Announcing General Availability of Next generation Azure Data Box Devices
Today, we’re excited to announce the General Availability of Azure Data Box 120 and Azure Data Box 525, our next-generation compact, NVMe-based Data Box devices. These devices are currently available for customers to order in the US, US Gov, Canada, EU and the UK Azure regions, with broader availability coming soon. Since the preview announcement at Ignite '24, we have successfully ingested petabytes of data, encompassing multiple orders serving customers across various industry verticals. Customers have expressed delight over the reliability and efficiency of the new devices with up to 10x improvement in data transfer rates, highlighting them as a valuable and essential asset for large-scale data migration projects. These new device offerings reflect insights gained from working with our customers over the years and understanding their evolving data transfer needs. They incorporate several improvements to accelerate offline data transfers to Azure, including: Fast copy - Built with NVMe drives for high-speed transfers and improved reliability and support for faster network connections Ease of use - larger capacity offering (525 TB) in a compact form-factor for easy handling Resilient - Ruggedized devices built to withstand rough conditions during transport Secure - Enhanced physical, hardware and software security features Broader availability – Presence planned in more Azure regions, meeting local compliance standards and regulations What’s new? Improved Speed & Efficiency NVMe-based devices offer faster data transfer rates, providing a 10x improvement in data transfer speeds to the device as compared to previous generation devices. With a dataset comprised of mostly large (TB-sized) files, on average half a petabyte can be copied to the device in under two days. High-speed transfers to Azure with data upload up to 5x faster for medium to large files, reducing the lead time for your data to become accessible in the Azure cloud. Improved networking with support for up to 100 GbE connections, as compared to 10 GbE on the older generation of devices. Two options with usable capacity of 120 TB and 525 TB in a compact form factor meeting OSHA requirements. Devices ship the next day air in most regions. Learn more about the performance improvements on Data Box 120 and Data Box 525. Enhanced Security The new devices come with several new physical, hardware and software security enhancements. This is in addition to the built in Azure security baseline for Data Box and Data Box service security measures currently supported by the service. Secure boot functionality with hardware root of trust and Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0. Custom tamper-proof screws and built-in intrusion detection system to detect unauthorized device access. AES 256-bit BitLocker software encryption for data at rest is currently available. Hardware encryption via the RAID controller, which will be enabled by default on these devices, is coming soon. Furthermore, once available, customers can enable double encryption through both software and hardware encryption to meet their sensitive data transfer requirements. These ISTA 6A compliant devices are built to withstand rough conditions during shipment while keeping both the device and your data safe and intact. Learn more about the enhanced security features on Data Box 120 and Data Box 525. Broader Azure region coverage A recurring request from our customers has been wider regional availability of higher-capacity devices to accelerate large migrations. We’re happy to share that Azure Data Box 525 will be available across US, US Gov, EU, UK and Canada with broader presence in EMEA and APAC regions coming soon. This marks a significant improvement in the availability of a large-capacity device as compared to the current Data Box Heavy which is available only in the US and Europe. What our customers have to say For the last several months, we’ve been working directly with our customers of all industries and sizes to leverage the next generation devices for their data migration needs. Customers love the larger capacity with form-factor familiarity, seamless set up and faster copy. “We utilized Azure Data Box for a bulk migration of Unix archive data. The data, originating from IBM Spectrum Protect, underwent pre-processing before being transferred to Azure blobs via the NFS v4 protocol. This offline migration solution enabled us to efficiently manage our large-scale data transfer needs, ensuring a seamless transition to the Azure cloud. Azure Data Box proved to be an indispensable tool in handling our specialized migration scenario, offering a reliable and efficient method for data transfer.” – ST Microelectronics Backup & Storage team “This new offering brings significant advantages, particularly by simplifying our internal processes. With deployments ranging from hundreds of terabytes to even petabytes, we previously relied on multiple regular Data Box devices—or occasionally Data Box Heavy devices—which required extensive operational effort. The new solution offers sizes better aligned with our needs, allowing us to achieve optimal results with fewer logistical steps. Additionally, the latest generation is faster and provides more connectivity options at data centre premises, enhancing both efficiency and flexibility for large-scale data transfers.” - Lukasz Konarzewski, Senior Data Architect, Commvault “We have had a positive experience overall with the new Data Box devices to move our data to Azure Blob storage. The devices offer easy plug and play installation, detailed documentation especially for the security features and good data copy