UTech provides several tools to migrate data from one cloud provider to another. The following table and information provides guidance on these tools including support options.
| Tool Name | Location | Difficulty | Support Option |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Takeout | takeout.google.com | Low | help@case.edu |
| Google Photos | photos.google.com | Low | help@case.edu |
| Microsoft Migration Manager | Contact UTech | Low | help@case.edu |
| WebDrive | Software Center | Medium | help@case.edu |
| RClone | rclone.org | High | hpc-support@case.edu |
| Globus | globus.org | High | hpc-support@case.edu |
Google Takeout gives students, faculty, and staff the ability to copy content from Google to another system. You can directly download content, or copy it via the Google Takeout transfer service.
How to migrate data: Google provides a web tool that allows you to select what data you wish to copy and or download from. Once you have selected the particular services you want to copy, you can then select the copy destination or be provided with a download link.
Important Considerations: This is a time intensive process depending on the amount of data you wish to transfer. The ability to select specific folders or anything granular is prohibited. This method will not migrate any sharing information for your files or folders. Google Takeout does not work with Google Shared Drives.
How to get started: Launch the Google Takeout application.
If you are using Google Photos with your CWRU Google account, follow these steps to move your albums to a personal Gmail account
- Follow Google's instructions to set up partner sharing, enabling partner sharing from your CWRU account and selecting your personal Google account as your CWRU account's partner.
- Approve the partner request from your personal Google account.
- From your personal Google account, follow Google's instructions in the "Save your partner's photos" expandable section to add the photos in your CWRU account to your personal account.
- When the process has fully completed (this may take some time), delete the photos in your CWRU account.
On request, UTech can migrate your data from Google My Drive to Microsoft OneDrive or SharePoint or from Google Shared Drives to SharePoint sites. For data from a user’s My Drive, Migration Manager will retain sharing information as much as possible. (For example, all of the relevant users must have Microsoft accounts for the sharing to map successfully.)
Limitations of Migration Manager:
- Drawings, Forms, Sites, and Maps from Google Drive and not migrated
- Files over 15 GB are not migrated
- Files marked as restricted by the user cannot be copied
- Drive shortcuts are not migrated
- Google Docs are converted to Word documents, Google Sheets to Excel documents, and Google Slides to PowerPoint documents.
- For Shared Drive migrations, sharing permissions are not retained and must be set up again.
How to get started: If you would like UTech to move your files from Google My Drive to OneDrive or SharePoint or from Shared Drives to SharePoint sites, send your request to help@case.edu. Be sure to include the following:
- Whether you are moving files from My Drive or Shared Drives or both
- List the folders or drives you would like to move. For My Drive, consider moving the content into as few folders as possible to make the migration easier.
- Indicate whether you want your files moved to OneDrive (individual storage) or SharePoint (team storage)
WebDrive is a cloud mounting program that is available on both Windows and Mac. Compatible many different transfer protocols and cloud storage including: Box, Amazon S3, Google Drive, Microsoft Sharepoint, and Microsoft OneDrive. WebDrive creates a mount on the system allowing cloud services to behave as drives, enabling you to manage data like you would on your actual device.
How to migrate data: Webdrive allows you to mount cloud storage as drive letters or shares. Once you have created the appropriate mounts (e.g. Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive) you can drag and drop folders as you would interact with your desktop.
Important Considerations: WebDrive requires a dedicated system to transfer large amounts of data. You need to ensure that the dedicated system never goes to sleep or is used for travel purposes to help ensure reliable data transfer. An always available high-speed Internet connection is required in order to transfer data in a timely fashion.
How to get started: WebDrive can be downloaded from the CWRU Software Center. The documentation can be found at this link.
Rclone is a command-line program to manage files on cloud storage. It is a feature-rich alternative to cloud vendors' web storage interfaces RClone has powerful cloud equivalents to the unix commands rsync, cp, mv, mount, ls, ncdu, tree, rm, and cat. Rclone's familiar syntax includes shell pipeline support, and --dry-run protection.
How to migrate data: RClone provides documentation to help create configurations for each cloud provider you wish to use. You may use the "rclone copy" command to migrate the data once configured.
Important Considerations: If you are copying data from a source cloud system that has duplicate file names you may have naming conflicts that will need to be addressed. Copying from Google Drive to Microsoft OneDrive will convert files from one document format to another. You will need to check to make sure that the conversion was successful.
How to get started: RClone is a command line program to manage files on cloud storage. RClone must be configured appropriately in order to transfer data between the storage systems. UTech Research Computing provides documentation and instruction on how to get started with using RClone and the HPC.
Globus is a service for secure, reliable research data management. The platform allows you to share and transfer data in a seamless manner. Globus uses the concept of endpoints and collections to share and transfer data. The service is used to access and transfer data to the UTech Research Archive Storage and other HPC storage services.
How to migrate data: You will need to use a separate tool (Google Drive, RClone, WebDrive) to download data from a cloud service to a local storage device or service. Once it is downloaded you may use the Globus Connect Personal Client to move the data to a Globus Collection.
Important Considerations: You cannot perform a direct copy from a cloud storage service to another using Globus. A two step process is required to copy data to a local system using a separate tool and then to a Globus collection. Globus should only be used to copy data to a UTech provided services such as the UTech Research Archive Storage and or other HPC related storage services.
How to get started: UTech Research Computing has documentation on Globus use with the HPC. Globus has extensive documentation on how to use Globus for file transfer and other options. If you are copying data from cloud storage to your system you will need to install the connect personal client to move data to a collection and or the UTech Research Archive.