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reviewer1501542 - PeerSpot reviewer
Architect/ Project Manager at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Provides very good security, scalability, and elasticity
Pros and Cons
  • "Good security, scalability, and elasticity."
  • "Technical support could be improved."

What is our primary use case?

The primary use case of this solution is generally for infrastructure service, and also for VC-migrations and district modernization using the platform service. We're a consulting firm so we use this solution and also deploy it for our customers. I'm an architect/project manager and we are partners of Microsoft.

What is most valuable?

The main beneficial features the product provides are security, scalability, and elasticity.

What needs improvement?

The technical support could be improved. When we leave tickets, it can take some days before the issue is dealt with. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for four years. 

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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We haven't had any issues with stability in the last 12 months, prior to that there were some small problems. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is good, most of our clients are enterprise size organizations. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward, the environment is mature with a lot of documentation. 

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

The price of the solution is okay although it depends on the region of the deployment.

What other advice do I have?

A company should look at the suitability for their use case before choosing a solution. 

I rate this solution an eight out of 10. 

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: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
reviewer1461696 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Senior Consultant and trainer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
Real User
Simple to use, easy to configure, and scalable
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution is very simple to use. It has a lot of great practical applications we really appreciate."
  • "The solution could use mutual segmentation for servers. It would be ideal if you could constitute something like five or 15 groups among the groups of different computers inside Azure."

What is our primary use case?

I primarily use Microsoft Azure for application development in our development environment.

What is most valuable?

The solution is pretty dynamic.

We prefer that we can configure our environment very quickly. 

We can add some notes if we need to. The testing capabilities are great. We can use the load balancing environment, and we can test a lot of different components from an infrastructure point of view. We can also test different scenarios within the application. 

The solution is very simple to use. It has a lot of great practical applications we really appreciate.

What needs improvement?

The licensing model is not ideal. It is not very useful in predicting actual costs. Sometimes we found that we could not accurately predict how much specific products will cost the company in the future. Just now, for example, we want to start using Log Analytics for Office 365, however, we don't know the final price. It's inconvenient for us as we cannot predict the budget and it puts off making a decision. For Microsoft, it's very disadvantagous.

The solution could use mutual segmentation for servers. It would be ideal if you could constitute something like five or 15 groups among the groups of different computers inside Azure. If you could get something like logical groups of servers outside the mutual servers, it would be an improvement. 

Sometimes we want to start and do a penetration test. If, for example, we're planning new security scanning for our customers. You have to inform Microsoft that you want to start a penetration test. If you have regular scans Microsoft should allow regular scanning, without having to plan and to ask for approval from the Microsoft side every time. When it's meant to be a regular occurrence, it's very inconvenient for us.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of the solution is pretty good. It doesn't cause bottlenecks or any other major issues for us. We find it to be reliable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

While we can dynamically add servers according to the user request, it's not profitable for us. Currently, it is possible to scale the solution. It just costs more to do so.

How are customer service and technical support?

We are not so satisfied with technical support right now. Sometimes they cannot help us. We had problems with licensing and with the invoicing and so on and so on. Sometimes it's not very easy to explain the problems, the technical or non-technical, and they can't really assist us effectively.

In one instance, we had an issue with anti-spam on the service. We were trying to figure out why certain emails were being marked as spam. It took far too long to get to the bottom of the cause.

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

It's hard to gauge what the pricing will be, so It's hard to plan with the solution. The licensing needs to be more transparent and obvious.

What other advice do I have?

We're simply Microsoft customers. We don't have a business relationship with the company.

Overall, I would rate the solution eight out of ten. We're mostly happy with it, although we would prefer if pricing was more transparent.

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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Channel Manager (Engineer) at Dataguard MEA
MSP
Top 10
Carbonite Availability reduced overhead and maintenance
Pros and Cons
  • "It was very user-friendly when setting up the virtual machines and console. It was an easy task for my team to create virtual servers and start replications."
  • "It should have cost optimization tools. Customers are required to use third-party applications to avoid usage complications."

What is our primary use case?

