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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.

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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
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
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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Solution Architect at KIAN company
Real User
Can be used for disaster recovery and business continuity
Pros and Cons
  • "In terms of computer resource management and reduced cost, it is very, very effective. In large environments, it gives you a lot of flexibility to provide different services, like disaster recovery and business continuity with simple and great options because you don't have to spend a lot of time for maintenance, upgrades, and security."
  • "I think Azure Active Directory and also the backup solutions provided in Azure need to be improved by Microsoft. The backup solution is not a very enterprise solution, and it is very simple. I think in comparison with other backup solutions like Nakivo and Veeam Backup, it can be improved to have a lot of options."

What is our primary use case?

It is great for computer resource management at reduced cost. Also in a large environment, it gives you a lot of flexibility to provide different services, like disaster recovery and business continuity.

What is most valuable?

In terms of computer resource management and reduced cost, it is very, very effective. In large environments, it gives you a lot of flexibility to provide different services, like disaster recovery and business continuity with simple and great options because you don't have to spend a lot of time for maintenance, upgrades, and security. Also, Microsoft Azure provides a lot of services that can be managed by Microsoft like NetApp and SQL Server on a database.

Microsoft Azure has services such as ACS, Azure Container Service. This is very useful for improvements in running applications in a scalable environment. You will not need to spend time building the cluster on-premises, and you can improve your clusters with a lot of administration options.

What needs improvement?

I think Azure Active Directory and also the backup solutions provided in Azure need to be improved by Microsoft. The backup solution is not a very enterprise solution, and it is very simple. I think in comparison with other backup solutions like Nakivo and Veeam Backup, it can be improved to have a lot of options.

Along with this, one of the lack of options in Azure is managing antiviruses in virtual machines in the Azure environment. For example, if we have a lot of virtual machines on-premises and have to migrate them in Azure, there is no handy tool for the central management of antivirus software in all virtual machines in Azure.

On-premises, we have a lot of options like Kaspersky, Norton, and a lot of others, but in the Azure environment, you are limited to Windows ATP.

Windows ATP solutions are limited and can be improved by Microsoft, specifically the central management of the GUI for configuring agents on virtual machines.

I think Microsoft Azure should provide more innovation and new services to get better performance in the market.

The documentation for how to connect to CLI could also be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Microsoft Azure for around three years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is very scalable and can be distributed to different regions.

How are customer service and technical support?

I'm not involved in using technical support because I directly work with an Azure architect on my team who is responsible for providing support and leading the team as well as contacting the Microsoft support team. In general, however, I think, one of the best advantages of Microsoft services is the support team made up of technical engineers who help solve problems.

How was the initial setup?

As for the initial setup, the GUI in Microsoft is very simple and very handy, but in Azure Container Service, it is not very handy and is very complex. You would need to go forward with CLI.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Microsoft Azure at eight on a scale from one to 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
System Administrator at a government with 201-500 employees
Real User
Reliable, has easy provisioning, and offers good integration capabilities
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution offers very good upgrades and updates regularly."
  • "Technical support is lacking right now. It needs to be better."

What is our primary use case?

We're using the product as an infrastructure as a service. I'm basically using it to host services.

What is most valuable?

The product is very easy to provision. This is one of its most valuable aspects.

The solution offers pretty good integration capabilities at this time.

We've found the pricing to be pretty good so far. It's not too expensive.

The initial setup is very straightforward.

The stability is quite good. It's a reliable product.

We have found the scalability to be very good.

The solution offers very good upgrades and updates regularly.

What needs improvement?

The product can be a bit confusing at times. It's not well laid out. The interface, for example, can be a bit hard to figure out and they seem to be constantly changing things on us.

It's a rather new product and therefore lacks the maturity of other options. There is much they can do to add to it and to improve it. That may likely come with more time.

Up until two or so years ago, they weren't even accepting customer feedback on the solution. They've just started to do so, and they have given users a sense that improvements will be on the way sometime in the future.

Technical support is lacking right now. It needs to be better.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using the solution for more than 12 months at this point. It's been a while.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is very stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. The performance, overall, has been rather reliable for our organization.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The product has the capability to expand. If a company needs to scale it, it can do so. It's not a problem.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support needs to be better. We are not quite satisfied with their level of support. They need to be more responsive to use when we have queries. 

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

We actually use Amazon as well. We did use it before, however, we are also still using it. We use both Azure and Amazon at this time.

How was the initial setup?

We did not find the initial setup to be too complex. It's pretty straightforward. A company should be able to handle the deployment without too many issues.

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

The pricing is decent. We don't find that they are charging too much. It's pretty fair.

What other advice do I have?

As a cloud deployment, the solution is constantly updating itself, therefore we always have access to the latest release.

We have about 300 to 400 users on it currently. It's a business unit with various users of different job descriptions.

We are planning to increase the usage in the future.

I'm not sure if the company will use this solution for the long term or if they are considering trying something new. That is yet to be determined.

