What is our primary use case?
The existing infrastructure of our customers is on-prem. We will be migrating or moving from on-prem to Microsoft Azure cloud.
How has it helped my organization?
We don't have to spend money to purchase the hardware, set up a data center, get people to work on it, and maintain security. We don't have to spend any money on these things. It is ready to use, and resources are available for us. We just create an account on Azure and start using the services.
The time to market is very fast. We just supply the resources, virtual machines, and databases, and our applications are up and running. This helps our customers and us to be more future-ready and cloud-ready.
What is most valuable?
Its scalability is valuable. Depending on our requirements, we can add as many virtual machines as we want. We are able to get high availability for services. Services are always available, and they have the maximum uptime. If there is any issue with one of the services, another service is always available.
It is pay-as-you-go. You don't have to spend any money upfront. You use the service and pay after one month or a couple of hours of use.
What needs improvement?
For deploying multiple resources in a big number, such as in hundreds, we need a streamlined process and more user-friendly scrips. The scripts have to be more user-friendly, and they should also supply some standard templates to deploy multiple resources at a time. Currently, it is very easy to deploy a couple of resources, but if you want to deploy multiple resources, it becomes complex.
The material that they provide for integration with an existing on-prem data center is complex. They have to make them user-friendly. The scripts related to resource management need to be simplified.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for one year. In our company, we have been using it for four to five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It has a very high uptime for services. They are able to provide as per Service Level Agreement (SLA). We are not seeing any downtime for our applications. Our users have not reported any issues.
They have their internal redundancy for hardware and software. If there is an issue with any hardware, another hardware is ready to take the load.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is very scalable. We can add as many virtual machines as we want. We have 400 to 500 people who are using this solution.
How are customer service and technical support?
I have not worked with support. We work in a design team where we have a dedicated Microsoft account partner to provide support. That support is fine. If there is an issue with running virtual machines or there are any infrastructure issues, another team takes care of that. I've not got any complaints from them that their support is not working.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Previously, we had the regular on-prem solution with our own data center. We had to deploy physical servers, networks, databases, and everything else. We needed flexibility and scalability for our customers and applications, and that's why we moved to the cloud.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was easy.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is operational expenditure (OPEX). There is no cost upfront. When you start using it, you have to pay the charges. Initially, the cost is less, but after you start using it more and more, the cost will go higher. It is a little bit costly, but that is okay because you get better resources. You also get better support in terms of how you create the resources. Documentation is available, and the SLAs are met.
What other advice do I have?
Companies are now starting to switch over to Azure, and before doing any kind of migration, they need to plan each and everything from scratch. They should have a Microsoft consultant or somebody from Microsoft so that they can plan well before using Azure. Otherwise, they will not be aware of where they are spending and how they can reduce the spending. They would also not know whether their security compliances are being met and whether their network is being fully utilized or having some issues. Proper planning has to be done before using Azure.
I would rate Microsoft Azure an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner