How to Sync Azure Blob Storage with AzCopy
A couple of months ago, I wrote a blog about how you can sync files to Azure Blob storage using AzCopy. Today I got an exciting update from one of my issues for AzCopy on GitHub, AzCopy version 10.3 now supports the synchronization feature from Azure Blob storage to Azure Blob storage. This means you can now sync Azure Blob to Azure Blob using AzCopy. You can read more here: https://www.thomasmaurer.ch/2019/11/how-to-sync-azure-blob-storage-with-azcopy/Azure Site Recovery now supports managed disks
Azure Site Recovery (ASR) now supports managed disks. This follows the announcement of Azure's support for managed disks in February. With the integration of managed disks into ASR, you can attach managed disks to your machines during a failover or migration to Azure. Managed disks provide the following advantages: Simplified disk management for Azure IaaS VMs by removing the hassle of managing storage accounts for your machines after failover to Azure. Improved reliability for Availability Sets by ensuring that the disks of the failed over VMs are automatically placed in different storage scale units (stamps) to avoid single points of failure. Read about it on the Azure blog.Announcing general availability of large disk VM backup support
Today we are excited to announce general availability of large disk VM backup support and a set of restore and backup performance improvements through new VM backup stack. Learn more @ https://azure.microsoft.com/blog/large-disk-support/
Azure Backup - Seeding
Hi all, I have a client with a slow(ish) connection and a data cap, I would like to seed the data to Azure Backup. From what I can tell this can only be done by shipping a drive to a MS datacenter, but is it possible to create an offline backup to an external drive and import it from another location with a faster internet connection? For example: create offline backup to USB hard drive, take offsite (lets say my office), login to Azure Portal, import data from USB drive over faster internet connection. Thoughts?
Realistic costs for Azure storage?
Looking at realistic costs for Azure storage for off-site backups for a potential customer. Very basic and preliminary information is they have about 60TB of just flat files on a Netgear NAS that is automatically copied to another Netgear NAS. Sounds like just a mirror. They want to have an off-site copy in the cloud and are very set on Azure storage. That copy at Azure would need to have versioning. They want to be able to be able to mount Azure as an iSCSI target since 'we have to restore a lot'....and a restore can be 20GB a day! So.....worst case scenario; 60TB of storage, 200GB in changes a day, 20GB retrieved a day. Curious what a realistic cost would be for that. Was looking at the https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/?service=storage and had storage and VPN on there. Not sure what else I might need or the right choices based on their needs. Wasn't sure on the 'put', 'other', and 'data write' options, and if they could get away with cool storage. Assuming they would need something on-premise to copy the data from the NAS to Azure, and then something at Azure to allow iSCSI connections. Or maybe as long as they can mount something at Azure use even a simple backup software to do file-level copies. Thanks for any thoughts/suggestions/etc.....but want to make sure I have the right options selected when estimating costs.Announcing general availability of Update 4.0 for StorSimple 8000 series
StorSimple 8000 series Update 4.0 is now generally available. This release has the following new features and enhancements: Heatmap-based restore – No more slowness when accessing data from appliance post device restore (DR). The new feature implemented in Update 4 tracks frequently accessed data to create a heatmap when the device is in use prior to DR. Post DR, it uses the heatmap to automatically restore and rehydrate the data from the cloud. Performance enhancements for locally pinned volumes – This update has improved the performance of locally pinned volumes in scenarios that have high data ingestion. Bug fixes – In the areas of MPIO support for StorSimple Snapshot Manager, alerts, controller replacement, updates, and more. This update is now generally available for customers to apply from the StorSimple Manager Service in Azure. You can also manually apply this update using the hotfix method. Read more on Azure Blogs.New Azure Storage JavaScript client library for browsers - Preview
Announcing our newest library: Azure Storage Client Library for JavaScript. The demand for the Azure Storage Client Library for Node.js, as well as your feedback, has encouraged us to work on a browser-compatible JavaScript library to enable web development scenarios with Azure Storage. With that, we are now releasing the preview of Azure Storage JavaScript Client Library for Browsers. Learn more on the blog.Preview of Storage Service Encryption for File Storage
Azure File Storage is a fully managed service providing distributed and cross platform storage. IT organizations can lift and shift their on premises file shares to the cloud using Azure Files, by simply pointing the applications to Azure file share path. Thus, enterprises can start leveraging cloud without having to incur development costs to adopt cloud storage. Azure Files now offers encryption of data at rest capability. When you enable Storage Service Encryption for Azure File Storage your data is automatically encrypted for you. Learn more.Microsoft Azure Storage Import/Export Announcements
Azure Import/Export Service enables transfer of data in and out of Azure Blob Storage by shipping data on harddrives. You can use this service when you have large amount of data which takes long to upload/download over network. Microsoft is happy to share some improvements we have made to this service with you today. Read more on Azure Blogs. Azure Import/Export in Azure portal Microsoft is excited to announce the general availability of Azure Import/Export Service in the new Azure portal. Storage Accounts – Classic, Azure Resource Manager (cool and hot access tier) In addition to the Classic Storage accounts, you can now create Import and Export jobs targeting Azure Resource Manager account with Hot and Cool access tiers. Import/Export tool – multi-drive and multi-source support Microsoft is also happy to announce WAImportExport client tool improvements. Download latest version of WAImportExport client tool from Download Center. Learn how to use WAImportExport client tool. You can use this tool to copy data to the hard drives you are going to ship to an Azure data center. Import/Export tool v1 – platform agnostic copy Microsoft is pleased to introduce a new flag /skipwrite in WAImportExport V1 release of the tool. Regional availability expansion Microsoft expanded Azure Import/Export service to Canada, US Gov and China. Hard drives types In addition to 3.5” internal SATA II/III disks, Azure Import/Export can now process your import or export jobs using 2.5” Internal SATA drives and internal SSD drives.Standard SSD Disks for Azure Virtual Machines is now in public preview
We are excited to announce the public preview of Azure Standard SSD Managed Disks, a new type of durable storage for Azure Virtual Machines. Standard SSDs are optimized for workloads that need consistent performance at low IOPS levels. Standard SSDs offer a cost effective alternative to enhance the performance and reliability offered with Standard Disks. Key attributes of Standard SSDs: Delivers lower latency, more consistent performance and better reliability compared to Standard HDDs. Ideal for web servers, low-IOPS enterprise application servers, and dev/test workloads. Offers the same industry-leading durability and availability you expect from Azure Disk Storage. Can be upgraded to Premium SSDs for more demanding and latency-sensitive workloads. Learn more about Standard SSDs in our blog post.
