Once your organization has decided to move to the cloud, the first step is to plan out which servers, services, or applications that you want to move into the cloud. That is one of the advantages to a hybrid cloud setup. Not all servers, services, or applications need to be migrated to the cloud.
Many companies decide to leave some of their resources in their onsite server room and many companies decide to move all resources to the cloud. It’s very important to understand that there is no right or wrong way to create a hybrid network. Depending on your company and the company needs, this will help you determine which resources are best left onsite and which resources should be in the cloud.
Hybrid clouds can also be a very good option to ensure that your data is backed up and secure in the cloud. Being able to retrieve data in the event of a server crash or major disaster is one of the most important tasks that we have in IT. Using a hybrid cloud environment for data backups is an excellent way to ensure that you are protecting your company from any type of major issue or crash.
Azure Data Share
Azure Data Share allows an organization to securely share data with multiple partners and customers. Organizations that choose to share their data are completely in control of the data that they have decided to share. Azure Data Share gives an organization a simple way to manage and monitor the data that they have decided to share.
In today’s ever- changing Internet world, data is viewed as a crucial strategic asset that many organizations need to share with their customers and partners simply and securely. For many of us, if we currently want to share data with people outside of our organization, we have to use third- party utilities and tools like email or an FTP server.
The problem with using utilities like FTP is that it’s hard to track the data and to know exactly who is accessing it. Also, unless an organization uses their own FTP server, it can be very expensive, especially if your users all use their own favorite FTP sites.
Data Share allows an organization to easily share their data and manage the data shares all in one place. Organizations have the ability to control how their data is handled by setting up specific terms of use for sharing the data. Before anyone can access the shared data, they must accept the organization’s terms before being able to receive the data.
Organizations that decide to use Data Share can specify the interval at which their data will receive updates. Access to new updates can be revoked at any time by the organization that is sharing the data.
The following three examples of using Azure Data Share were taken directly from Microsoft’s website. Microsoft likes to ask exam questions using examples that they provide from their website. So, I wanted to include these examples just in case you see one of them on the exam.
Many different types of industries can use Azure Data Share. For example, a business may want to share their recent point- of- sales data with their suppliers. Using Azure Data Share, a business can set up a data share containing point- of- sales data for all of their suppliers and share sales on an hourly or daily basis.
Azure Data Share can also be used to establish a data marketplace for a specific organization— for example, a government or a research institution that regularly shares anonymized data about population growth with third parties.
Another use case for Azure Data Share is establishing a data consortium. For example, many different research institutions can share data with a single trusted body. Data is analyzed, aggregated, or processed using Azure analytics tools and then shared with interested parties.
Snapshot- Based Sharing
One of the options that you have when sharing data is called snapshot- based sharing. When I explain snapshot- based sharing, I like to talk a little bit about doing backups.
One issue that we can run into when backing up data can happen when you try to back up an open database or file. Most backups cannot back up files or databases if the data is currently open. For example, Exchange runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It makes backing up Exchange a bit more challenging.
So to help solve these types of backup issues, most backups work with the Volume Shadow Service (VSS) to create the backups of open files. The way it works is that the backup software takes a snapshot of the open database or file and it backs up that snapshot.
With snapshot- based sharing, your company’s data moves from the original data provider’s Azure subscription and then is placed into the consumer’s Azure subscription. Once your company decides to use Azure Data Share, you will then provision a data share and invite recipients to access that data share. The recipients receive an invitation to your data share through email. Once the recipient accepts the invitation, they can initiate a full snapshot of the data that is being shared with them. This data is received by the consumer and that data is placed into the consumer’s storage account. The consumers have the ability to receive updates for the data that is shared with them so that they always have the latest version of the data.
Companies can offer consumers incremental updates to the data shared with them through a snapshot schedule. Snapshot schedules can be set up on an hourly or a daily basis.
Once a consumer accepts the data share, they can subscribe to a snapshot schedule that works for both organizations.
In- place Sharing
Azure Data Share in- place sharing allows companies to share their data without the need to copy the data to another location. The data can be accessed from its original location.
After establishing a connection through the use of an invitation, a representational link is created between the company’s source data store and the other company’s target data store. Companies that receive the data can access that data in real time using their own data store. This allows any changes to the source data store to be available to the data consumer immediately. In- place sharing is currently available for Azure Data Explorer.