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Joao Alves - PeerSpot reviewer
Risk Manager at Novo Banco
Real User
Top 10
A stable and scalable solution with good tech support, but lacking proper ease of use and dashboards
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution is stable."
  • "Use of the solution could be easier."

What is our primary use case?

As the solution is cloud-based, we always use the latest solution. 

We make use of the solution in the cloud for specific internal applications.

What needs improvement?

Use of the solution could be easier. It is too complex.

The solution is not sufficiently informative and there is a need to wade through much information. 

Moreover, we find it lacking when it comes to active dashboards. This is problematic when looking to Teams, as it does not allow one to know what is transpiring in real time, such as when there are concurrent conferences. This information only becomes available the following day. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Microsoft Azure Review for three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable. 

Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Azure
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Azure. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
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What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable. 

How are customer service and support?

Microsoft's technical support is good. There is no room for improvement. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We looked at web user before going with the solution. 

How was the initial setup?

As the solution is cloud-based there is no installation involved. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The license is on a monthly basis.

What other advice do I have?

There are approximately 100 users utilizing the solution in our organization.

I would definitely recommend it to others.

I rate Microsoft Azure as a seven out of ten. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

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    it_user1376166 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Future Datacenter Consultant: Microsoft Azure Cloud. at a tech company with 5,001-10,000 employees
    Vendor
    Great environment assessment tools and monitoring features with pretty good scalability
    Pros and Cons
    • "The user interface is very nice and makes everything easy to use."
    • "Support could be improved. If you pay for a higher plan, it's okay, however, the lower plans don't offer as good of a service experience."

    What is our primary use case?

    The solution is basically a platform as a service for web applications, virtual machines, Azure identity, et cetera.

    My day-to-day is to migrate servers using Mover or some other app to access on-premises data centers. We then use Azure Migrate to move the servers in order to take advantage of the new functionalities and things like that.

    What is most valuable?

    The solution offers good monitoring features that allow us to configure items better in the customer environment. The monitoring is really awesome.

    Occasionally, clients have specific requirements for their applications and we can move them onto Azure services or apps. 

    Overall, it offers a better way to move the applications and monitor or configure the applications with higher availability. For example, there are load balancers, different types of layers that load balancers use, traffic managers, Front Door, and things of that nature that are available to us and the client via Azure.

    Overall, I like how the solution works. It offers everything I need, for the most part.

    The user interface is very nice and makes everything easy to use.

    The power share modules have been improved, and the AC module was introduced - which has been great. There are ten or 15 more regions on the way as well.

    The tools on offer are excellent. It has some really great environment assessment tools as well.

    What needs improvement?

    There are preview features we are waiting on. When I contact Microsoft support, there is no timeline given or clear information about when those preview features are going to be on GA, general availability. It would be ideal if they could finally give us at least an estimation of how much longer we have to wait.

    Support could be improved. If you pay for a higher plan, it's okay, however, the lower plans don't offer as good of a service experience. It also seems as though each different tier doesn't talk to the other. they should be able to communicate and share details internally with each other so that they are learning from each other instead of staying siloed.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I've been using the solution for the last few years. I would estimate it's been about five years at this point. It's been a while. I've definitely been using the solution over the last 12 months.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    In terms of stability, for me, it works. However, depends on the type of project that's happening. If you're going to have just a virtual machine running there then it can fail. That said, the platform offers a lot of options to improve the capability, so it depends on how much money a client wants to invest.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    The scalability works just fine. I've had some issues before with Azure App Service, with an App Service environment allocation, however, Microsoft has improved that, making a bigger rack. Since then, I haven't seen issues with scalability. That was maybe a year ago.  

    We currently have three clients on Microsoft Azure.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    There is room for improvement with technical support. I work with premium support and therefore don't really face issues. We have good engineers. There are some issues when you get a new support person. They have a lot of rotation in their personnel. They train people for a couple of months. They're trying to help however, it's not the same as getting a seasoned professional. It really depends on the support line you buy. If you go for a lower tier, you're likely to get less experienced assistance.  

    How was the initial setup?

    For the most part, the initial setup is straightforward. It was not overly complex. I worked with a Microsoft support engineer. I had contact with the product group and know the technical advisors and technical matters, which made it very easy for me.

    For example, in comparison. I tried to use Amazon Web Services by myself, and I got confused as I didn't have that level of support. With Azure, the interface is nice, and it's pretty straightforward. Anybody with a little bit of technical knowledge about working, virtual machines, or similar items can use it with little to no problem. The implementation is pretty good.

    The time it takes to deploy the solution depends on the customer environment. If they have 25 servers versus five there will be radically different deployment times.

    Typically, we use Microsoft strategies as a foundation assessment. We'll look at the customer environment and be in the background for a couple of weeks to pull some data so we can have a better understanding of the customer environment. After that, we create a plan to start migrating the servers. Each client is unique.

    What about the implementation team?

    I worked alongside a Microsoft support engineer who assisted in the process.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    You do need to pay for technical support and there are different tiers of support you can get. The higher the tier, it seems, the better the service you can expect.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    I haven't used AWS or Google Cloud, therefore I don't really ever compare this solution to them. I don't say "this platform has that and I like how this works". For me, Azure just works and it's fine and I don't need to go in-depth and look at other options.

    The company I am working at new does use AWS and we're planning to introduce new cloud technologies as well. 

    I'm not a salesperson, however, I can say that we would move the client to whichever technology made sense to them after doing an evaluation of their requirements. That, of course, is handled by a different department.

    What other advice do I have?

    We are a reseller and a Microsoft Gold partner. We are a CSP, a Cloud Solution Provider. We offer managed services to our customers. We are moving data centers to Azure, however, we are a managed service provider. We have access to the customer's environment in order to pull analytics data to help them with consulting services, and things like that.

    My basic advice to those considering the solution is that planning is essential. Microsoft does a good job of advising their customers at the outset to ensure they get what they need, however, it's helpful to go in and understand deeply what it is your company needs overall. 

    That said, Azure is a strong cloud and its technology is great. Microsoft offers good implementation with service legal agreements and good practices.

    Overall, I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten.

    Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner

    PeerSpot user
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      Buyer's Guide
      Microsoft Azure
      December 2024
      Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Azure. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
      845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.
      DigAd3059 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Digital Ad-Operations at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
      Real User
      It was easy to deploy our applications on it. However, we are looking for better compatibility and scalability.
      Pros and Cons
      • "It was easy to deploy our applications on it."
      • "We have faced some challenges trying to deploy a new ESP application."

      What is our primary use case?

      We wanted to deploy applications and have them interact with services on the back-end, so we deployed Azure for this. The performance has been quite good.

      What is most valuable?

      It was easy to deploy our applications on Azure. It provides more compatibility and scalability than the .NET application. This is why we chose to use Azure.

      What needs improvement?

      We are looking for the Azure to get involved in the case of other applications, like the Java application. Because it is predefined and has been set by Microsoft, who is providing better compatibility to the .NET application, so we are looking for the same from Azure for the Android app. Therefore, we are looking for better compatibility and scalability.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      It is stable. I have not seen it have any downtime.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      We have faced some challenges trying to deploy a new ESP application.

      How is customer service and technical support?

      The technical support was good. I would give them an eight out of 10 rating.

      How was the initial setup?

      The initial setup was straightforward.

      What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

      The pricing is very competitive.

      Which other solutions did I evaluate?

      We evaluated AWS. 

      If I were advising a colleague in my organization who is looking for a solution and is comparing AWS and Azure, I would prefer that they go for Azure, or any software using Microsoft technologies because we have had good experiences with them. If I were advising on Java, I wouldn't advise him to specifically use another tool rather he should do research and use my comparison history on IT Central Station.

      What other advice do I have?

      I would rate this solution a seven out of 10. 

      Most important criteria for selecting a vendor: The client will choose the license and buy it. We can try to convince them, but we can not compel them to use a specific vendor's license. Ultimately, the decision-maker is the client.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

      PeerSpot user
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        it_user657774 - PeerSpot reviewer
        Server and StorageIO Group (Storage IO): Independent IT Advisor, Author, Blogger and Consultant with 1-10 employees
        Vendor
        This product has facilitated development, testing, and deployment.

        What is most valuable?

        • Virtual machines, both Windows and Linux based
        • Blob storage
        • Azure file storage
        • SQL server

        How has it helped my organization?

        This product has facilitated development, testing, rapid deployment, spot resource needs, with a remote off-site that compliments on-premises for the hybrid cloud.

        What needs improvement?

        The user interface is great if you like tablet, a.k.a., Windows type functionally. The PowerShell is robust. However, there is not much in between, although you can do a lot of customizing views, dashboards, and other things.

        I like the extensiveness of the new VS classic interface. At times, I still find the AWS dashboards simpler and more streamlined. Nevertheless, Azure is more elegant.

        For how long have I used the solution?

        I have used the product for several years.

        What do I think about the stability of the solution?

        I had no stability issues.

        What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

        There were no issues, as long as your credit card can also scale.

        How are customer service and technical support?

        I don't know about technical support, as I have not had to deal with them. But the various communities, forums, and resources are outstanding.

        Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

        We have deployed, and continue to use:

        • AWS EC2
        • EBS
        • S3 Glacier
        • Route 53
        • Lightsail
        • Google
        • Bluehost DPS
        • An onsite mix of Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware

        We are doing hybrid to address different needs.

        How was the initial setup?

        Having used AWS, VMware, as well as Windows, there was a little bit of a learning curve, just as there was for others.

        However, navigating the UI, shells, and figuring out what was where, without spending weeks in seminars, training, and watching videos, was actually pretty intuitive.

        If you are not used to working with AWS or others, or if you have some tools, Azure is actually pretty extensible and getting easier to working from Windows and vice versa.

        What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

        Do your homework, understand the type and sizes of resources, see if there are any extra fees, and find out what tools are needed.

        Check what level of performance, availability, capacity and economic (PACE) budget, as well as the services that are needed.

        Watch your costs and look for value versus the lowest cost.

        Which other solutions did I evaluate?

        We looked at AWS, Rackspace, Google, Microsoft, Bluehost, and VMware.

        What other advice do I have?

        Don't be scared, be prepared; do your homework.

        Look beyond lower cost and instead focus on value, enablement, ease of use, compatibility, resiliency, ability to scale with the stability of performance, capacity, and availability.

        Look at the extensiveness of services versus a simple check box.

        You also need to identify any concerns about the cloud, categorize them, and then discuss with others how to address them, or seek a workaround.

        If you cannot find somebody to chat with, drop me a note.

        Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

        PeerSpot user
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          PeerSpot user
          CTO at a healthcare company with 51-200 employees
          Vendor
          The management console needs work but we would not be building the Healthcare IT application if it were not for Azure.

          What is most valuable?

          The fully integrated capabilities of a PaaS service.

          How has it helped my organization?

          Basically we would not be building the Healthcare IT application if it were not for Azure.

          What needs improvement?

          The management console needs work and the pricing calculator is truly user hostile.

          For how long have I used the solution?

          I have been using the solution 3 years.

          What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

          We have some issues with functional differences between Azure Active Directory and how Ad is implemented on a standalone server.

          What do I think about the stability of the solution?

          We have had a few outages with Visual Studio Online – though they have not been a major work impact.

          What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

          None so far.

          How are customer service and technical support?

          Customer Service: Mixed. Microsoft still has too many support queues and if you end up in the wrong one you can spend hours being bounced from one to the other. OTOH once you figure out how to get to the Business support queue – response times are fantastic for “business outage” issues.Technical Support: When in the right queue – the understanding is unparalleled.

          Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

          I have previously used AWS and Amazon Elastic Beanstalk. Azure is a PaaS whereas AWS is a server stack environment and thus AWS does not provide the OpEx cost reductions that Azure does. Elastic Beanstalk is a PaaS but it is not as fully developed as Azure.NET is.

          How was the initial setup?

          Very straightforward. In fact almost too much so. Its easy to try and overthink the setup and waste time looking for things you don’t need to be looking for.

          What about the implementation team?

          Combination of in-house and vendor. Vendor team was new to Azure.

          What was our ROI?

          Full ROI on the current project is still to be determined as we are not shipping yet. But I would estimate a 100% cost reduction over the traditional way of building a server based app.

          What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

          Our monthly dev costs for infrastucture are running $300-$500 for the initial work and we expect to have full OpEx costs of $1,000-$3,000/mo once we are launched.

          Which other solutions did I evaluate?

          AWS and Elastic Beanstalk.

          What other advice do I have?

          Have a team that understands .NET development and particularly someone who understands Active Directory very well
          Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

          PeerSpot user
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            It at Forvent
            Real User
            Useful for PaaS, web services, databases, and AD
            Pros and Cons
            • "The tool's most valuable features are SQL servers and Managed Instance databases."
            • "Microsoft Azure needs to be simplified to make it better understood for users."

            What is our primary use case?

            We use the solution for PaaS, web services, databases, and AD. 

            What is most valuable?

            The tool's most valuable features are SQL servers and Managed Instance databases. 

            What needs improvement?

            Microsoft Azure needs to be simplified to make it better understood for users. 

            For how long have I used the solution?

            I have been using the product for five years. 

            What do I think about the stability of the solution?

            I rate Microsoft Azure's stability a nine out of ten. 

            What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

            I rate the tool's scalability an eight out of ten. My company has ten users. 

            How are customer service and support?

            I haven't contacted the tool's technical support. My Microsoft partner takes care of it. 

            How was the initial setup?

            I rate Microsoft Azure's deployment a seven out of ten. It takes around half an hour to complete. You need two resources to handle the deployment. I am involved in its maintenance. 

            What about the implementation team?

            A Microsoft partner helped us with the deployment. 

            What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

            I rate the tool's pricing a six out of ten. 

            What other advice do I have?

            Our workflow has been good since using Azure Data Factory. There are previews of new features available, which I am happy about. I rate the product an eight out of ten. 

            If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

            Microsoft Azure
            Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

            PeerSpot user
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              Senior Devops at a computer software company with 5,001-10,000 employees
              Real User
              Good hub integration with lots of new features and easy to integrate
              Pros and Cons
              • "I know there have been a lot of improvements and a lot of new services lately. I'm really not aware of all of them."
              • "I haven't checked the console for some time, however, compared to the AWS console, the interaction console of the web part, the web services, it's not so easy."

              What is our primary use case?

              I was testing the integration capabilities. I deployed a simple solution with a front and back end with an SQL database. For the server-less solution, it was just to interact with the database. That's what kind of the load that I was testing. The use case was to integrate with the directory, authenticate, and then consume some of the services there.

              What is most valuable?

              One of the services that I found to be great is the connector. For example, the other day, I was creating an application for internal research. With that connector, it was really easy to integrate some services to interact with the connectors. The credential allows you to authenticate with the active directory. Then, with that authentication, you can have the assurance that the people who are consuming the application are the right ones.

              I know there have been a lot of improvements and a lot of new services lately. I'm really not aware of all of them.

              One thing which is great is that they give users hub integration. That's a strong aspect, which would be good for many people and clients and developers so that they have that integration right away.

              What needs improvement?

              I haven't checked the console for some time, however, compared to the AWS console, the interaction console of the web part, the web services, it's not so easy. That will be a good area to improve, which is to make the console for interaction with services a little easier.