Implementation of Cloud Backup and Disaster Recovery solution, where we used Carbonite Availability as the primary tool and Microsoft Azure as secondary/target location.

Real-time replication configured from one point to another for business continuity and high availability. 

Altogether, there are eight servers in the local premise which are entirely replicated to the cloud. The kept cloud servers are idle until a disaster happens with the on-premise servers. The project setup was successful even with real-time testing. It was done with automatic failover and failback.  

How has it helped my organization?

It has improved our organization. 

What is most valuable?

It was very user-friendly when setting up the virtual machines and console. It was an easy task for my team to create virtual servers and start replications. 

We able to manage resources wisely with a third-party tool.  

What needs improvement?

It should have cost optimization tools. Customers are required to use third-party applications to avoid usage complications. Also, charging on downloads is not a good option, especially when it moves to a production server. 

For how long have I used the solution?

Two years.

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

Achieving business continuity was a nightmare. Project was done for a supermarket chain where they kept one machine in every branch directly connected to remote data center. The connection was done using VDIs. Whenever there is glitch at the remote data center, the entire infrastructure was in trouble, which in turns affected the business a lot. Setting up a disaster recovery data center was an expensive plan and maintenance was too heavy. Connecting Carbonite Availability with Azure was an easy options, as it reduced overhead and maintenance.

What was our ROI?

Monthly billing convenience reduced cost overheads up to 70 percent.

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
AVP (Enterprise Architecture) at National Stock Exchange of India Limited
Real User
Will enable us to move on-premise servers into the cloud to hold data
Pros and Cons
  • "We are going to use Microsoft Azure to move some on-premise servers into the cloud so that our data can be held there."
  • "Microsoft Azure can be pretty advanced and difficult to understand. I would like it to be simplified. The licensing especially needs to be simplified."

What is our primary use case?

We are going to use Microsoft Azure to move some on-premise servers into the cloud so that our data can be held there.

What is most valuable?

We are now trying to decide exactly this. Where can it improve our daily business?

What needs improvement?

Microsoft Azure can be pretty advanced and difficult to understand. I would like it to be simplified. The licensing especially needs to be simplified.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have not been using Microsoft Azure for very long, about three months. My company has asked me to look for a better solution in terms of security perspective. They have asked me to technically go through to see if there is a real need to change or not, and what the new features are.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of Microsoft Azure has been very good from what we have seen.

How was the initial setup?

I have not actually gone through the initial setup yet. So I am trying to figure that out. They want me to go through the training so I can understand the setup.

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

So far we are satisfied with the pricing of Microsoft Azure.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We are also looking into other platforms. Perhaps an open-source platform.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Microsoft Azure at an eight out of a scale 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
PeerSpot user
Web Developer at Indiana
Real User
This solution has the best website amongst all cloud computing platforms. It is simple to utilize, and one can release nearly anything, from app services to host sites
Pros and Cons
  • "Azure has the best website amongst all cloud computing platforms. It is simple to utilize, and one can release nearly anything, from app services to host sites."
  • "Establishing the account in the beginning was very difficult."

What is our primary use case?

We host various sites and utilize this solution for purchasing domains as well. It's simple to host small sites and back-end software applications on Azure instead of on regional servers

How has it helped my organization?

It has great deals of APIs for automation that we can utilize for managing our services. We implemented some custom tools that were developed in house and are extremely happy with the time that we now spend monitoring the websites.

What is most valuable?

Azure has the best website amongst all cloud computing platforms. It is simple to utilize, and one can release nearly anything, from app services to host sites.

What needs improvement?

Being a big item, it has it's own share of bugs. I had a great deal of difficulty establishing the account at first.

For how long have I used the solution?

One to three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

No

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No

What was our ROI?

We are at 150% at this time, not considering the time that we concentrated on something else.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Yes, we searched Google and Amazon.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user711615 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Software Architecture at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
The App Service is simple to configure as compared to the other services.

What is most valuable?

App Service is the most valuable feature because it is very simple to configure compared to the other services.

How has it helped my organization?

Almost all of our services to the customer are run on Azure such as the video.metricarts.com.

What needs improvement?

