Microsoft Azure Block Storage Reviews

I use the solution in my company to store different images and videos.

The solution's most valuable feature revolves around the security-wise functionalities of the tool our company gets from using SAS keys. The product provides very secure access since users with SAS keys can access the tool. Different access can be provided with different SAS keys, making it one of the best features of the product.

The scalability of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required.

Sometimes, the support team is not aware of the issues that the tool's customers face. I feel that from any improvement perspective, the support team should be aware of the product-related issues that could arise from the customers' end.

I have been using Microsoft Azure Block Storage for 3-4 years. I am an end user of the solution.

It is a good and stable solution overall. Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a six out of ten.

I have experience with the solution's technical support and am satisfied with its services. I rate the technical support as seven out of ten.

I rate the tool's initial setup a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one means it is difficult and ten means it is easy.

The initial setup of the tool was easy.

The solution is deployed on the cloud services offered under Microsoft Azure.

During the installation process, my company first indulges in the preparation phase, then the testing process, and finally gets involved in the production and deployment parts.

Two people are required to take care of the tool's deployment process.

The solution can be deployed in two to three days after its testing phase.

I have experienced an ROI from the use of the solution in my company. I rate the ROI around six on a scale of one to ten, where one is zero percent and ten is a hundred percent.

I rate the product price as seven on a scale of one to ten, where one means low price and ten means high price. The tool is expensive. There are no additional costs attached to the product, so it is available at a fixed price.

I use Microsoft Azure Block Storage for our company's VM data needs since it is successful in the areas of APIs.

The most beneficial feature of the tool for data durability is that the data on it is redundant and can be kept at two different locations.

Microsoft Azure Block Storage's scalability features have not impacted our company's operations. My company has enough storage available in the tool and until now, we didn't require to scale up the storage.

Microsoft Azure Block Storage's availability features have supported our company's business continuity plans without any issues.

With Microsoft Azure Block Storage's availability features, data is always available to users.

A couple of people are required to take care of the tool's maintenance phase. The major duties of those involved in the maintenance of the tool include maintaining the product and dealing with the issues related to the product raised by the clients.

In terms of Microsoft Azure Block Storage's performance impact on a project, I saw that the accessibility to local storage it offers is not that fast as opposed to something that is on the cloud. I think it would be a better option to have the tool on the cloud. After moving to the cloud, the performance of the tool increased.

I suggest that the tool be used in two different availability zones and I feel that the redundancy is very essential because the data part is very important. The tool offers good options when it comes to redundancy, which I think needs to be utilized properly.

I recommend the product to those who plan to use it.

I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

I present block storage to virtual servers and putting some applications on it.

The most valuable part of Microsoft Azure is its scalability and availability, which make it easy to work with. Redundancy is available by default, meaning it is a seamless experience without additional setup. These features make Microsoft Azure versatile and reliable for block storage.

At the moment, I do not have anything specific in mind for improvements. The most important thing for me is accessibility and easy provisioning to multiple servers with different vendors.

I have been working with Azure Block Storage for four months.

The stability of block storage could be rated as nine out of ten.

Scalability should be rated as seven or eight out of ten. It is a significant advantage of the product.

The technical support could be rated as seven or eight out of ten. The speed of resolving issues could be improved, as it sometimes takes time.

Positive

I was previously working with VMware products and am now working in the public cloud with Microsoft Azure.

The initial setup depends on the environment itself, yet, overall it is easy.

Pricing could be rated as eight out of ten. It is reasonable, however, it can be cheaper.

I do not have experience with AWS or Google.

Overall, I would rate block storage as a six out of ten. I can recommend block storage to other users as it is suitable for any company size, from small to enterprise level, due to its scalability.

I use Microsoft Azure Block Storage, Microsoft Azure Cloud, and Microsoft Azure Communication Services in my company to send emails. My company uses Azure Database for PostgreSQL. I use the three main cloud products in my company right now.

Microsoft Azure Block Storage is useful for storing files. If your company has an application that requires you to store files, then Microsoft Azure Block Storage is a very easy tool that allows users to store and handle files while allowing for file versioning.