performance. We would definitely consider using it again for future large data migration projects.” – Bas Boeijink, Cloud Engineer, Eurofiber Cloud Infra Upcoming changes to older SKUs availability Note that in regions where the next-gen devices are available, new orders for Data Box 80 TB and Data Box Heavy devices cannot be placed post May 31, 2025. We will however continue to process and support all existing orders. Order your device today! The devices are currently available for customers to order in the US, Canada, EU, UK, and US Gov Azure regions. We will continue to expand to more regions in the upcoming months. Azure Data Box provides customers with one of the most cost-effective solutions for data migration, offering competitive pricing with the lowest cost per TB among offline data transfer solutions. You can learn more about the pricing across various regions by visiting our pricing page. You can use the Azure portal to select the requisite SKU suitable for your migration needs and place the order. Learn more about the all-new Data Box devices here. We are committed to continuing to deliver innovative solutions to lower the barrier for bringing data to Azure. Your feedback is important to us. Tell us what you think about the new Azure Data Box devices by writing to us at DataBoxPM@microsoft.com – we can’t wait to hear from you.Introducing new Storage Capabilities to Copilot in Azure (Preview)
We are excited to announce that customers can now take advantage of new Copilot in Azure (Public Preview) capabilities for Storage services. Copilot in Azure is an intelligent assistant designed to help you design, operate, optimize and troubleshoot your Azure environment. With the new Storage capabilities, Copilot in Azure can analyze your storage services metadata and logs to streamline and enhance tasks such as building cloud solutions, managing, operating, supporting, and troubleshooting cloud applications in Azure Storage. Troubleshooting Disk Performance with Copilot in Azure Available now in Public Preview Azure offers a rich variety of Disk metrics, providing insights into the performance of your Virtual Machine (VM) and Disk. These metrics help you diagnose performance issues when your application requires higher performance than what you have configured for the VM and Disks. Whether you are looking to set up and validate a new environment in Azure, or are facing issues with your existing set-up, Copilot further enhances your experience by analyzing these metrics to troubleshoot performance issues on-behalf of you, along with providing guided recommendations for optimizing the VM and disks performance to improve the experience for your application. To troubleshoot performance issues with Copilot in Azure, navigate to Copilot in the Azure Portal and enter a prompt related to VM-Disk performance, such as “Why is my Disk slow?”. Copilot will then ask you to specify the VM and Disk(s) experiencing performance issues, along with the relevant time period. Using this information, you can use Copilot to analyze your current VM-Disk configuration and performance metrics to identify whether your application is experiencing slowness due to reaching the configured performance limits for the VM or Disk. It will then provide a summary of the analysis and a set of recommended actions to resolve your performance issue, which you can apply directly in the Portal through Copilot’s guided recommendations. By leveraging the power of Copilot, you can efficiently diagnose and address performance issues within your Azure Disks environment. For more information on the Disk Performance Copilot capability, refer to the Public Documentation. Managing Storage Lifecycle Management with Copilot in Azure Available now in Public Preview With Copilot in Azure, we're providing a more efficient way to manage and optimize your storage costs. Copilot in Azure allows you to save on costs by tiering blobs that haven't been accessed or modified for a while. In some cases, you might even decide to delete those blobs. With Copilot in Azure, you can simply automate lifecycle management (LCM) rule authoring, enabling you to perform bulk actions on Storage accounts through a natural language interface. This means no more manual rule creation or risk of misconfiguration! To use this capability, simply enter a prompt related to cost management, such as “Help me reduce my storage account costs” or “I want to lower my storage costs.” Copilot will then guide you through authoring an LCM rule to help you achieve your goals. For more information on the Storage Lifecycle Management Copilot capability, refer to the Public Documentation. Troubleshoot File Sync errors with Copilot in Azure Available now in Public Preview With Copilot in Azure, you can now quickly troubleshoot and resolve common Azure File Sync issues, such as network misconfiguration, incorrect RBAC permissions, or accidental file share deletions. Copilot in Azure detects errors and misconfigurations, provides exact steps to fix them, and can act on your behalf to resolve common errors. To use this capability, simply enter a prompt related to File Sync such as “Why are my files not syncing?” or “Help me troubleshoot error 0x80C83096.” With the File Sync errors troubleshooting skill, Copilot in Azure acts as your intelligent assistant to keep your File Sync environment running smoothly. This capability not only saves you time by cutting down on troubleshooting efforts but also empowers you to resolve issues confidently and independently. For more information on the Files Sync Copilot capability, refer to the Public Documentation.Protect Azure workloads with VM level consistency using Agentless Crash-Consistent Restore Points!
