Alibaba Cloud Reviews

We provide the capability to do some stuff on Alibaba. We provide a portal to some other users so that they can use our portal and provision services on Alibaba. We deploy on Alibaba Cloud. 

AWS has a Terraform template. Similarly, Alibaba has a ROS template. By using the ROS template, you can provision or avail services from Alibaba. We basically use the main infrastructure component, for example, ECS, which is a VM. We also have load balancers and some databases, such as ApsaraDB, MySQL, MS SQL, and PostgreSQL.

Feature-wise, it provides many features. ECS, VM, SP, bucket object storage, and databases are the most valuable.

From the improvement point of view, there are lots of issues that we are facing. In all the areas, it seems like it is not mature. For example, a customer wants to provision some VM that has many configurations. If I want to show the price to the customer, it is very challenging. The SDK that Alibaba has provided is very limited. We can have the pricing for VM, but we cannot have pricing for RDS databases or some other services. This is a big concern area for us. 

They should put more effort into the SDKs or APIs that they provide, for example, pricing APIs or pricing SDK. They do not provide support for most of the services they provide. For example, if I want to get the price of MongoDB, that SDK is not available from Alibaba. Similarly, robust API support is required for S3, which is OSS or Object Storage, so that we can read the data in a faster manner, for example, in chunks.

We have raised many issues with the Alibaba support team, and they have been fixing the issues after we report them.

I have been using this solution for around six months.

From the stability point of view, it is not mature.

It is scalable. It is still in development, and only our development team, with six or seven engineers, is using it at present.

We have also been using other clouds, such as AWS and Azure, but my team is actually focusing on Alibaba.

It is easy to deploy. It takes one or two days.

I deployed it myself.

I don't know the exact cost. It is cheaper than AWS.

Feature-wise, it has multiple features, but stability-wise, it is not very stable at present. If you are in the development phase and have some time, you can use Alibaba. If you face any issues, you can report to Alibaba. They will take data and work on it. It is a little cheaper than other providers.

I would rate Alibaba Cloud a seven out of ten. I am a little disappointed with this solution.

We used Alibaba Cloud to install the business one server. According to the contingency plan, we should have a mirror site. We had an on-premise server, and to ensure redundancy, we installed that mirror server as a backup server on Alibaba Cloud with the same instances, configuration, and users. We use TSPlus to connect the users.

Then, we had two servers, one for business, i.e., SAP HANA, and another for workstation installation using RDP, which is Microsoft-based. On the other hand, the HANA server was a Linux server, either SUSE Linux or another Linux variant. Ultimately, we had two servers in Alibaba Cloud to support our operations.

Alibaba Cloud is cheaper. So, when comparing with other service providers, consider the costings and the minimum monthly subscription, among other factors.

Alibaba Cloud has some problems related to latency and connection issues. If you go for a cloud solution provider, you will need to access the Internet, which may result in latency and bandwidth issues, leading to slowness in operations. You have minimum latency if you have a server cross-proximity with you at Office. If you have experience with Forex trading or crypto trading, they use VPN. Latency plays the biggest part. The same applies to ERP systems; if the server is close to your region, you will have minimal latency. If the server is located in China, Africa, or elsewhere, you feel high latency resulting in low performance.

My country is close to Singapore. We currently have a server from China, far away compared to Singapore. If we had a server closer to Singapore, we would experience lower latency and better overall performance.

We used Alibaba Cloud in 2021 for approximately one year. We purchased a one-year subscription, not a monthly-based one. We planned to use it after comparing it with our other service providers, like Microsoft Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud. Alibaba turned out to be the cheapest one.

It is a stable solution.

All the SAP users were connected to the Alibaba cloud server to test the service. We were migrating the server from another location, which required us to shut down the on-premise server, and we needed to take Alibaba Cloud support for that connection to the cloud. During that period, all the users connected to the cloud setting, and there were around 80 users.

I have used AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud before.

Alibaba Cloud is cheaper than AWS, Azure and Google Cloud.

There might be some concerns because of China. I can strongly recommend considering Alibaba; if you have a requirement for a backup server or data redundancy, then no need to invest much. Alibaba Cloud is a cost-effective solution without investing too much. So, when data redundancy is your primary concern, Alibaba is the best choice.

If you have a requirement to implement an ERP system or something similar, then better to go with other services. I am not specifically recommending Alibaba for such cases. But, if the need is for backup, redundancy, or failover solutions, Alibaba is worth it.

I rate Microsoft Azure a ten out of ten, even though it is popular now. I rate Google Cloud and AWS as eight and seven, respectively, out of ten, whereas I rate Alibaba Cloud a five out of ten.

Overall, I rate the solution five out of ten.

We use the solution to run VMs.

Users use websites as a tutorial. However, the Alibaba Cloud website has the content, and the scripts are copied from Amazon Web Services. We had received customer feedback where the customer asked us to get formulate original content instead of copying from Amazon Web Services. It’s very odd and awkward.

I want the product to integrate a feature from AWS. When we go to AWS and navigate to the sidebar and click on the products, then their definition appears. When we click on ‘learn more’, we get a PDF.

