Azure Data Box gateway

Question

I have a scenario of Migrating On-Premises Data to Azure Storage blob and access it with local cache concept using Azure Data Box Gateway Solution over VPN.

• Active-Passive Architecture for Data Box Gateway Solution for HA?
• How many number of blob storage on that can be mounted to gateway in the backend of Azure Storage Gateway?
• Same Storage Account (blob) - Data Box Gateway Connected with multiple endpoints more than 3 or 4(NFS Mount-Point).
• How Many NFS mount points in such scenario is it supported?

Answer 1

Hello Rathod, Ankit,

Greetings! Welcome to Micrsoft Q&A Platform.

Azure Data Box Gateway is a cloud storage gateway device that resides on your premises and sends your image, media, and other data to Azure. This cloud storage gateway is a virtual machine provisioned in your hypervisor. You write data to this virtual device using the NFS and SMB protocols, which it then sends to Azure. This article provides you a detailed description of the scenarios where you can deploy this device.

Data Box Gateway is useful for cloud archival, disaster recovery, and processing data at cloud scale. It supports scenarios like continuous data ingestion, initial bulk transfer followed by incremental transfer, and Local cache: Data Box Gateway has a local cache that allows high data ingestion rates during business hours. The local cache allows fast read access until a certain threshold. Until the device is 50-60% full, all the reads from the device are accessed from the cache making them faster. Once the used space on the device goes above this threshold, then the device starts to remove local files. It holds data and uploads it to Azure, even when the network is throttled.

• Active-Passive Architecture for Data Box Gateway Solution for HA - For high availability (HA), consider deploying multiple Data Box Gateways in an active-passive configuration. In this setup, one gateway (active) handles data transfer, while the other (passive) remains on standby. If the active gateway fails, the passive one takes over to ensure continuous data transfer.
• How many number of blob storage on that can be mounted to gateway in the backend of Azure Storage Gateway - Data Box Gateway doesn’t directly mount blob storage. Instead, it transfers data to Azure block blob, page blob, or Azure Files.
• How Many NFS mount points in such scenario is it supported - Data Box Gateway supports multiple endpoints (NFS mount points) for different shares or folders. However, these endpoints are not directly tied to blob storage mounts; they represent different paths within the gateway, and for example: you can configure more than 3 or 4 endpoints, but the exact limit depends on your specific deployment and requirements.

You can also review the Key capabilities & Specification required for implementing Data Box Gateway here - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/databox-gateway/data-box-gateway-overview#key-capabilities.

Hope this answer helps! Please let us know if you have any further queries. I’m happy to assist you further.

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Answer 2

@Rathod, Ankit

1. We don’t support active/passive HA today – this means when the gateway goes down for whatever reason, the applications accessing gateway can see errors/disruptions.
2. There is a 1 to 1 relationship between share exposed to clients from the gateway, and the container in the azure side.
3. These can be found in the official documentation: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/databox-gateway/data-box-gateway-limits

If you still have any questions, I would like to connect with you offline and provide more insight based on your requirements.

Please let us know if you have any further queries. I’m happy to assist you further.    

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Please do not forget to "Accept the answer” and “up-vote” wherever the information provided helps you, this can be beneficial to other community members.