When it comes to lifting and shifting applications into the cloud, the single biggest challenge is arguably moving the data. To accelerate that process, leading cloud service providers have developed physical appliances to be shipped to customers that make it faster and easier to replicate data. Once that data is collected, the appliance is then […]
When it comes to lifting and shifting applications into the cloud, the single biggest challenge is arguably moving the data. To accelerate that process, leading cloud service providers have developed physical appliances to be shipped to customers that make it faster and easier to replicate data. Once that data is collected, the appliance is then shipped back overnight to the cloud service provider to upload into the cloud.
The latest of these appliances is being announced today by IBM. Michael Fork, distinguished engineer for the IBM Watson and Cloud Platform, says the IBM Cloud Mass Data Migration appliance weighs about 50 pounds and transfers data over a 10G Ethernet connection.
Fork notes that a lack of network bandwidth makes transferring terabytes of data impractical for most organizations. As a result, most organizations wind up shipping magnetic disk drives to their cloud service providers. But those drives can typically only store about 10 TB of data. The IBM Cloud Mass Data Migration appliance solves that problem by allowing up to 120 TB of encrypted data to be transferred into the IBM Cloud within 48 hours of receiving the appliance back.
“The customers can keep the appliance for up to 10 days,” says Fork.
Priced at $395 per, Fork says, all told, the process should take about week.
IBM, of course, isn’t the only cloud service provider taking advantage of magnetic drives and overnight carrier services to accelerate a cloud migration. But IBM does seem to be a little more committed at this point to reducing the cost of migrating large amounts of data into its cloud as well as the amount of time required to accomplish the task.
Michael Vizard is a seasoned IT journalist, with nearly 30 years of experience writing and editing about enterprise IT issues. He is a contributor to publications including Programmableweb, IT Business Edge, CIOinsight and UBM Tech. He formerly was editorial director for Ziff-Davis Enterprise, where he launched the company’s custom content division, and has also served as editor in chief for CRN and InfoWorld. He also has held editorial positions at PC Week, Computerworld and Digital Review.
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