Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

CloudSphere vs Microsoft Azure comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Turbonomic
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.8
Number of Reviews
205
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (5th), Cloud Management (4th), Virtualization Management Tools (3rd), Cloud Analytics (1st), Cloud Cost Management (1st)
CloudSphere
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (16th), Cloud Management (28th)
Microsoft Azure
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
312
Ranking in other categories
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (1st), PaaS Clouds (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cloud Migration
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

SubashSubbiah - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 10, 2022
It can tell us where performance is lagging on the hardware layer, but the reporting on the application layer is lacking
The automation area could be improved, and the generic reports are poor. We want more details in the analysis report from the application layer. The reports from the infrastructure layer are satisfactory, but Turbonomic won't provide much information if we dig down further than the application layer. I would like them to add some apps for physical device load resourcing and physical-to-virtual calculation. It gives excellent recommendations for the virtual layer but doesn't have the capabilities for physical-to-virtual analysis. Automated deployment is something else they could add. Some built-in automation features are helpful, but we aren't effectively using a few. We want a few more automated features, like autoscaling and automatic performance optimization testing would be useful.
Vibhor Gupta - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 1, 2022
Great discovery, good support, and generally reliable
The area they need to focus most on is the capability of assessment and the landing zones. It’s lacking right now. Cloud transformation has four to five cases, including planning, discovery, assessment, and the MVC, which is called the minimal viable cloud. That comes with the architecture design or landing zone creation, where we will create resources on the cloud which we are provisioning. If we are moving onto the cloud platform, AWS, or zero GCP, we need an account. We need resources to be able to compute the network. Most organizations have their landing zone process and know how to create the resources account, compute the network layer and the security layer. However, this landing zone creation is not there in CloudSphere as a feature. It cannot create any of the cloud providers' accounts or their network security computing as a part of the orchestration layer. That orchestration layer is missing in this product. It will not discover all the applications, although they also have the catalog. They are constantly announcing their catalog to identify applications based on the service which we are discovering. 50% of the time, the application will discover automatically. However, for the other 50%, we need to find the application based on its running process. That's the automation method that we need to follow and that they call blueprint. We need to create those blueprints and then we need to tag those applications. That is the one process that takes time when we do the discovery. One of the cons of this product is that it will not discover all the applications running. It will not discover SAP or some kinds of applications that are running on those inside the application of the servers as well. When we start the scanning of, for example, 500 servers, it will not handle the scan. We need to differentiate the jobs - for example, one job for 100 servers, a second job for another 100 servers, et cetera. We cannot scan the 1,000 servers together. That causes it to take time. There’s a graph missing. It shows where all the servers have interdependencies; however, when we do actual work, it will not work properly in terms of what we present to the customer.
Nicolas Chabrier - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 26, 2024
Promotes clear, logical structures preventing impractical configurations and offers seamless integration
The only thing is regarding the management of multi-cloud environments. That's not really possible. So basically, it's wonderful if you manage Microsoft clearly and if you manage Microsoft Azure, but if you need to consume external services and have a global overview of all your consumption, it's not the case. Google, for instance, has tools that help you manage multiple environments, which makes sense because Google is really the cloud provider. So that's why they need to be compliant with the others. But for sure, Microsoft's approach is different, and it's wonderful when you're one hundred percent on Azure. But if you'd like to have something more of a multi-cloud strategy, that's a bit of a gap where they could improve.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Turbonomic can show us if we're not using some of our storage volumes efficiently in AWS. For example, if we've over-provisioned one of our virtual machines to have dedicated IOPs that it doesn't need, Turbonomic will detect that and tell us."
"My favorite part of the solution is the automation scheduling. Being able to choose when actions happen, and how they happen..."
"On-premises, one advantage I find particularly appealing is the ability to create policies for automatic CPU and memory scaling based on demand."
"The most valuable features are the cluster utilization reports and the resource capacity planning. We can simulate how much capacity we can add to the current resources. The individual DM reports and VM-facing recommendations report are also helpful."
"I only deal with the infrastructure side, so I really couldn't speak to more than load balancing as the most valuable feature for me. It provides specific actions that prevent resource starvation. It always keeps things in perfect balance."
"With Turbonomic, we were able to reduce our ESX cluster size and save money on our maintenance and license renewals. It saved us around $75,000 per year but it's a one-time reduction in VMware licensing. We don't renew the support. The ongoing savings is probably $50,000 to $75,000 a year, but there was a one-time of $200,000 plus."
"The automation and orchestration components are definitely the best part, as you can tell it what it can do and when, and just let it be."
"The feature for optimizing VMs is the most valuable because a number of the agencies have workloads or VMs that are not really being used. Turbonomic enables us to say, 'If you combine these, or if you decide to go with a reserve instance, you will save this much.'"
"We do not need to install any appliances or any agents."
"The product is helpful for the management, optimization, and utilization of resources."
"When I started using CloudSphere, it wasn't mature, and it had multiple issues. For example, my team experienced server issues while using the solution, but recently, I noticed how much CloudSphere has improved. There used to be some latency issues with CloudSphere. It even gave error messages in the past when you select an option such as "the web server is not responding", but it has improved a lot, and now I don't get any errors from CloudSphere. What I like best about CloudSphere is that it has a lot of beneficial features, and it has a single pane for managing multi-cloud environments, which I find very helpful, and it's the main benefit you can get from CloudSphere."
"Provides multiple kinds of services for managing the clouds of multiple customers."
"For the customers I work with, it provides flexibility as far as storage is concerned, so it's security and access."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure is the Area feature. Additionally, the SQL Server DB as a serverless pool is useful, storage-wide external tables are helpful, and PolyBase is very good at reading external data. The capacity of Synapse to analyze in analytics is very good and it supports a range of data."
"The time to market is fast compared back to the traditional on-premise hosting. That is one of the better things I can say because there is no need to worry. The Pack services will enable it to start immediately."
"The most valuable features of Azure for me are its ease of management, recoverable virtual machines with backup support, excellent customer support, and user-friendly interface."
"Microsoft Azure is easy to use."
"The most valuable aspect of Azure is the flexibility you have for all the services and solutions it offers, even if you use IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS, you have the option to only pay for the services you use."
"We have found the user interface to be intuitive. Microsoft is a master at UI."
"It's a flexible solution."
"The product is rather stable. We haven't had any issues with it in that sense."
 

