AzCopy is XCopy for the Cloud

Copying data from local sources to Microsoft Azure can't be this easy, can it?

Those working in IT forever are familiar with the MS-DOS holdover command-line utility, XCopy. Of course, Microsoft also provided the simple Copy utility, but, XCopy is like Copy, but on steroids. If you needed to perform data copying with a multitude of granular options, you used XCopy. In essence, Copy was for users and XCopy was for admins.

With the emergence of Azure Cloud storage and Storage Blobs, wouldn't it be nice to be able to utilize the same, familiar XCopy functions for moving data from on-premises to the Cloud? Well, you can using AzCopy.

AzCopy is part of the Azure Storage Tools supplied by Microsoft. The name make it sound like there's a LOT of tools supplied in the download, but really AzCopy is the only utility included. It's possible Microsoft is planning to include others later.

You can get it here: Azure Storage Tools

Once you download the file, you'll need to install it. It's supplied as a Windows Installer (.msi) installation. AzCopy is installed to: C:Program FilesMicrosoft SDKsWindows Azure

Once installed, you can locate it with the name Windows Azure Storage command line in the list of installed apps.

Running the Windows Azure Storage command line opens a Windows Azure Storage tools CMD window.

From here, you can sift through the available options for AzCopy or just start developing your Xcopy-style data copying commands. The syntax is simple:

AzCopy <Source> <Destination> [filepattern [filepattern…]] [Options]

Here's a list of all the options available: