Microsoft Data Box for Heavy Data Migration to Azure

This is fantastic – onsite data can be VERY, VERY large, or ‘heavy’, depending on how you define it in non technical terms. Moving or migrating from an office [or even a traditional datacenter] to a Cloud service can be daunting, given the amount of data needing to be uploaded to a provider. Uploads through the Internet can conceivably take days or weeks! Enter the “Data Box” or smaller “Data Box Disk” from Microsoft Azure. These secure devices can be ordered from Azure. Once they arrive, simply plug them into your network [or server], then rapidly transfer crazy amounts of data to them before shipping the device back to Azure for upload to your Cloud account.

Summary:

“Azure Data Box Family

Data migration to Azure made fast, simple, and secure

Full MS Azure “Data Box” details here.

Blockchain Overview

This Harvard Business Review article is a mostly simple but very solid overview of what Blockchain is and how it is slowly shaping parts of the business world today. I do not necessarily understand the social underpinnings of Blockchain. For example, this paragraph is a bit too ambiguous for me:

“… an incredible tool is shoring up the foundations of social at the level of every transaction—blockchain. Originally gaining notoriety as the data technology underneath the cryptocurrency called bitcoin, today blockchain technology is expanding its reach far beyond the confines of currency and tackling issues involving transactional social trust throughout the world.

However, when some technical armor is placed on it, Blockchain does become a little more clear:

Blockchain is a cryptographically secure, shared data layer that enterprises can use to digitally track the ownership of assets across trust boundaries, opening up new opportunities for cross-organizational collaboration and imaginative new business models. As a shared source of trust, it can extend the scope of digital transformation from a single company to the processes it shares with its suppliers, customers, and partners.

Blockchain, per this article, is going to be a big part of the new Economy, especially relating to the “smart economy”, “IoT” [Internet of Things], compliance, Supply Chain and data security.

 

The Harvard Business Review article [“How Blockchain Will Accelerate Business Performance and Power the Smart Economy “]is here in full.