Microsoft Azure Block Storage Reviews

We use Block Storage for virtual stores that we build in our company. We use the blocks to connect one store to another.  The virtual shops we build on Azure have half a million users monthly. 

I have been using Azure Block Storage for five years.

Azure Block Storage is the most stable cloud storage solution we've used.

Azure Block Storage isn't as scalable as AWS.

The response time could be quicker. 

The ease of setup is the primary reason we use Azure Block Storage. The setup takes one or two days, and we had help from Microsoft. We had five people on our team.

We worked directly with Microsoft. We were in their startup partnership at the beginning.

I rate Azure Block Storage seven out of 10. 

Our primary use case of the solution is for objects search, objects with information, and documents file search.

The most valuable features of this solution are the ease with which you connect and use it.

The solution can be improved by including quicker hard drive access and larger bandwidth as part of the standard licensing fee.

I have been using the solution for seven years.

The solution is extremely stable.

The solution is easily scalable.

The initial setup is straightforward.

The implementation was completed in-house.

The solution requires an input-output operations fee as well as pay per gigabyte of storage. The solution also offers a quicker hard drive option and a higher bandwidth output for an additional cost.

I give the solution an eight out of ten.

We have 23 people in our organization currently using the solution.

We do not require anyone for maintenance or deployment.

I suggest to anyone wanting to use this solution to be careful with the design of the folders because if you add files without folders it can get messy.

It's mainly for financial institutions and customers. These customers are all using Cloud Native types of applications, whether it is Oracle Fusion or whether it's AWS. We are using the solution to handle the APIs.

Its integration is very easy.

The accuracy is relatively high.

It is stable and reliable.

The product can scale well.

The implementation can be quite technical.

We would like the solution to lower the costs as much as possible. It’s always better for the customer if it is less expensive.

I’ve been dealing with the solution for six months.

The solution is stable. It’s reliable, and the performance is good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn’t crash or freeze.

The solution is definitely scalable. It’s not a problem to expand it. If a company wants to, it can scale the product.

One client usually has about 1,000 assets to scan.

I’ve never had to use technical support. So far, the solution has been trouble-free.

My engineer can complete an installation in one or two days. I don't directly deal with it as it's quite complex. You need to be technical. It’s not for non-technical people.

We have five people that can handle deployment and maintenance. They are systems and ops engineers.

I would recommend the solution to other users and organizations.

I’d rate the solution seven out of ten.

We are creating VMs for some of our development testing, and we are using Azure Block Storage in that context. We are not using anything from Azure for production systems. We are just using it for staging and development.

Azure Block Storage is

• easy to deploy
• easy to scale up
• pay-as-you-go. 

So whenever we need something, we use it.

One of the biggest challenges on Azure infrastructure is that sometimes we don't get what we want. Either we have to wait for it or contact support because something is not working for us. Most of the time it works fine. But sometimes, when we want something critical, apart from block storage — we want to increase the capacity of the VM or we want to increase the cores of the VM — we have to wait. We get a response from Microsoft from a North American location. We want to host everything within the UAE. But we are redirected through North America or Europe. That is a challenge with Azure. It's the system availability that is the difficult point.

Also, billing is an issue. We have had a lot of problems when it comes to billing. We started working with minimal resources and we opted for pay-as-you-go mode. Microsoft needs to invest in some resources to improve the billing part. It's not about the money, but the visibility. I see a lot of invoices, but I don't see whether we have paid them or not. And if we have paid, I don't see when it was paid and through which credit card or account we paid. I see invoices, but I don't see the information related to those invoices.

I have been using Azure Block Storage for less than a year.

Availability is sometimes an issue.

Technical support, overall, is good. The response is very good. We don't have any issue with that.

We have our own data center and we use its storage system. But we want to upgrade that because it's not fulfilling our current requirements and we don't see it fulfilling our future requirements either. We have a need to upgrade our system.

Initially, we had some issues but we were not trained. We were used to the legacy environment, so we had challenges. But anyone who has technical knowledge will be able to set it up and understand it, once they start reading about how to set it up and how to use it. 

There are a few challenges, especially when we are setting up block storage or setting up the network. There are complexities of the network environment, such as creating the virtual networks, etc. It's complex.

We started looking at Dell EMC and some other solutions such as QNAP. We are evaluating them.

We have our own team to maintain it. We are still trying to add more resources to the team and trying to find someone who Azure will certify.

I would recommend Azure Block Storage so far, per my current usage, but I would also highly recommend learning how it works and how to configure it properly. Block Storage, in particular, is a bit confusing. People who do not have proper knowledge should not try R&D with it. I would highly recommend getting professional support if you really want to use it. The solution is very good, but the configuration and initial implementation should be done by professionals.

We are using Microsoft Azure Block Storage to accumulate and store all unstructured data, that is, different files such as Excel, Word, PowerPoint, or any other streaming or video files. Whenever there is any unstructured data, you can use the Microsoft Azure Block Storage to deal with it.

It has easy versioning. The versioning is amenable to any changes. 

It also has great security. It can only be accessed through an API, and only the requested users can access it. It is optimized for data lakes and comprehensive data management.

We need to do versioning each and every time, that is, check-in and check-out. If a person forgets to do that, then there could be an issue in the replacement of that particular object in the storage. It will be great if it can be automatically managed.

I have been using this solution for the last two to three years. 

There are absolutely no issues. They're really great at stability. 

It has great scalability.

It is quite straightforward. You can set it up even when you don't know much about it. You log into Azure.com, which is free for one year, and take a virtual machine and storage and then run your own website through Microsoft Azure Block Storage. You can store your image files, videos, and other document files from there. It is very easy. Oracle Cloud and AWS also provide the same ease of use, not only Azure.