Viewing the expenses for each service in the Azure Portal is difficult for novices to understand; this could improve.

It's a great platform, but its visual interface is sometimes difficult to understand.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used this solution for four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Azure is very stable with its services, I have never had problems with its stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Most services allow you to scale easily, but you have to understand the necessary resources before scaling.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is good, they usually respond on the same day that one asks them a question. I would rate them a 9 out of 10.

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

I've always used Azure.

How was the initial setup?

The setup isn't complex; on the contrary, in less than 15 minutes I was already using Azure.

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

Before using any of Azure's services, investigate their prices, and in some cases, use the free plans that are available.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I evaluated the Amazon AWS option, but the simplicity of creating services was better in Azure.

What other advice do I have?

Understand the scope of each service and its limitations, to avoid problems after execution.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We are partners with Microsoft, so we offer the Azure Services to our customers.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
IT & PMO Manager at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
Has integration with Active Directory and Office 365.

What is most valuable?

  • Quick and easy deployment
  • Complete packaged solutions to deploy (Web Apps service)
  • Clear pricing
  • Low cost
  • Easy scaling
  • Cost effectiveness (stopping a VM when not in use)
  • High availability
  • Easy restore and recovery
  • Integration with Active Directory and Office 365. There are many benefits. For example, there is a special customized portal for all apps and services built in Azure AD (myapps.microsoft.com) with a seamless single sign-on experience for the users in AD or Office 365.

How has it helped my organization?

It improved our project completion time. A new server or solution requirements are now solved in hours instead of in weeks.

What needs improvement?

What we experienced after two years with an Azure suscription is that there is good knowledge in Microsoft Partners for Azure, but generally they are too specialized and couldn't cover everything, because they allways miss something related by example to networking, database, web apps, security, or integration on Azure. So you must contract more than one Microsoft Partner to have a successful project in Azure.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Azure for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We had no stability issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is very easy and quick to scale up or scale out. It has automatic scaling by CPU performance or other rules.

How are customer service and technical support?

Support is very good, fast, responsive, and effective.

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

We used traditional on-premises virtual machines and switched to Azure for better cost and faster deployment.

How was the initial setup?

The only complexity was the initial setup of a site-to-site VPN to connect our LAN to Azure. The required Azure site-to-site VPN gateway is not fully supported on older firewalls, so you must be careful. For details please read: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-...

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

Azure’s price is very competitive with traditional hosting (in-house or outsourced). Windows and database licenses are included in the solution price or you can bring your own license (BYOL). There are also several free or open source solutions in Azure.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at AWS. In our case, Microsoft had very competitive pricing due to our Office 365 agreement.

What other advice do I have?

Test it for free with the advice of an experienced Microsoft partner.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Owner with 51-200 employees
Vendor
Windows Azure Migration cheat-sheet

I was recently asked whether I do have some cheat-sheet for migrating applications to Windows Azure. The truth is that everything is in my head and I usually go with “it should work” – quickly build, pack and deploy. Then troubleshoot the issues. However there are certain rules that must be obeyed before making any attempt to port to Windows Azure. Here I will try to outline some.

Disclaimer

What I describe here is absolutely my sole opinion, based on my experience. You are free to follow these instructions at your own risk. I describe key points in migrating an application to the Windows Azure Platform-as-a-Service offering – the regular Cloud Services with Web and/or Worker Roles. This article is not intended for migrations to Infrastructure Services (or Windows Azure Virtual Machines).

Database

If you work with Microsoft SQL Server it shall be relatively easy to go. Just download, install and run against your local database the SQL Azure Migration Wizard. It is The tool that will migrate your database or will point you to features you are using that are not compatible with SQL Azure. The tool is regularly updated (latest version is from a week before I write this blog entry!).

Migrating schema and data is one side of the things. The other side of Database migration is in your code – how you use the Database. For instance SQL Azure does not accept “USE [DATABASE_NAME]” statement. This means you cannot change database context on the fly. You can only establish connection to a specific database. And once the connection is established, you can work only in the context of that database. Another limitation, which comes as consequence of the first one is that 4-part names are not supported. Meaning that all your statements must refer to database objects omitting database name:

[schema_name].[table_name].[column_name],

instead of

[database_name].[schema_name].[table_name].[column_name].