              Another point to improve could maybe be the pricing model or maybe the interaction with information. When you look for information in AWS, it's more straightforward and clear. It's hard to find that information on Azure.

              For how long have I used the solution?

              I used the solution for maybe one month at the beginning of maybe March of this year. I was doing some tests with Microsoft Azure. I was deploying some services.

              What do I think about the stability of the solution?

              The stability is good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

              What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

              The scalability is fine. However, it may be another thing to improve. I haven't look looked at it in some time, however, I remember at the beginning, I tried to research for the price, for rates, and things. I didn't find it easy to locate, which made it hard to gauge the cost of scaling. 

              From my side, I don't plan to increase usage. Right now, I'm working for other clients, and with the solutions of the clients. For research purposes, I will do maybe one or two instances, just for testing. It's not a big deal.

              How are customer service and support?

              While I've never needed technical assistance, my understanding is that it's pretty good.

              How was the initial setup?

              It was not very difficult to set up the solution. In the beginning, it's a bit difficult to just find the services and things like that. They need a kind of list or something, something more visible. That would help. 

              Our implementation was not too big. It took maybe two days. Another deployment we did took maybe three. I'm not really a complete expert. It might have taken a bit longer for me due to my lack of experience.

              What about the implementation team?

              I did not use consultants or resellers for deployment. I did it myself. There wasn't too much pressure. I was doing the deployment more for research purposes. 

              What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

              The price of the solution is unclear. it's hard to find the costs. 

              What other advice do I have?

              The company I am working for is a Microsoft partner.

              I'd advise potential new users to try to get as much information as possible about licensing and about the products that they are going to use. That will be good to have a very clear understanding of. Beyond that, it's not a problem to get started and go.

              I'd rate the product at an eight out of ten.

              Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

              Public Cloud

              If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

              Microsoft Azure
              Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

              PeerSpot user
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                reviewer1488372 - PeerSpot reviewer
                Associate Manager at a consultancy with 501-1,000 employees
                Real User
                Straightforward documentation, flexible, and helpful technical support
                Pros and Cons
                • "I have found the solution to be flexible, easy to use, and the documents are straightforward to understand."
                • "When we are doing transfers of records in large amounts, for example, petabytes of data or few long datasets, the performance should not degrade as it does."

                What is our primary use case?

                We use the solution for executing the ADF pipelines through the database port. We provide the scripts in the database, we run it, and it goes through the ADF pipeline. Afterward, through the database command, the ADF pipeline will run and push the data into Azure SQL. 

                What is most valuable?

                I have found the solution to be flexible, easy to use, and the documents are straightforward to understand. For example, it is flexible, we have a single pipeline that has three phases, within approximately 15 minutes the records get transferred into this solution efficiently.

                Additionally, the solution is well integrated with other solutions such as Power BI.

                What needs improvement?

                When we are doing transfers of records in large amounts, for example, petabytes of data or few long datasets, the performance should not degrade as it does. I am working on big data platforms like Informatica and others and even though there are terabytes of data being transferred it does it immediately. However, in this solution, I would like the performance to be there when building a large dataset to integrate the data.

                For how long have I used the solution?

                I have been using the solution for the past three years.

                What do I think about the stability of the solution?

                The solution is stable.

                What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

                I have found the solution to be scalable. We use Teradata for large data and we are building the pipelines for it, so far it has operated well. We have approximately 25 individuals using the solution in my organization.

                How are customer service and technical support?

                The technical support is very good, if you have an issue they will be able to help.

                Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

                I have used Informatica in the past and it has some performance advantages compared to this solution.

                What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

                The solution does require a license.

                What other advice do I have?

                I would recommend this solution to others and we are going to continue using it in the future. We have numerous clients switching to this solution.

                I rate Microsoft Azure a nine out of ten.

                Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

                Public Cloud
                Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

                PeerSpot user
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                  Buyer's Guide
                  Download our free Microsoft Azure Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
                  Updated: December 2024
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