Microsoft Adds Cloud Migration Tools

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Microsoft made another move last week to enable customers to shift more data to the cloud with its acquisition of Mover, a cloud file migration specialist.

Edmonton-based Mover’s platform is designed to streamline the process of transferring data to the cloud and sharing files. Data transfers to a specific cloud-storage provider could then be accomplished in a few clicks. The tool is aimed at medium to large enterprise cloud migrations and data backups as Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and other public cloud vendors seek to attract customers looking to shift workloads and data to the cloud.

Microsoft said the cloud migration tool can be used by its customers to migrate files to its Microsoft 365 suite.

Microsoft currently supports cloud file migrations via its FastTrack and SharePoint Migration tools to enable file sharing on Microsoft 365. “Mover will enhance these offerings with proven tools, plus more self-service options over time,” the company said in a blog post announcing the acquisition.

Mover currently supports data migrations from more than a dozen cloud service providers into SharePoint and Microsoft’s OneDrive file hosting service. Supported services include Box, Dropbox, Egnyte and Google Drive.

Microsoft said Mover’s platform would expand its file migration tools as its seeks to attract more enterprise and government users to its Azure cloud. The acquisition adds “more connectors to more source systems,” said Jeff Teper, a Microsoft corporate vice president.

Terms of the Mover acquisition were not disclosed. The deal follows Microsoft’s acquisition in September of the cloud migration startup Movere. The startup’s platform would help migrate applications and infrastructure to Microsoft Azure, the company said.

“Movere’s innovative discovery and assessment capabilities will complement Azure Migrate and our integrated partner solutions, making migration an easier process for our customers,” Microsoft said in disclosing the deal for Movere.

Movere’s “discovery” tools are used to plan and monitor cloud migrations. The approach uses bots to scan up to 1,000 servers per hour to capture data on applications and stored files. The tool also analyzes scanned data to alert IT administrators to priority tasks.

These and other moves by Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (NASDAQ: AMZN) and other public cloud vendors aim to attract more large corporate users looking to shift applications and data storage to the cloud so they can apply emerging AI and analytics tools to widely available data.

The cloud migration also has also spawned a list of cloud migration services designed to move data into cloud data warehouses from the Big Three – Amazon‘s Redshift and Athena, Google Big Query, and Microsoft Azure Cloud SQL Server.

Earlier this year, Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) acquired data migration specialist Alooma. Google said Alooma’s data pipeline tools would help enterprise customers ease the migration of core applications and data to the cloud. Those tools enable customers to move data from multiple sources to a single data warehouse.

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