Overall, I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten. We're mostly quite happy with it in general.

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
PeerSpot user
Diretor de Sistemas de Informação at a transportation company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Mobility of cloud-based directory reduced reporting and sped implementing new solutions

What is most valuable?

  • Virtual Networking
  • Security
  • Feature packing
  • Virtual Machines
  • Ease of implementation
  • Azure AD
  • Azure AD Directory Domain Services
  • Database as a Service
  • Operations Management Suite
  • RBAC

How has it helped my organization?

Mobility, no more "metal" on-premise, cloud-based directory with SSO features, sped implementing new solutions, reduced skillset for management and reporting.

We have a full Azure plus Office 365 implementation for servers and desktops, authenticating users on Azure AD over 802.1X switching and wireless. No on-premise servers, DC's, file-servers, etc.

What needs improvement?

Stability. Microsoft is implementing changes too fast and sometimes things break.

For how long have I used the solution?

Three years, but the full stack only since January 2017.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

None.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Yes. Beware of August. Microsoft makes some big changes during this month and they have an impact on customers.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

None.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

10 out of 10.

Technical Support:

10 out of 10.

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

On-premise traditional solutions.

How was the initial setup?

Complex in the beginning, because the company I was migrating had some peculiarities.

The latter move was totally stable as we did a cutoff migration and no garbage was imported. Some downtime was expected, but this was minimal.

What about the implementation team?

In-house, with support from a vendor team. Excellent support: 10 out of 10.

What was our ROI?

Not yet calculated since it was a major digital transformation and an ongoing project.

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

Setup cost is low and Microsoft may help your project financially with services from a partner.

Be sure to know your licensing or ask for advice. It's worth it. You may be led into something you don't need, if following Microsoft or a vendor.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

No.

What other advice do I have?

Evaluate extensibly (the actual scenario), have a definitive vision of where you want to be in a near future, align the strategy with your management and expect that it may not be cheaper. A correct vision of a project of this kind cannot be focused on lowering costs but vision alignment, future scalability, speed on delivering services, and maintaining smaller IT crews focused on business needs.

Please do some previous math regarding actual licensing versus a costs model. Extrapolate this to a five year plan to match current hardware lifespans.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
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Cloud/System Administrator at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Vendor
Saves a lot of time for our developers as it enables moving from the virtual machines to the Web Application-side

What is most valuable?

Virtual machines, Azure Web Applications, MS SQL DB, DNS, Azure Active Directory, etc. are some of the most valuable features.

It is quite easy to learn to start working with them and they are composite enough to use them in many different scenarios.

For example, you can create a web app with a few clicks from Visual Studio and publish it to Azure Web Apps. You also can integrate that Web App to CI/CD pipeline (https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/docs/build/get-started/aspnet-4-ci-cd-azure-automatic), assign custom SSL certificates to it (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/app-service-web/app-service-web-tutorial-custom-SSL), configure auto-scale (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/app-service/app-service-environment-auto-scale), implement Azure AD authentication (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/app-service-mobile/app-service-mobile-how-to-configure-active-directory-authentication?toc=%2fazure%2fapp-service%2ftoc.json), etc.

How has it helped my organization?

It enabled moving from the virtual machines to the Web Application-side, which in turn saved a lot of time for our developers.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used this solution for about two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

There were some stability issues. Some of them were user-specific (some applications were buggy), while some were global https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/status/history/.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There were no scalability issues. My work duties are not connected to this feature.

How is customer service and technical support?

On a scale from 1-10 (1=worst, 10=best). I would rate the technical support a seven out of 10. First level support is awful (it works only if you have a generic issue). But if you are lucky enough, you could get a real technical person, who could help you.

How was the initial setup?

The setup/installation depends from which service you start (for example, start to use DNS which is much easier vs the web applications).

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

If your company is big enough and oriented to the cloud, then go for the Enterprise Agreement. If you want just to try it first, then use the trial version.

What other advice do I have?

Learn the fundamentals using the official documentation; for example, you have the Developer Guide and courses.

Start using new services based on the scenarios described in the official documentation.

Use communities for consulting, such as Stack Overflow, Reddit, and Slack. However, personally, I prefer the channel azured.slack.com.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user8142 - PeerSpot reviewer
CTO at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Vendor
Early Thoughts on the Windows Azure Announcements

Today’s release marks a significant milestone for Windows Azure. To date, Windows Azure has been a platform that allows developers to build and run applications across Microsoft’s global datacenters – the key emphasis has been on “applications”. Windows Azure has not been a platform for providing the underlying infrastructure for running your own virtual machine – this has been a key pain point for many customers looking to move to the cloud that Microsoft has heard loud and clear. Today’s announcement makes it clear that Windows Azure is more than just a Platform-as-a-Service provider.

In my opinion, there are three significant components of today’s announcements worth delving into deeper:

  • New Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) capabilities.
  • Free (or low-cost) hosting with Windows Azure Websites.
  • Enhanced cloud networking capabilities that support VPN connections between an on-premises corporate network and Windows Azure.

