Dive Brief:

• Google announced this week the acquisition of AppBridge, a company that helps businesses move their on-premise data to Google Drive. 

• AppBridge moves files from existing servers and content management systems to systems to a company's cloud platform of choice, according to Google. But while undergoing the migration, the service maintains file permissions so access is not changed and data integrity is ensures.  

• For Google, the tool is all part of an effort to ensure safe storage, sharing and syncing of files. Particularly, as the company notes, in light of "the risk of data breaches, bumpy migrations and compatability with legacy tools."

Dive Insight:

Sure, moving to the cloud sounds great, but it can be very challenging. As Google explains in a blog about the acquisition, "It's not just your files that need to be moved; permissions also need to map correctly; content likely needs to be reorganized, and some data probably needs to be archived."

As part of its strategy to get more enterprises to move to Google Cloud Platform, Google wants to help eliminate all the barriers it can and make it easy for companies to take the leap, and that’s where AppBridge comes in.

The tool will come in handy as Google tries to sign on more big-name customers, but it's not quite as flashy as Amazon Web Services' Snowmobile. Nothing says "huge cloud migration" quite like a secure long-haul truck that can hold up to 100 petabytes of data.