Azure Data Box

2017: Announcement

In September, 2017 Microsoft announced the hardware and software system Azure Data Box which the companies can use for the fast and safe translation of the data in cloud infrastructure of software giant.

A system, similar to the desktop computer, weighs about 20 kg and contains up to 100 Tbyte of data. It is connected to corporate network for downloading of data, and then is brought to the nearest data center of Microsoft and, using direct high-speed connection to Azure, transfers content to a cloud.

Azure Data Box

Clients can lease this equipment and monitor process of data migration. All information is protected by 256-bit AES enciphering. A system is equipped with the display on the basis of electronic ink on which information on delivery of data is represented.

Microsoft agreed with several companies concerning connection of their services to Azure Data Box. Among such partners — Commvault, Veritas, NetApp, Avid, Rubrik and CloudLanes.

So far as concerns movement of large volumes of data (exabyte or several hundred petabyte), loading via the channel even with high capacity can take notable time — for example, transfer of one exabyte of files at connection in 10 Gbps will demand about 26 years.

Microsoft is not the first company which created the hardware solution for data transmission to the cloud storage. In 2016 provided to Amazon the specialized transport container AWS Snowmobile intended for movement of big arrays of information.

The preliminary version of Azure Data Box was announced at the Ignite 2017 conference which took place from September 25 to September 29 in Orlando (the State of Florida, the USA). This product will be released on mass market in the second quarter 2018. Residents of the USA, Europe and some countries of Asia will be able to seize its first opportunities. How much purchase and lease of Azure Data Box will cost, in Microsoft did not specify.^[1]

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