Until now, Microsoft has never competed directly with Amazon EC2 with respects to IaaS nor with cloud platforms like Heroku. The new IaaS and Websites capabilities, combined with the ability to extend on-premises networks to the cloud, provides a number of ways that Windows Azure can now distinguish itself from other platforms and—in my opinion—will drive many new enterprises and a large number of developers to adopt Windows Azure.

Infrastructure-as-a-Service

Windows Azure has long had the concept of a “Virtual Machine role” but the fundamental problem has been the inability to persist changes made to the virtual machine image provided by the customer (i.e. the guest VM) during reboots or recycling. Supporting VM persistence in Windows Azure means that the guest VM will not lose these updates. This unlocks many workloads that previously did not work in Windows Azure – certainly products like SharePoint and SQL Server but also custom line-of business applications that previously were difficult to move to Windows Azure.

In addition to VM persistence, Windows Azure will also give customers the ability to run Linux VMs. There’s been a lot of interest and speculation regarding Microsoft’s strategy moving forward with Linux and open source. I think Microsoft recognizes that their customers run more than just Windows in their enterprise, and this is an opportunity for Windows Azure to run as many workloads as possible. We’ve seen this shift in Microsoft in a number of different ways – support for Node.js and Java in Windows and Windows Azure, the creation of a new interoperability subsidiary, and many more. The cloud provides a way to make it easier to connect all of these different platforms and technologies, and my take is that Microsoft is trying to make Windows Azure the best and simplest place to run your applications regardless of the platform or technology.

Windows Azure Websites

It’s exciting to see Microsoft continue to evolve its strategy with Windows Azure to make it increasingly accessible to the breadth of developers out there.
Windows Azure Websites is a hosting platform for web applications. It provides a number of different deployment and runtime options beyond the existing Web Role, including:

  • Target both Microsoft and non-Microsoft technologies already running in the environment, including SQL Azure, MySQL, PHP, Node.js, and (of course) .NET.
  • Deploy via Git, Web Deploy, FTP, or TFS.
  • Run in a high-density / multitenant VM for little-to-no cost or choose a dedicated deployment path.

In addition to providing simpler and more consistent ways to deploy applications across different hosting platforms (e.g. Windows Azure, Windows Server, and hosting providers), Windows Azure Websites provides a way for Microsoft to bring thousands—perhaps even hundreds of thousands—of new developers to the platform with the offer of little-to-no cost hosting.

Cloud Networking

Windows Azure Virtual Networks allows a company to connect their cloud applications and solutions to their local network. This occurs at the networking layer through standard VPN devices. Coupled with IaaS support, this provides a ton of flexibility with respects to the kinds of workloads a customer moves to Windows Azure. Don’t want to move your sensitive SQL Server database? You don’t need to. Setup a VPN to your applications in Windows Azure and let them communicate directly back to your applications that live on-premises.

There’s certainly a lot more to talk about – new services, portal, SDK, tools, and so much more! These thoughts are pretty early—in fact, I write this before today’s MEET Windows Azure event—and there’s so much more to talk about!

Disclosure: The company I work for is partners with several vendors

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user4401 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user4401Developer at a transportation company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor

I totally agree with your review. My opinion is that Windows Azure is only a part of the future. The future is the concept of pushing all applications into the cloud and utilizing world wide hosting providers. The upfront costs of pushing products out the door is heavily reduced this way.

Technical support engineer at 64 Network security pvt ltd
Real User
Top 5
An exceptionally stable and easy-to-access solution for file storage and file backup
Pros and Cons
  • "Feature-wise, I like its stability. Also, it is easy to access the solution and its options."
  • "The security feature in the solution is an area that needs to be improved."

What is our primary use case?

We were using Microsoft Azure for file storage and file backup. So, it was one of our backup resources. Internally, NAS is there in our company. So, we go from NAS to Veeam and Veeam to Azure.

What is most valuable?

Feature-wise, I like its stability. Also, it is easy to access the solution and its options. Also, the backup solutions can take anything, so we can easily find out any option.


What needs improvement?

The security feature in the solution is an area that needs to be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have experience with Microsoft Azure until six months ago. Also, I was using the solution's latest version.


What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable product.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is a scalable product. There are more than 100 users using the solution. I am just involved in the maintenance of the servers and infrastructures.

How are customer service and support?

We need to purchase Microsoft Azure for our clients, including cloud backup and any Azure solutions. So, So that time, we need to contact technical support. I expect more technical support from Azure.

How was the initial setup?

The solution's initial setup is straightforward. When you need to create multiple tasks, the solution can get complex. I am not involved in the deployment process.

What other advice do I have?

I can recommend it to other people who want to start using it. So, our company provides a lot of solutions to our clients, including backup solutions like NAS storage, cloud storage, and servers. Parallely, we provide support to users.

I rate the overall solution a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Microsoft Azure Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: December 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Microsoft Azure Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.