Cons

"Remove the need for special in-house knowledge and development."
"Since the introduction of a HTML 5 based interface, our main - but minor - criticism of a less than intuitive operation managers' GUI would be the area of improvement."
"Additional interfaces would be helpful."
"The old interface was not the clearest UI in some areas, and could be quite intimidating when first using the tool."
"The planning and costing areas could be a little bit more detailed. When you have more than 2,000 machines, the reports don't work properly. They need to fix it so that the reports work when you use that many virtual machines."
"The issue for us with the automation is we are considering starting to do the hot adds, but there are some problems with Windows Server 2019 and hot adds. It is a little buggy. So, if we turn that on with a cluster that has a lot of Windows 2019 Servers, then we would see a blue screen along with a lot of applications as well. Depending on what you are adding, cores or memory, it doesn't necessarily even take advantage of that at that moment. A reboot may be required, and we can't do that until later. So, that decreases the benefit of the real-time. For us, there is a lot of risk with real-time."
"Enhanced executive reporting standard with the tool beyond the reports that can be created today. Something that can easily be used with upper management on a monthly or quarterly basis to show the impact to our environment."
"We're still evaluating the solution, so I don't know enough about what I don't know. They've done a lot over the years. I used Turbonomics six or seven years ago before IBM bought them. They've matured a lot since then."
"The main issue I experienced from CloudSphere was recently resolved, but an area for improvement in the solution is that it lacks the functionality of migrating resources from one public cloud to another. If CloudSphere could provide that functionality, that would be very beneficial to users and companies."
"The next feature I would like to have full disclosure of what's being done with the data."
"The solution must have a single management console for the resources and VMs."
"When we start the scanning of, for example, 500 servers, it will not handle the scan. We need to differentiate the jobs - for example, one job for 100 servers, a second job for another 100 servers, et cetera."
"There are quite a number of services that can't be deployed using CloudSphere."
"Microsoft Azure is not always a user-friendly solution. There are too many people who develop this solution. For the end-users, sometimes it's not really fun to use or simple to use. It could be improved."
"The cost management and billing section features could be improved."
"We have reported some bugs we encountered, and it would be good if those bugs were resolved more quickly."
"I would prefer Microsoft Azure to increase the free trial, then developers can take advantage, and it could increase their sales."
"The dashboard of Microsoft Azure could be better."
"It should improve database performance and make the platform more user-friendly. Additionally, providing more tools for seamless migration from AWS to Azure would be beneficial."
"The pricing in our region can be a bit high."
"The initial setup is quite complex because of the number of options that are available."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Price is a big one. VMTurbo was very competitively priced."
"I know there have been some issues with the billing, when the numbers were first proposed, as to how much we would save. There was a huge miscommunication on our part. Turbonomic was led to believe that we could optimize our AWS footprint, because we didn't know we couldn't. So, we were promised savings of $750,000. Then, when we came to implement Turbonomic, the developers in AWS said, "Absolutely not. You're not putting that in our environment. We can't scale down anything because they coded it." Our AWS environment is a legacy environment. It has all these old applications, where all the developers who have made it are no longer with the company. Those applications generate a ton of money for us. So, if one breaks, we are really in trouble and they didn't want to have to deal with an environment that was changing and couldn't be supported. That number went from $750,000 to about $450,000. However, that wasn't Turbonomic's fault."
"It was an annual buy-in. You basically purchase it based on your host type stuff. The buy-in was about 20K, and the annual maintenance is about $3,000 a year."
"The pricing and licensing are fair. We purchase based on benchmark pricing, which we have been able to get. There are no surprise charges nor hidden fees."
