How to copy blobs or VHDs between different Windows Azure subscription

(An updated version of this post is available in both English and français)

First of all, why would you want to copy Virtual Hard Drive (VHD) or a blob from a Windows Azure subscription to another? It could be for: doing backups, because your Windows Azure trial is ending, to get a copy of a client’s VM to investigate a problem. So, when one of my client asked me if it was possible to do it, my answer was: “Yes it is, using command line tools”. But since he was looking for a simple solution, I wrote him a little script that I will share here so everyone can enjoy it.
 

Get Started

To do the copy, you only need to do one PowerShell command. But, in order to execute this command, you need to have Windows Azure command-line tool already installed. At the end of this post, the script to install the Windows Azure command-line tool will be provided.
 

The command

Having installed the required tool, you can execute this one line of code from the Windows Azure command-line:

azure vm disk upload <source-path> <target-blob-url> <target-storage-account-key>

Get the source

In this command, you must replace <source-path> by the url of the VHD or blob that you want to copy from.
You can get this url through the Windows Azure Portal, using your account where you want to copy from.

1. On the left side of the screen click on the Storage icon.
2. Then click on the storage name.
3. From the top of the screen click on Containers
4. And when the container list appears click on the name of the container to get the details view.

Get the destination

Now that the "from" as been identified, we need to specify the “to”. We must replace the <target-blob-url> by the url of the Windows Azure Storage container in the destination Azure subscription. If the Blob container already exists, just connect to this account and follow the previous steps. Otherwise, you need to create a new one by using the “+” imbutton on the bottom left of the screen.

The easiest way is to set the container with a public access at the time of the transfer. You can set this option when creating or editing the container using the button at the bottom of the screen.

Then specify the access propriety to Public Container.

Get the key

Last part but not the less important we must specify the storage account key and replace the <target-storage-account-key> with it. You can find it by accessing the Manage Keys button from the dashboard of the Storage. You can use either the primary or the secondary access key.

 

Install the Windows Azure command-line tool

Here is a little script that you should put in a “.cmd” or “.bat” file. It will install the Windows Azure command-line tool with Node.js and Chocolatey. After running the script, a console window that looks like this should be open.

@powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy unrestricted -Command "iex ((new-object net.webclient).DownloadString('http://bit.ly/psChocInstall'))" && SET PATH=%PATH%;%systemdrive%\chocolatey\bin
@powershell "cinst nodejs.install" && SET PATH=%PATH%;%ProgramFiles(x86)%\nodejs
@powershell -ExecutionPolicy unrestricted "npm install azure -g" && SET PATH=%PATH%;%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\npm\
@powershell azure
pause

References

Windows Azure command-line tool

Node Packaged Modules or Node.js

Chocolatey