Microsoft Azure Block Storage is an easy-to-use tool as it has a lot of APIs and libraries, making it a very easy product to get started with for a user. I think it has good APIs and libraries.

The solution's downside is related to its documentation, which I believe can be difficult to navigate because it is hidden between or within other pages of the product's manual. There are not a lot of core resources around to dig deep into when it comes to Microsoft Azure Block Storage. A user must do a lot of research around the product, which is a slow process.

In Microsoft Azure Block Storage, navigation through its documentation can be made easier. The documentation should also contain more examples to help users.

With Microsoft Azure Block Storage, sometimes in our company, we have noticed some errors in our error logging and management platform without providing much context as to why the error occurred. I think maybe more descriptive error messages will be helpful.

I have been using Microsoft Azure Block Storage for eight months.

It is a pretty stable solution.

Microsoft Azure Block Storage is a very scalable tool. My company has not had scalability issues with the product. The solution can handle many file uploads quickly and straightforwardly. With Microsoft Azure Block Storage, you can access your files on Microsoft Edge, so it's a good tool that offers scalability.

Though my organization hasn't launched Microsoft Azure Block Storage for use in our company, we plan to have around 1,000 users use it daily.

I have experience with AWS Cloud9. Based on the requirements for the current project in our company, we chose Microsoft Azure Block Storage.

The product's initial setup phase was straightforward, and if you need extra security, you have to do more probing. I believe the setup phase to start the product is pretty straightforward.

The product's setup phase with the whole of Azure and the documentation part took a few hours.

Microsoft Azure Block Storage's deployment process is not directly tied to Microsoft Cloud Storage, as it allows for the issue of APIs. Unless you are talking about deploying our company's applications, which would lead to a different conversation at this point, I can say that Microsoft Azure Block Storage's deployment process is a simple plug-and-play, after which you have access to the product.

Microsoft Azure Block Storage is a service provided by Microsoft, so it is not something that you deploy. If you already have the whole Azure infrastructure in place, then all you have to do is deal with the provisioning of an account and take care of the usage part of the solution to let Azure know if you want the services to be billed or not before you get it up and running. Azure manages the infrastructure where its products are used, so it's not deployed on an on-premises model or anything like that, as it is considered to be a managed service.

For the deployment and maintenance phases of Microsoft Azure Block Storage, you need a developer to write the codes to do whatever function you want. Then, you would need a DevOps person to ensure that the infrastructure provisioning is correct.

My company did not seek any help from the consultation to take care of the implementation process of the product since we only had to follow the instructions provided in the documentation to deal with the setup phase.

My company did not have to pay any licensing charges while using Microsoft Azure Block Storage.

Microsoft Azure Block Storage is a pretty cheap and affordable product, so we have not seen any budget issues related to the solution in our company. In our company, we knew our requirements in terms of the amount of files we wanted to be handled by the product.

I recommend the product to those who plan to use it.

The setup can be a bit tedious, especially if you try to do it by navigating through its documentation.

I rate the overall product an eight out of ten.

We use the tool to connect with Power BI to make visualizations. We also use it to store data.

The product’s security features are valuable.

The user interface is very difficult. It is not user-friendly. We need time to understand the product and create a container. It would be nice if the user interface were made simpler. The documentation is difficult to understand. There are no videos on the website. It is difficult for a new user to understand the solution.

I have been using the solution for one year and three months.

The tool is stable. I rate the stability a ten out of ten.

I rate the tool’s scalability a ten out of ten. We might have 500 to 1000 users in our organization.

I connect with our internal team for access issues.

Positive

Amazon’s UI is very simple. We can directly create a function in Amazon S3.

The initial setup is difficult. It is very difficult to identify the things we need. I rate the ease of setup an eight out of ten. Deploying the solution takes less than a minute, but the process is difficult.

The product is costlier than Amazon S3.

Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

I have used Azure Block for two or three projects. It's used to store images or videos for multi-tenant applications or a particular tenant. We recently did one project for multi-tenant products. 

Any customer registered to the website can sell their product on a small scale without a website or server. It was like a platform as a service multi-tenant product. With the site ready, they can post any images or videos to Azure Storage Block. They're creating a subscription site for each unit.