Today we are happy to announce public preview support for multi disk crash consistency mode in Virtual Machine (VM) restore points. A crash consistent VM restore point is an agentless solution that stores the VM configuration and point-in-time write-order consistent snapshots for all managed disks attached to a VM. This is same as the status of data in the VM after a power outage or a crash. VM restore points, announced in July’22, enabled reliable restoration of disks and VMs for data loss, corruption, disaster recovery, and infrastructure maintenance incidents. Using VM restore points, Azure Backup and ISV partners such as Commvault and Veritas offer BCDR solutions for customers. VM restore points are incremental, where the first VM restore point stores a full copy of your data. For each successive restore point of the VM, an incremental copy i.e., only the changes to your disks are stored. The incremental design enables you to benefit from the data protection of frequent backups while minimizing storage costs. You can also use the built-in copy functionality to copy your VM restore points to any region of your choice to get protection from regional failures. Key Benefits of Crash Consistent Restore Points Agentless solution Using agents for VM restore points is considered as a security, compliance, and management overhead by some partners/customers. Crash consistent restore points directly takes the multi-disk consistent snapshots from the host machine thereby removing the overhead of an agent inside the VM. OS agnostic support As an agentless solution, there is no dependency on the guest operating system (OS). All Windows and Linux OS types are supported by crash consistent restore points. Erstwhile unsupported Linux OS versions, 32-bit OS systems, Windows VMs with ARM64 etc. with application consistency mode are now supported with crash consistency mode. High Frequency support Crash consistent restore points support 1 hour frequency enabling lower RPO for applications running on Azure VMs. VM Level Consistency Prior to VM restore points, customers/partners had to use managed disk snapshots which are taken at per disk level. Due to this consistency at VM level could not be guaranteed and it was also cumbersome to manage. Resiliency solutions with crash consistent VM restore points Azure Backup: Providing first class backup support using VM restore points Azure Virtual Machine Backup enables you to create an enhanced policy to take multiple snapshots a day. This allows you to protect your virtual machines with Recovery Point Objective (RPO) as low as 4 hours. Azure Backup now supports crash consistent restore points (in private preview). Please enroll here to use the capability. “Azure Backup will enable customers to protect a wider set of Virtual Machines (VM) running Linux distributions that are not on the current support matrix as well as VMs that do not use Azure extensions using crash consistent restore points.” - Aravindan Gopalakrishnan, PRINCIPAL PDM MANAGER – Microsoft, Azure Backup Zerto – An HPE Company: Delivering Consistency efficiently with crash-consistent VM restore points Zerto an enterprise-class business continuity and disaster recovery company, is one of the first ISV partners to integrate the new crash-consistent snapshot capability into their product. This integration will enable whole VM protection with crash-consistent snapshots across multiple volumes. “Multi-volume consistency protection is one of the most sought after features by Azure Customers”. - Shannon Snowden, Senior Product Manager - Zerto, an HPE Company “Multi-volume virtual machine (VM) level crash consistency is critical in disaster recovery protection. With the new Azure crash consistent snapshot capability, it enables Zerto to create VM level crash-consistent restore points using underlying snapshots.” - Sandra Biton, Engineering Group Manager – Zerto, an HPE company Zerto 10 introduces multidisk consistency for Azure VMs, which protects VMs to, from, and within Azure with complete disk consistency. Moving away from snapshot-based replication, multidisk consistency for Azure VMs now leverages a new restore point API, offering an easier and more efficient way to manage replication and recovery operations. Get Started Click here to enrol in public preview of crash consistent VM restore points, Learn more about VM restore points. Please share your feedback or questions in the comments section below.