In terms of pricing, Azure is quite cheaper than AWS. However, I have recently read that Oracle Cloud Generation 2 storage is quite cheaper than Azure. I haven't used it yet. 

We need to look at a customer's requirements, and, based on that, we can suggest the storage. You can save at least 20% with Azure as compared to AWS, which is quite costly.

I have worked on similar solutions from Oracle and Amazon. Feature-wise, they all provide the same features. However, I found Azure more convenient to work on than other solutions. It is very easy to use for data analytics purposes as well as for storing the archive data or long-term use data, that is, non-relational and unstructured data.

I would rate Microsoft Azure Block Storage a ten out of ten. It is really good.

Our customers basically use this program for virtual data center extension, as a hybrid extension of their local or on-prem or private data center. It offers them an automated way of running new workloads or creating new workloads with governance on it.

The reason why people choose this solution is that it has a good infrastructure. It also offers an easy way to provide workloads. We mainly use this solution for the development, testing, and production of our data and infrastructure in a standardized way. I also like the fact that the deployment is fast.

I would like to see an improvement in the networking and cost transparency part. What I mean by this, is that we provide certain workflows for our customers and we usually calculate what is local, but even then it's not really upfront. We must know what the usage will be in DMs. So the price is different, and that is where provisioning and cost transparency comes in. We must know what it will cost in the OPEX work that we do. We do have some cost analysis, overdose cloud, but still, it's not always the right amount that's reflected for our customers for each application or each analysis that they want to do. The invoice type is therefore different for each client.

The company I work for has been using Microsoft Azure Block Storage for two to three years and I've been using it for almost a year now.

Most customers are happy with the stability. Some bigger customers, however, have experienced problems with the stability of the Azure cloud. 

One can easily scale with this program so I am satisfied with the scalability. 

I haven't used customer service before.

Our setup is rather complex. It is easier for our customers - they simply get the tenants in our products and within the tenants, we just plug in all the drivers on-prem and then he gets a complete insight of the overall workload. 

I am, however, not involved in the installation. Another difficult thing is to create a good architecture that's strong on networking and that will enable customers to deploy or provide all those different environments in an easy way. So the thinking is critical, and architecture is very important, which is kind of complex. 

Deployment takes between two to five days, depending on the customer and the speed on the cloud.

We have a power desk with three people who are responsible for support and maintenance, customer queries, etc. 

The solution is affordable and we only pay for what we use. There are additional costs for backup and disaster management and we use separate products as service providers.

I personally feel that this is a good program. My advice to others is that they should determine beforehand what they want to use it for. The biggest lesson I've learned so far is that, if you go to the backup part, you have to be careful about how you do the backups and what the retention times are. 

I would like to see improved file sharing and better security in the next release. 

On a scale from one to ten, I will rate this program an eight. 

The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure Block Storage is the backing up of files.

Microsoft Azure Block Storage could improve by having integration with Amazon AWS. The file transfer could be easier.

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

Microsoft Azure Block Storage is stable.

The scalability of Microsoft Azure Block Storage is good.

We have approximately 30 people using this solution in my organization.

The technical support from Microsoft Azure Block Storage is good.

I rate the support from Microsoft Azure Block Storage a five out of five.

I have not used another solution in the category of Microsoft Azure Block Storage.

The installation of Microsoft Azure Block Storage is simple.

I did the implementation of Microsoft Azure Block Storage myself.

The price of  Microsoft Azure Block Storage could be less expensive.

I rate the price of Microsoft Azure Block Storage a four out of five.

I rate Microsoft Azure Block Storage a seven of ten.

We primarily use the solution for migration to restore data and to help us migrate to other systems. I do occasionally also use it as a backup, but not very often. Mostly, it's used for migration and we installed Microsoft on it. We store it in the cloud and migrate everything over.

The solution offers tiers of storage, depending on what we want to do. 

If I want to store my data for a very long period of time and I know that I'm going to archive it, I just do the archive.

You can easily access your data whenever you need it.

Uploading of data could be improved. Currently, the only way you can upload your data is by using their storage explorer. You need to use a command line to do that. Then, maybe you can go online and you can use their explorer to check to see if it's there. If they had a third-party application to handle the upload, it would be better. Many people aren't familiar with command lines for uploading data. It makes it more difficult for many users.

The pricing is a bit high.

I've been using the solution for a year or two.

The solution is very stable. I'd say it's 99.9% stable. Microsoft is very good.

I believe it is possible to scale the solution, although I haven't tried to yet personally.

It's been a long time since I've contacted technical support, but I did reach out once when I was having latency issues. I contacted them and they were able to resolve the issue. When you reach out to them for assistance, they call you immediately.

I didn't previously use a different solution. My email was hosted on Microsoft, so I moved to Azure.

The initial setup is straightforward. It's not very complicated. We handled the deployment in stages. It took, at maximum, just over a week.

We handled the implementation ourselves.

The pricing is pay-as-you-go, so it runs on credit. The more storage a company has, the more they pay. If you are putting data into an archive, it doesn't cost too much, but if you need to access it, the price may be a bit high.

I'm a Microsoft partner and I deploy the solution for other customers.

Currently, I'm the only user on the solution. I don't use it every day; I use it only when I need to.

The solution is quite good and is easy to integrate with other systems, You can also integrate it as a backup for your recordings.

It's also easily accessible and, because it's on the cloud, it doesn't matter where your current location is. It allows for easy replication of data on different levels. 

For these reasons, I'd recommend the product. I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. It's a bit expensive. If it was more reasonably priced I'd rate it higher.