For example, if you register on that website, you can allocate the memory size based on license cost: premium, gold, etc. We allocated some memory, and you can navigate to the site whenever you're ready. We provide a unique ID and an encryption key. 

You can create several users for your subscription. For example, if you're an owner of this subscription, you can assign users a status as contributors, readers, or administrators. You can add images or videos through a Block via an administrative portal with a mobile or Angular application. That image is rendered to your website or any products they need. We can use that signature access key for authentication. We enable our product based on the site subscription ID.

There are different tiers, and you can create a container to solve this. First, we create a block and containers, then allocate images to that container. Once we make the container blocks, we get a primary and secondary access key. After you get the details, you can do the same for Azure. If you want to use your middleware, you need to add a library, so you can contribute a URL shared access key. You need to access it via UCA. You can upload via UCA binary format data or a content file. That is where we can upload any data with Block Storage.

When you access a unit to pass that Block ID, you can download it using ByteArray. You can send that ByteArray streaming data to your Angular application on mobile. They can convert any videos, images, or documents to display them on your mobile application. However, a security breach could allow a hacker to download anything for a particular user, so we recommended middleware for interacting with Azure Block Storage. 

There are different approaches. We can use it for proper container image names or containerization with a shared activity URL. We need to consider the client's mission. If a client uses Azure Key Vault, any authorized person with the shared key can access confidential data on a centralized system. Our service can access that key to connect users to Azure Block, whether on your application, Angular, or any other web application. It will not provide users credentials or a URL directly. 

Azure Block Storage lets you customize code you can use on that endpoint. If you want to write a logic for something, Azure Function can be used to deploy that application. 

We need to write code and plan for deployment. You can write a function in C# and use that server or any VM or Kubernetes container. If you want to release any APA or application with AKS, there are Kubernetes cluster master nodes. We recommend doing it manually if it's a simple POS or something. I strongly recommend using DevOps Tools Continuous Integration if you're an enterprise.

One thing that needs improvement is authentication. They need to improve the integrated Azure Active Directory for the enterprise level. For single sign-on, we can try any authentication or portal for Block Azure Function AKS. For example, if you're an administrator or user contributor, you will generate a token, then your internal middleware connects to any Azure Cloud service. You need to generate different credentials for each service. We cannot use the same token.

Some services like Azure Key Vault support a single token for access that you should be able to use for the Kubernetes site, but some services are not supported. Authentication should be centralized. My understanding is that the data on this file path is streaming. Whenever you get this data, it is converted to streaming ByteArray and Base64. The file path is another security vulnerability.

Azure Block Storage is mainly used for streaming data nowadays. Companies are moving to digital platforms. They stream data from IoT, mobile, offline sources, and other systems. There are different styles and formats, including unstructured, semi-structured, relational, and platform data, so we cannot use a single database for all requirements.

We cannot say to a client, "Sorry, I need only to support this product in JSON." If we say that, competitors will dominate us. We must be prepared to accept any kind of free input or solution from clients. Then the Block supports any semi-structured data or structured data. If you go with File Storage, queuing or messaging will support storage, and the Block will support videos or images.

I have been using Azure Block Storage for more than three years.

Azure Block Storage is scalable. It's widely used for Kubernetes for memory profiles. We recommend auto-scaling for scalable or regional models. All the Azure Blocks should be identical, with the same configuration. Each starts with a memory size too high for one Block container or another. 

That is challenging to accomplish because everything should be identical. The blocks should be identical if you want three, five, or six nodes. 

We have an internal support team that provides support to our clients. When we are designing a solution and run into something they can't handle, we open a ticket with the Microsoft team. We work closely with them. They'll give me some confirmation of whether it's feasible. 

If yes, we can update management about whether this is possible. They are charging per solution on the global partner level. Once approved, we work with Microsoft to come up with a solution, PoC, or sample code. 

Creating blocks or containers is easy. We can deploy according to a rule-based access controller policy. For example, when you are adding some documents for your owner or administrator, but somebody accesses your log or something, it prevents them from deleting or it or modifying that content because it might be sensitive. 

Creating the block itself is straightforward. Then we create a shared access policy to allow us to manage access directly. If I'm doing development, I can limit it so that we can make it read-only. That is possible, but we need to plan accordingly. 

