offers the tooling to help you determine the amount of capacity and performance you require from an Azure Storage Service. For example, if you are migrating from on-premises NetApp arrays to Azure NetApp Files, NetApp’s ActiveIQ can help you understand metrics like what latency individual volumes are delivering today.

 

At times, choosing the correct target storage service in Azure is simple and straightforward. There are many cases, however, when it is not clear at first glance. We created the resources below to help you decide and you can always have a discussion with your Cloud Solution Architect if you need additional help.

 

• Object Storage and Data Lake solutions  - https://aka.ms/azureobjectanddatalake
• NFS Protocol Options – https://aka.ms/azurenfsoptions
• SMB Protocol Options – https://aka.ms/azuresmboptions

The final step is then to review the migration software options available to you. You can see a side-by-side comparison here, but it is equally as important to review the user experience via the excellent quick start guides we co-authored and the tremendous demos our ISV partners have recorded!

 

Data Dynamics - https://aka.ms/datadynamicsguide

Komprise - https://aka.ms/kompriseguide

Migration videos – https://aka.ms/filemigrationvideos

 

Phase 2 – Migration

Now that you understand what to migrate, which tool to use, and what Azure Storage Service to migrate your file data to – it is time to head to the Azure Marketplace. Your journey begins there with your chosen solution.

 

• Komprise Transparent Data Migration Offer
• Data Dynamics StorageX Offer

After you select “Contact Me,” a technical representative from your chosen solution partner will reach out to schedule an onboarding session to review the software’s capabilities, ensure that your scenario is supported under the migration program guidelines, provide you with a valid license key for the software deployment, and share how to engage support if needed throughout your engagement. Keep in mind that extensive support needs will require a separate support contract with the ISV as noted earlier in this post.

 

The next step is to deploy and configure the software including the appropriate number of VMs to support management and migration activity. High file count and/or high storage capacity environments will likely require multiple VMs to perform file copy tasks. As you configure your migration jobs, you will have the ability to throttle migration traffic over your network to control the impact on the source storage system and your network bandwidth.

 

Throughout the copy process, you will be able to monitor the progress to 100% synchronization and mount the shares or exports in Azure to verify ACLs have transferred properly and the files and directories are readable. Once the baseline synchronization is complete and you have performed the verification of the copy, you can schedule your final incremental synchronization and schedule and coordinate the cutover to Azure with your application stakeholders. My past experience leads me to recommend taking the shares or exports offline at this point to prevent users and applications from connecting to the “old” copy on the source system, but do not delete the underlying volume or data until users and applications have completed testing and verification.

 

Your final step is to decommission the VMs hosting the migration software and the legacy storage platforms!

 

What next?  

As I mentioned earlier in this post, our partners Data Dynamics and Komprise have extensive data management capabilities that provide value above and beyond one time migration to Azure Storage Services. We will deep dive into each of their solutions with customer success stories and demos in upcoming posts.

 

We will also write a post to show how you can determine if there are applications connecting to your file shares and exports that you may not be aware of – this is an issue I have seen a few times during application migrations to Azure. A share or export is migrated and suddenly an application that remains on-premises no longer functions because someone at some point decided to use it as a repository for their application’s file data… and never bothered to share that information with the individual(s) responsible for managing the storage infrastructure.

 

Finally, you can expect to see more solutions added to our all-up storage migration program to help you tackle additional application migration scenarios that require specific storage migration tooling. We also intend to add more supported storage destinations within Azure to the program – stay tuned.

 

Subscribe to the Azure Storage Tech Community Blog for the upcoming posts and announcements!

Continue to website...