I have been using the solution for almost 11 months.

I would rate the tool’s scalability a ten out of ten.

The solution’s deployment is not that much difficult. I would rate it eight out of ten. The tool’s deployment took around two to three months to complete. We needed around 10-15 people for deployment.

I would rate the overall tool an eight out of ten. My team is satisfied with the solution. New customers get satisfied with the product after three to four weeks.

Alibaba Cloud needs to increase availability in Thailand. 

I have been working with the product for two years. 

I rate the tool's stability an eight out of ten. 

I rate Alibaba Cloud's scalability an eight out of ten. 

I rate Alibaba Cloud's deployment an eight out of ten. 

I rate the tool an eight out of ten. 

The solution can be deployed on a public cloud or a private cloud.

There are about 100 people using this solution in my organization.

It's easy to use, cheaper than other solutions, and more secure.

The flexibility of the solution could be improved.

I have worked with Alibaba Cloud for one month.

It's stable.

I would rate technical support as four out of five. It could be better.

I have also used Google Cloud. I prefer Alibaba Cloud because it's more secure.

The cost is better than similar solutions.

I would rate this solution as nine out of ten.

The solution should have more integration. 

We have been using Alibaba Cloud for under two years. 

The solution is stable. 

The solution is scalable. 

Technical support numbers around 30 people. Contacting technical support is not one of my responsibilities, so I cannot comment on it. 

The installation is easy.

As I was not involved in the installation, I do not recall how long it took. One would have to ask the people who were involved in this. Yet, it should take no more than 30 minutes. 

At most, one or two managers are responsible for the deployment and maintenance. 

When comparing solutions such as GCP, which is the same as Alibaba Cloud, and others such as Amazon AWS and Azure, Alibaba Cloud is the preferred solution in China. 

The solution is cloud-based. 

I would not recommend the solution to others. 

I give Alibaba Cloud a low rating of four to five out of ten. 

We used it to collect data from medical devices and then for analytics in the cloud using AI bots and so on.

Flexibility and costs were probably the most important thing for us. The cost was one of the big factors for choosing Alibaba Cloud relative to other cloud solutions, especially in Asia. There were a lot of people, especially within China, who wanted it to stay within China. They did not want to get out of China. So having access to companies like Tencent or Alibaba was almost mandatory. It wasn't even a question.

Alibaba also provides a lot of flexibility in terms of tools that are similar to AWS. Alibaba also offers a lot of flexibility compared to Google Cloud, where you can only use Google's Tools. Alibaba has more user-friendly tools and solutions, more compute solutions than anyone else. Compute instances or types of compute instances were a really useful tool for us.

The majority of the tools and processes, in general, have a lot of room for improvement. I think, in general, things are there, but they're not good enough. Customer support could also be better. 

I was dealing with Alibaba Cloud for about three and a half years.

Relative to Amazon, Alibaba isn't as stable, not as mature, and you have to find a lot of solutions on your own sometimes to make things work. They're not quite there yet, but they're getting better over time. 

Alibaba Cloud is scalable. The scalability is definitely there.

Customer support has a lot of room for improvement. There's just general documentation, general customer support, and general maturity of the processes are all lacking when compared to Amazon or Google. Sometimes if you need to call technical support, it's also hard to get the right people, or the people you have on the line don't have the right knowledge. It's just not as smooth and not as easy as it should be.

The initial setup is very straightforward. It's like learning to ski. The initial bit is easy, but then it gets relatively difficult because of lack of support, lack of documentation, or generally the language. Sometimes the documentation is only in Chinese, and you're like, "okay, what do I do now?"

If you need to pick up the phone and talk to someone, it's not always the easiest thing to do with Alibaba. Unless you have local staff with Chinese-speaking people, it becomes a bigger barrier. 

The number of people you need to maintain the system is more or less constant depending on what you're supporting and how much work needs to be done. We would use an extra 10% of people in the team to support Alibaba solutions because of the issues we were having with them. But then again, the system itself is between 20-30% cheaper than Amazon. So, it made up for the extra workforce we needed to use the solution.

I'm not sure about the exact pricing, but let's just say if it cost a dollar for Amazon AWS, it was closer to 70 to 80 cents for Alibaba Cloud.

Relative to Albibaba'ss competitors, they're not as good. I would advise anyone interested to look at the stability of the solution and the documentation and make sure you are familiar with it. Having somebody who has worked on Alibaba Cloud onboard is always useful just to have some knowledge because certain things are not quite obvious. If you haven't worked on them before, then a very simple thing can cost you a lot of time and money.

If you have someone who's worked at those solutions before, you'll be able to deal with it quickly. If you have an insight, a customer service person you're familiar with, then you have a good person to support you. That would be really good because that person can make your company's life a lot easier in terms of solving problems when you run into something.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Alibaba Cloud a six.

We use the product for storage and as a VPN. 

The solution needs to improve its graphical user interface. 

I have been working with the product for one year. 

I would rate the solution's stability a seven out of ten. 

The tool's initial setup is simple. 

The solution's pricing is the same as AWS'. 

I would rate the product a seven out of ten. This solution is the best for the Chinese region.