Azure Block Storage pricing charges differently for hot and cold storage based on our business scenario. For example, data that isn't frequently accessed costs less. Data that is accessed often costs more. Storage on the cloud is cheaper.

AWS has a similar solution for S3 Bucket that will support any document images, videos, etc. They have a platform supporting authentication but a different approach. The AWS and Azure solutions are about 80 percent the same. The difference is the migration process. We can migrate our data or documents with the trickle-based or Big Ben model and access any application via their APA, their authentication model.

We cannot jump in because even Kubernetes is also on the cloud. We can plan the image, optic tree, and master node and then reuse the maximal level, but we cannot recreate that.

I rate Azure Block Storage eight out of 10.

Most of the time, we store logs in the Block Storage. Mostly we use it to store the plant logs. 

The storage is very good.

It offers good pricing on that we pay for what we use and nothing more. 

The setup is straightforward. 

It's scalable. 

The solution should provide more training so that we can learn about and take advantage of more features. As it is, right now, we have to pay for training.

It could be easier to use. 

The product is not as stable as we would like it to be. 

I've been using the solution for the last six months. 

Sometimes services from Azure go down. Azure needs to improve their services to ensure there is no downtime. It's not as stable as we would like it to be 

We have a dedicated team of ten to 15 people managing the solution. 

We do have plans to increase usage at this point. 

It is a scalable product.

We have a partner who has helped us with technical problems. We have very limited hours with Microsoft. We can use only use them in the terms of absolutely critical events. Mostly, we are connecting with partners who can help us if we are stuck.

I'm also familiar with AWS S3. 

We have not really used any other solutions in the past. 

The implementation process is very simple and straightforward. I do not find it to be complex. There might be a few things here or there during setup that may be a little complex. However, it is not hard to get up and running. 

Initially, it took us three or four days to begin deployment as we had to watch some videos and go through the documentation. 

To deploy the solution, we had to first log in the Azure, then we had to create an Azure account. Once we created the account, we had to start creating storage and setting up the configuration of the storage logs. It takes time during the initial phase.

While we do not need any technical staff at this time, in the coming months, we are planning to enhance things and add in new requirements. We'll be increasing our infra and our storage, and that may require two or three more people to handle that process. 

We handled the setup process in-house. We did not use consultants. 

We pay only for how much we have used. In contrast, in the case of S3 in AWS, we paid the whole amount, even if we didn't use it all. In this case, we can pay only for the utilization of the Block Storage.

We have three licenses at this time and pay an annual subscription. 

It's not overly expensive. The pricing is somewhere in the middle if you compare it to what is on the market. 

We are using the latest version of the solution - whatever Microsoft provides.

Once Microsoft improves services a bit - including improving stability - I would recommend them. 

I'd rate the product five out of ten at this time. 

I initially set up Block Storage for archival log purposes and used Azure Data Explorer to push logs to it. This was more cost-effective for me since I needed to do threat hunting for logs that were older than a year. We then moved our production server backup and recovery to Block Storage due to the security it offers. The solution is very easy to configure security on Block Storage, whether through access keys, TLS versions, or REST API security.

We're not opting for the public cloud due to the majority of our data being PNC. However, if we need to make any of our data publicly available, we use AFS as well as Azure File Sharing. AFS is fully encrypted and structured with methods for Block Storage, such as POST and DELETE portals. Usually, we use authentication measures on private parts that require anything to be made public. To ensure secure access, we first authenticate the authorized person and then grant them access to the depositories from outside the network.

Redundancy is essential for disaster recovery, and I have found that relying on SAN storage or old, on-prem services is a complicated process that often yields unsatisfactory results. Even with the proper maintenance of the data, power, and backups, these services rarely recover more than 70 percent of data in case of outages or natural disasters. Therefore, it is clear that 100 percent data recovery cannot be achieved using on-prem solutions. The purpose of the test is to evaluate the best option for data redundancy, protection, and management. We can choose from Azure's Local Redundancy Storage, Geo Redundancy Storage, or Read Access Geo Redundancy Storage. Additionally, for data protection, we can enable soft delete or versioning of the block to track all changes. Finally, for data management, we can enable settings for security.

