Moving - not copying - data in Azure Data Factory

Question

I'd like to set up an Azure Data Factory pipeline which performs a move (i.e. copy, verify, delete) operation rather than just a copy operation between Blob Storage and a Data Lake Store. I cannot seem to find any detail on how to do this.

Answer 1

Azure Data Factory does not have a built-in activity or option to Move files as opposed to Copy them. You can however do this with a Custom Activity.

This example on github shows how to do this with Azure Blob:

...
blob.DeleteIfExists();
...

https://github.com/Azure/Azure-DataFactory/tree/master/Samples/DeleteBlobFileFolderCustomActivity

If you feel this is an important feature, please add a feedback request:

https://feedback.azure.com/forums/270578-data-factory

A Delete activity has been added recently:

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/clean-up-files-by-built-in-delete-activity-in-azure-data-factory/