"I don't know the current prices, but I like how the licensing is based on the number of instances instead of sockets, clusters, or cores. We have some VMs that are so heavy I can only fit four on one server. It's not cost-effective if we have to pay more for those. When I move around a VM SQL box with 30 cores and a half-terabyte of RAM, I'm not paying for an entire socket and cores where people assume you have at least 10 or 20 VMs on that socket for that pricing."
"Licensing is per socket, so load up on the cores rather than a lot of lower core CPUs."
"I'm not involved in any of the billing, but my understanding is that is fairly expensive."
"You should understand the cost of your physical servers and how much time and money you are spending year over year on expanding your virtual farm."
"It depends on how that model will be used. It might be anywhere between $4 and $15 per license per month. It’s less expensive than other options."
"The product is very expensive."
"Customers pay for our software and use our solution as a service through monthly payments. They don't pay the licensing fee directly to Microsoft."
"Microsoft Azure overall is an expensive solution."
"The cost of the solution could be reduced. However, I am using the free version."
"I rate the tool's pricing a six out of ten."
"Make use of Azure pricing calculator and you will find out that Azure Is still more reasonable that the competition and do your research, when unclear speak with your MS support."
"With adequate knowledge, I think you can come up with a good model where the pricing won't be a constraint."
"Microsoft always provides the entry-level solution with a cheap license. Once you start to like the product, then you have to pay for the full package, which is more expensive than the entry-level solution. Every feature comes with a license and a cost. Some licenses have multiple features, and some features require a specific license."
"The product is expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Migration solutions are best for your needs.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user8586 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 14, 2013
Amazon vs Rackspace vs Microsoft vs Google: Cloud Hosting Services Comparison
Amazon Web Services, Rackspace OpenStack, Microsoft Windows Azure and Google are the major cloud hosting and storage service providers. Athough Amazon is top of them and is oldest in cloud market, Rackspace, Microsoft and Google are giving tough competition to each other and to Amazon also for…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
15%
University
8%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Educational Organization
42%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Turbonomic?
It offers different scenarios. It provides more capabilities than many other tools available. Typically, its price is...
What needs improvement with Turbonomic?
The implementation could be enhanced.
What is your primary use case for Turbonomic?
We use IBM Turbonomic to automate our cloud operations, including monitoring, consolidating dashboards, and reporting...
What do you like most about CloudSphere?
The product is helpful for the management, optimization, and utilization of resources.
What is your primary use case for CloudSphere?
I use the solution for our hyper-converged infrastructure within the organization for hospital management. We also ac...
What advice do you have for others considering CloudSphere?
We have a FortiGate license. The product is very good. The technical support is also very good. If the solution provi...
Which is preferable - IBM Public Cloud or Microsoft Azure?
IBM Public Cloud is IBM’s Platform-as-a-Service. It aims to provide organizations with a secure cloud environment to ...
Which is better - SAP Cloud Platform or Microsoft Azure?
One of the best features of SAP Cloud Platform is that it is web-based and you can log in from anywhere in the world....
How does Microsoft Azure compare to Google Firebase?
I would recommend Google Firebase instead of Microsoft Azure, simply for the array of features that it has to offer. ...
 

Also Known As

Turbonomic, VMTurbo Operations Manager
HyperCloud
Windows Azure, Azure, MS Azure
 

Learn More

Video not available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

IBM, J.B. Hunt, BBC, The Capita Group, SulAmérica, Rabobank, PROS, ThinkON, O.C. Tanner Co.
Affymetrix, Bell Helicopter, Yavapai-Prescott Indian Tribe, Porterville Unified School District, Interact for Health, VirtueCom, Warren Memorial Hospital, Front Porch, RMH Group, Meyers Nave, Intraworks, Information Technology, ETTE, Clackamas Community College
BMW, Toyota, easyJet, NBC Sports, HarperCollins, Aviva, TalkTalk Business, Avanade, and Telenor.
Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp, Nasuni, Zerto and others in Cloud Migration. Updated: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.