We are excited to announce the general availability of the Azure Import/Export Service in Microsoft Azure Government. The Import/Export service allows migration of large amounts of data in and out of Azure blob storage by shipping hard disk drives directly to the datacenter. This service is suitable in situations where you want to transfer several TBs of data in or out of Azure Storage, but uploading or downloading over the network is not feasible due to limited bandwidth or high network costs. Some scenarios where this service can be used are data seeding, content distribution, recurring data update, offsite backup, disaster recovery.

Benefits of using Azure Import Export

• Fast: We recommend using Azure Import/Export if loading data over the network would take 7 days or more. Shipping disks directly to the data center can save weeks or more off of network transfer time.
• Secure: Data is secured by Bitlocker encryption. The keys are securely uploaded using SSL REST-API and do not travel along with the disk.
• Reliable: The client tool has internal checksum logic to maintain data integrity. Various verbosity of logging is available directly in customer storage accounts making this process highly reliable.

Note

While all import/export functionality is available, we currently only support the REST API interface for creation and management of import/export jobs in Azure Government. The Portal experience for Import/Export jobs will come in the new portal later this year.  See below for details and samples for getting started with import jobs via the REST API.  

Support

We are eager to help you achieve your goals. Feel free to contact us if you are facing any difficulty using the service, tool, or REST API.

Additional Resources:

• What is Azure Import Export?
• How to use Import/Export Tool?
• Azure Import Export REST API sample
• Azure Import/Export REST API Reference

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