>> If you process lots of
data and the network connectivity is available,
Data Box Gateway and
Data Box Edge are online data transfer
solutions that simplify the process
of moving your data to Azure.
In addition, Data Box Edge
enables you to your data locally.
Andrew Mason, is here to show us how it all
works today, on Azure Friday.
Hey everyone!
Donovan Brown here with another episode of Azure Friday.
So, in a previous episode,
we talked about Data Boxes,
so, what are you going to tell
me that's a little bit different?
>> So, that episode was with
Matthew Dixon and he
talks about the whole family of devices.
>> Okay.
>> Today, I'm going to focus on
the online transfer devices,
so, there's a Data Box Gateway and a Data Box Set.
>> All right. Perfect. So, tell
me the difference between the two of the these.
>> So, Data Box Gateway is a virtual appliance.
Basically, it provides a storage Gateway functionality.
So, you can deploy that on Hyper-V or VMware.
>> Okay.
>> And then, it exposes
sharers either as SMB or NFS on your network.
You copy data into that and it
handles the transfer to the Cloud for you.
>> All right. Got it.
>> You can also set bandwidth throttling on there,
so you can limit the amount of bandwidth it
consumes during say, normal business hours.
>> Okay, and then the other one?
>> So, Data Box Edge
provides all that Gateway functionality,
but has the ability to do compute on top of it.
So, you can preprocess data before it gets transferred.
>> I see, to make sure it's in the format that-
>> The format you needed or if you want
a subset or modify the data in some way,
like for judiciary reasons,
your lawyers won't let you put
certain things in the cloud,
you can do that modification,
set up a data pipeline for it,
or even do like e-mail processing,
where you want to resolve close
to where that data is being generated.
You don't have to wait for the round trip to the Cloud.
You can get that result close while
still pushing your full data up to the Cloud
and getting retraining
your models or doing for the analytics.
>> Cool. Can you show me how it works?
>> Sure. So, right here,
I've got a connection to
a Data Box Edge device
and you can see I've got a share set up on here,
and also the ability to add Edge Compute Modules,
and so, we use the IoT Edge,
the Module Management Framework from there,
to allow you to push containers
down to the device in a secure way,
as well as update them.
>> It looks like coming in the Azure portal here,
and I looked at the other device,
only the ordering went through the portal
and then I connected it to my physical network.
But this looks like I'm actually able to
manage this from the portal.
>> Yes, this is an online transfer device,
you can run disconnected for a period,
but you do have to be connected to do
the initial activation and
provisioned shares and set permissions.
>> I see. Okay.
>> It does have a similar local UI,
where you can do some basic monitoring.
If you can't get connected to the Cloud in some way,
you can do some diagnostics tests on the device,
you can figure out what's wrong with it,
as well as generate like a support package.
So, if there are issues, we can help
troubleshoot then get you reconnected.
>> Got it. Okay, perfect.
>> Yes. For the most part other than
initial network configure and a few other things,
you do everything through the portal.
>> Great. Now, once I have that share created,
I just see it in Windows Explorer as a user?
>> You just see it in Windows Explorer as a user.
So, I'm just going to create another Clickshare here,
to show you how this works,
and so, you can pick SMB or NFS,
then you set your storage accounts.
>> So, this is where in Azure,
I want the data that I copied to that share to reside?
>> Yes, and then you can pick Block Blob,
Page Blob or files.
>> The type of storage you want to use?
>> The type of storage you want to use.
>> Okay.
>> And then, you can create
a new one or use an existing one.
I don't have one of these created yet.
>> Okay.
>> Then you can also select,
if you've already created some accounts,
you can select my Demo User
you are going to have access to this share.
>> Okay.
>> And it will go off and provision that on the device.
>> Got it.
>> Now, because of the interaction between the Azure,
it will take a minute or so.
So, I've already created a share
on this particular device.
>> Okay.
>> I'm going to connect with that same User account.
So, now drive W is connected.
Going to take a look at W, it is empty.
>> Okay.
>> I've got a few files on my Demo Share here,
and I will go ahead and, switch over there.
Again is empty other than
a few share config files they got provisioned into.
Then, I'm just going to copy these files over there.
>> All right. So, I'm just copy,
like I said I normally do-
>> Do it on a local network coping,
into a local share on my network,
and then as I go over here, and,
"Refresh" and storage explorer,
so connected to Demo Share,
and you can see it's already started
copying the data up there for me.
>> Got it.
>> Then, if I go back and take a look at the portal here.
You see at the Edge Compute Modules here,
I don't see my other share, just popped up.
So, I can go in here,
and I can go under Modules
but I haven't deployed any on this particular device.
>> How do I write these modules?
>> So, they're just containers.
So, you can either use IoT, Azure Functions,
Azure Stream Analytics or as Azure ML,
or you can write any container that you push through
the IoT Azure management System.
>> I see.
>> So, you can see I've got this connected up to IoT Hub,
and Data Box Edge,
DemoDevice-Edge and then I can go over into my IoT Hub,
and I can see my device there and
I can set up my twinning,
and I can add Modules,
and things to the device.
>> Got you.
>> So, I can set up to preprocess for me.
>> Then, one more question.
So, the preprocessing happens.
So the data gets onto the device,
but it needs to be preprocessed before it starts moving.
>> Yes.
>> So, how do I tell it that, "Hey,
I need you to preprocess before you move,
" or is it just just taking it and moving.
>> So, when you set up your server for preprocessing,
you indicate that's for
preprocessing and it won't get
touched until that processing happens.
Basically, your code has to
indicate to the system that is ready to move.
>> I see, I got you.
So, I write my Module,
it does whatever it's supposed to
do and then it sends a signal saying,
"Okay, this data is now
safe and ready for you to process this."
And then it'll end up just in
the share like we did a moment ago.
>> Exactly.
>> Very cool.
>> Then, I have
Virtual clients here and you
noticed how it's just showing me shares,
I don't have the ability to do compute on that.
Which has to do with virtual but
starts the storage gateway only.
>> Right. So, this is the one that runs inside of
Hyper-V or runs inside a VMware,
but I still configure it from the Azure Portal proper.
Right? So, there's software that I
also VM basically that I run.
>> Yeah.
>> That it's provided by you.
>> Your provision of VM, and then,
once that VM started up, basically,
the process is the same as the physical device.
>> Got you. Very cool.
>> Yeah.
>> Thank you so much for sharing this with us.
So, we are learning all
about Data Boxes here on Azure Friday.