Azure Import/Export is a data transfer service designed to help organizations move large amounts of data between their local environment and Azure Blob Storage or Azure Files using physical storage devices.
It can be useful when transferring data over the internet would take too long, especially when dealing with very large datasets or limited network bandwidth.
How It Works
The basic process is:
- Prepare supported physical drives according to Azure's requirements.
- Copy the required data onto the drives.
- Create an import job in Azure and provide the required shipping and drive information.
- Ship the drives to the designated Azure location.
- Microsoft transfers the data from the drives into the specified Azure storage account.
- The drives are returned after the import process according to the service workflow.
Azure also supports export scenarios where data can be transferred from Azure storage to physical drives and shipped back for access on-premises.
When Is It Useful?
Azure Import/Export can be considered when:
- The dataset is extremely large.
- Internet bandwidth is limited.
- Network-based transfer would take an impractical amount of time.
- An organization needs to perform a bulk migration to Azure.
- Physical data transfer is more practical than transferring everything over the network.
Things to Consider
It is important to check the current supported storage devices, data limits, encryption requirements, supported Azure storage services, shipping requirements, and regional availability before starting a transfer.
In simple terms, Azure Import/Export provides a physical data-transfer option for moving large datasets between on-premises environments and Azure, making it particularly useful when network-based migration is not practical.