Microsoft is currently updating a few features, such as object sizes and tiering, which were not available previously. They have created inventories and utilized snapshots for container partition calculations.

The cost of the solution has room for improvement. Microsoft Azure Block Storage is priced higher than alternative solutions.

I have been using the solution for almost five years.

I give the stability a nine out of ten. I have not seen any outages, or leaks in the last four years.

I would give the scalability a seven out of ten. Although none of these services are perfect, the scalability of Azure is practically unlimited, depending on how much one is willing to pay and the amount of data one needs to store.

We currently have 50 people using Microsoft Azure Block Storage in our organization to protect the network.

As we are a gold partner, our support is fast. When we create a ticket, the Microsoft support team usually responds within 15 minutes or less. We also have our own team that helps to resolve issues quickly.

We also use Amazon S3 due to the fact that 80 percent of our tenants are already using it. Amazon offers a lot of advantages in terms of storage capacity, scalability, and ease of access. However, we must be mindful of security when using Amazon as it may not be as straightforward as it is when using Azure. Both are serverless but Amazon's security is more complex.

The initial setup is straightforward. Opening a service does not require much effort, as it is already automated. However, if we plan to use other services such as a Python library or storage account, there is a certain process we need to follow. The REST APIs and shared keys will be needed for this purpose. This information is already available in the forum.

I would rate Azure a three out of ten for pricing. Amazon and Azure offer different features and require different configurations. For example, some settings must be manually enabled in Amazon, whereas many security and compliance settings are enabled by default in Azure. Azure is more secure in this respect and therefore Microsoft charges more.

I give the solution a seven out of ten.

When using block storage to store data, the improvement in capacity comes at the cost of higher charges. Additionally, to use the block storage we need to enable a few services, though not for production, and then push the downloads to block storage. They need to be vigilant in looking for encryption and other security measures, and Microsoft is doing its part in updating the system. I have not encountered any issues with the block storage. We have a CSPM in place to ensure any security gaps are managed and taken care of.

We have embarked on the journey of the global data list. All the data from the SAP systems, all the data from external vendors, and all the data from our enterprise data warehouse are staged onto the Azure Block Storage. It forms the basis of the Lakehouse architecture. That's the staging layer for us.

It has helped to centralize the data. People see it as the central source of truth. Everybody sees the same set of data across data analysts, business analysts, data scientists, and all the visualization people. It provides a centralized view of the same data.

The product offers hierarchical storage and we like the main space storage with business.

It's easy to set up.

We find the product to be stable. 

It is very scalable. 

The solution needs a direct connection to visualization. Power BI connectivity on this platform is not that great. We need a direct connection to any of the visualization tools. There should be more BI integrations.

Block Storage is something which I use on a day-to-day basis. I've used the solution for six years at least.

It's pretty stable. It has cloning and therefore has data redundancy. The disaster recovery is pretty easy with this solution.

The solution can scale well.

The solution is used across the organization in BI and data visualization leads. There are more than 300 people using it.

The use is increasing month to month with more and more data being placed into it. It's an ongoing process.

Technical support is very good. 

This was the default product we went with thanks to our partnership with Microsoft.

The initial setup was straightforward, not that complex. 

Setting up was probably a month's time, not more.

The DevOps engineers would be required for the deployment. In fact, data engineers can do it if there's no proper CIC mechanism, however, any DevOps expert can do it.

We handled the deployment in-house. 

I'm from the technology side, so I have not done that ROI comparison. It is not visible to me directly. However, I have heard that there was a bottom-line increase. 

The storage part costs us $223. That's on a monthly basis for 20TB of data storage. There are no additional costs.

We did not look into other options. 

I am a customer of Microsoft products.

We are dealing with the Azure Block ADLS Gen 2.

People should use the mechanism to save more costs. We have a hot tier and a cold tier, wherein, say you want to save more on your cost, the frequently accessed data should be in the hot, and data that is not accessed frequently should be moved to the cold tier. It helps in reducing costs by almost 50%. The tiering mechanism should be used and new users should know it is possible to arrange their data that way. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.