Another issue you might face is the lack of support for SQLCLR. I once worked with a customer who has developed a .NET Assembly and installed it in their SQL Server to have some useful helpful functions. Well, this will not work on SQL Azure.

Last, but not least is that you (1) shall never expect SQL Azure to perform better, or even equal to your local Database installation and (2) you have to be prepared for so called transient errors in SQL Azure and handle them properly. You better get to know the Performance Guidelines and Limitations for Windows Azure SQL Database.

Codebase

Logging

When we target own server (that includes co-locate/virtual/shared/etc.) we usually use local file system (or local database?) to write logs. Owning a server makes diagnostics and tracing super easy. This is not really the case when you move to Windows Azure. There is a feature of Windows Azure Diagnostics Agent to transfer your logs to a blob storage, which will let you just move the code without changes. However I do challenge you to rethink your logging techniques. First of all I would encourage you to log almost everything, of course using different logging levels which you can adjust runtime. Pay special attention to the Windows Azure Diagnostics and don’t forget – you can still write your own logs, but why not throwing some useful log information to System.Diagnostics.Trace.

Local file system

This is though one and almost always requires code changes and even architecting some parts of the application. When going into the cloud, especially the Platform-as-a-Service one, do not use local file system for anything else, but a temporary storage and static content that is part of your deployment package. Everything else should go to a blob storage. And there are many great articles on how to use blob storage here.

Now you will probably say “Well, yeah, but when I put everything into a blob storage isn’t it vendor-lock-in?” And I will reply – depending on how you implement this! Yes, I already mentioned it will certainly require code change and, if you want to make it the best way and avoid vendor-lock-it, it will probably also require architecture change for how your code works with files. And by the way, file system is also “vendor-lock-in”, isn’t it?

Authentication / Authorization

It will not be me if I don’t plug-in here. Your application will typically use Forms Authentication. When you redesign your app anyway I highly encourage you rethink your auth/autz system and take a look into Claims! I have number of posts on Claims based authentication and Azure ACS(Introduction to Claims, Securing ASMX web services with SWT and claimsIdentity Federation and Sign-out, Federated authentication – mobile login page for Microsoft Account (live ID), Online Identity Management via Azure ACS, Creating Custom Login page for federated authentication with Azure ACSUnified identity for web apps – the easy way). And couple of blogs I would recommend you to follow in this direction:

Other considerations

To the moment I cant dive deeper in the Azure ocean of knowledge I have to pull out something really important that fits all types of applications. If it happens, I will update the content. Things like COM/COM+/GDI+/Server Components/Local Reports – everything should work in a regular WebRole/WorkerRole environment. Where you also have full control for manipulating the operating system! Windows Azure Web Sites is far more restrictive (to date) in terms of what you can execute there and to what part of the operating system you have access.

Here is something for you think on: I worked out with a customer who was building SPA Application to run in Windows Azure. They have designed a bottleneck for scaling in their core. The system manipulates some files. It is designed to keep object graphs of those files in-memory. It is also designed in a way that end-user may upload as many files as day want during the course of their interaction with the system. And the back-end keeps a single object graph for all the files user submitted in-memory. This object graph cannot be serialized. Here is the situation:

In Windows Azure we (usually, and to comply with SLA) have at least 2 instances of our server. These instances are load balanced using round-robin algorithm. The end user comes to our application, logs-in and uploads a file. Works, works, works – every request is routed to a different server. Now user uploads new file, and again, and again … each request still goes to a different server.

And here is the question:

What happens when the server side code wants to keep a single object graph of all files uploaded by the end user?

The solution: I leave it to your brains!

Conclusion

Having in mind the above mentioned key points in moving application to Windows Azure, I highly encourage you to play around and test. I might update that blog post if something rather important comes out from the deep ocean of Azure knowledge I have. But for the moment, these are the most important check-points for your app.

If you have questions – you are more than welcome to comment!

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.