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.

Neutral

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.

We use the solution mostly for our video files. We also use ADLS for our JSON content. Now, we are moving more to Microsoft Fabric to keep the JSON content. We have also used ADLS as a network file system for our VMs. It was good.

The solution has supported us very much with our data-intensive applications. We have an education platform. It also has Power BI reports. Before, we used to connect directly to our databases. Now, we have generated the JSON parts and stored them in the tool directly. Power BI and my applications use the pre-generated JSON.

The solution picks up pre-processed data very fast. That is why we moved from Azure’s database. The product helps us pick up and start using the data directly. The best thing about the solution is the impact on the performance of my systems. The tool is pretty easy to use.

The tool could be cheaper.

I have been using the solution for 3 to 4 years.

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

The basic connectivity gives us over two lakh concurrent requests for the Blob. It is good enough.

The initial setup is straightforward. The deployment takes one to two hours. We use our applications to structure the folder and put the files in the product. We do not need to create the storage. We just need to design the folder structure for our ADLS. It is pretty simple.

We can deploy the product in-house.

The return on investment is really good. It has helped us with many projects in various ways.

It is a pay-per-use model. There are no additional costs associated with the product.

We use the solution as a plain storage tool. Many of the features in the product are now available in Microsoft Fabric.

We never needed to contact support. Azure is the best and easiest tool for Blob storage, queue-based mechanisms, and file shares. The tool integrates very smoothly with other Azure solutions. We also use Azure Batch. It is easy to mount file storage. Overall, I rate the product a ten 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.

We are using Microsoft Azure Block Storage primarily for transferring data through the FTP. The system stores data that is sent to it and we create information reports going out. Additionally, we store data from logic applications and message logs in a storage channel.

We have different deployments of the solution, such as hybrid, cloud, and on-premise.

One of our clients is utilizing an on-premise warehouse management system with two interconnected data centers for data transfer, ensuring disaster recovery. Their system utilizes JDA web query due to its seamless integration with their warehouse machines. To enhance their operations, they have hired Azure-implemented API-driven solutions using logic apps and other tools. 

We are using Power BI and data gateway to extract data from Oracle tables and databases. While we try to utilize logistic data to answer queries, we have a series of APIs available, which they often call upon using established logic apps.

The solution can be used for many purposes it is flexible.

The most helpful features of Microsoft Azure Block Storage are the many use cases. Additionally, it can be locked down well and has two-factor authentication.

The solution has been improving over the time I have used it with new features, such as private links and managing identities.

Microsoft Azure Block Storage could improve the SFTP. The SFTP can be used for exchanging data between two parties and it works but Microsoft is new to this market and they could be a lot better in this area with its features.

The querying could be improved in the storage system. SQL is a fundamental technology but there are only partition rules and row IDs, and it is slow to query the data.

The day and time stamps are not indexed in any way which makes it very slow. Additionally, if you wanted to remove all the data over a month, there is no option to do so. There are areas that the solution can improve on in the future.

I have been using Microsoft Azure Block Storage for approximately four years.

The stability of Microsoft Azure Block Storage is good, I have not had an issue.

The solution is highly scalable and there are not a lot of limits. However, you do have to pay money for scalability.

We've never had to seek support for setup for Microsoft Azure Block Storage as it has always been relatively simple. With numerous YouTube videos and Microsoft Learn providing active examples, we were able to set everything up with ease. In most cases, the instructions were straightforward, and we only needed to follow them.

Having used Amazon S3 before, Microsoft Azure Block Storage is superior because it offers much more than just block storage. It has various other functionalities, allowing users to store files, tables, media, and more. It's a versatile storage solution that we're using for content delivery networks, coupled with the Microsoft content delivery network. Overall, it's an excellent storage management solution.

The solution is easy to set up.

The price of scaling the solution is not expensive.

I rate Microsoft Azure Block Storage a nine 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.

We use the tool for static website hosting and log storage. My company also uses it to store static information, and as a backup solution to store files.

I like the product’s versioning and file share features. The file share feature is most useful when we are connecting on-premises services. Azure file share helps to migrate small data amounts from on-premises to the cloud.

I find the user interface of newer versions, particularly, the flows, not user-friendly. The UI of Azure’s initial version was very comfortable. I didn’t have to remember floor menus. I knew where I had to go to see the logs or grab configuration parameters.

I have been using the solution for four years.

The tool’s stability is fine and I would rate it a ten out of ten.

I would rate the solution’s scalability a ten out of ten. The product has become a common requirement for all projects. Almost all people in my company use it. There are more than 100 users for the solution in our company. We are a startup, and not a big company.

The solution’s support is very helpful. Whenever I am at a dead end or need help, I would seek the product’s support which is like an ex-colleague to me. I had had some incidents where there were outages.

Positive

The solution’s initial setup is simple and straightforward.

The tool’s deployment was done by our in-house team members.

I would rate the solution’s pricing a nine out of ten and it’s cheaper than Amazon S3.

I would rate the overall solution a nine out of ten. Azure has better usability and user experience compared to Amazon S3. Both products have similar functionality and I would say that both of them have reached saturation. S3’s storage account is also costlier compared to Azure. S3 is also complex in configuration and UI is not user-friendly like Azure.