I am a customer of Microsoft Azure and this solution is for my personal use.
IT Project Manager, Senior Java Developer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
A very user friendly interface, easy access, and great features
Pros and Cons
- "Great features at a good price."
- "Performance could be improved."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
Compared to other solutions, I find Azure to be the best organized in terms of user interface, access, and features. The Google cloud platform is very awkward, access is not easy and it's difficult to see the prerequisites for your needs. With Microsoft, everything is easily accessible, you see all the preconditions, all the requirements with great monitoring, and at a good price. They do a lot of promotions so I was able to get the Azure subscription with my Visual Studio subscription.
What needs improvement?
It's possible that the performance could be improved, but it's not a big issue.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for two years.
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Azure
December 2024
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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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How are customer service and support?
I haven't had experience with Microsoft's technical support because they offer good insights in the platform itself.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this product.
I rate this solution a nine 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: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Senior Manager Global Database Services at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
A dynamic and easy-to-use platform
Pros and Cons
- "Azure allows us to bring applications to life quickly."
- "Integration with other cloud environments can be tricky at times."
What is our primary use case?
We use this solution to build VMs and create databases.
We absolutely plan to continue using Azure in the future. We actually plan on increasing our usage.
How has it helped my organization?
Azure allows us to bring applications to life quickly.
What is most valuable?
Microsoft Azure is very dynamic.
What needs improvement?
The cost is something that could be improved. There's not much clarity regarding the price range. We'll create a VM and then at the end of the month, we'll receive a bill with various costs from different locations — it's confusing.
Integration with other cloud environments can be tricky at times.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft Azure for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Microsoft Azure is very stable.
How are customer service and technical support?
The support could be improved. On a scale from one to ten, I would give their support a rating of six.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very complex because of the landing zone. Only Microsoft can create the landing zone. Implementation is very fast; it only takes a few minutes.
What about the implementation team?
We implemented Microsoft Azure ourselves.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing costs are quite reasonable.
What other advice do I have?
My advice is to keep an eye on your usage otherwise you could wind up with a hefty bill.
The biggest lesson I have learned is that Microsoft Azure is very dynamic — the environment is very dynamic.
Microsoft Azure is absolutely great. On a scale from one to ten, I would give it a rating of eight because it's user-friendly and very simple to use. All of the basic features are covered. Some things can be tricky, but there is always a simple solution.
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.
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Azure
December 2024
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Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Azure. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.
CISO at a religious institution with 501-1,000 employees
Very stable, easy to set up, and allows us to scale up and scale down depending upon our needs
Pros and Cons
- "Its ability to scale is most valuable. There are certain periods of the year when we are busier, and we're able to scale up and scale down with Azure depending upon our needs."
- "They're already doing quite a bit. I'm not unsatisfied with anything that they're doing right now. They can maybe make the transitions a little smoother and improve its pricing. The pricing for the end-user packages is a bit high."
What is our primary use case?
One of the use cases that we have is with our installation of SAP on private. We also have some apps that we have developed that are public, and we use the security system that they provide. We also use Microsoft Sentinel, which is the SIEM that helps us to align with the alerts and the incidents. We have a combination of public and private clouds, but everything is in Azure.
What is most valuable?
Its ability to scale is most valuable. There are certain periods of the year when we are busier, and we're able to scale up and scale down with Azure depending upon our needs.
What needs improvement?
They're already doing quite a bit. I'm not unsatisfied with anything that they're doing right now. They can maybe make the transitions a little smoother and improve its pricing. The pricing for the end-user packages is a bit high.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is very scalable. It is very simple to scale.
How are customer service and technical support?
You have to go through a lot of preliminary levels before you finally get to someone, but you can get a difficult problem solved. There is a process that you have to follow.
How was the initial setup?
As far as the setup goes, most of it is pretty simple. When we started working with Microsoft Intune and a little bit on the unified labeling, it became a bit more complicated, but we're getting through it.
Shared active directory and multifactor authentication (MFA) are a little bit difficult to introduce because once you put something on it, it affects all of their Office products and anything that deals with Microsoft, whether it is SharePoint, OneDrive, or something else. Often, we want to activate it for an app and not so much for everything else, but that's our peculiar quirk. I don't think there is anything that Microsoft needs to change necessarily.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing for the end-user packages is a bit high. It is full of very interesting services, but I would still like it to be less expensive.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Microsoft Azure a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Senior System Engineer at a engineering company with 11-50 employees
Easy to use with good scalability potential and good stability on offer
Pros and Cons
- "The product is rather stable. We haven't had any issues with it in that sense."
- "It would be ideal if they could reduce costs a bit. Right now, we find the product to be expensive."
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution to host the web server.
What is most valuable?
The product is very convenient for us. It ensures the website is set up right.
The solution can scale if you need it to. Expanding it is easy.
The product is rather stable. We haven't had any issues with it in that sense.
The solution is very easy to use.
What needs improvement?
I can't say that we have any complaints in terms of features or lack of capabilities within the product. Over the last two years, I'd say it's been so far so good.
It would be ideal if they could reduce costs a bit. Right now, we find the product to be expensive.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for around two years at this point. It hasn't been too long.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution so far has been reliable. We haven't had problems with stability over the last two years of use. There aren't bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's been good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of the solution is very good. If a company needs to expand it, they can do so rather easily. It shouldn't give them any trouble.
We don't currently have plans to increase the usage ourselves at this point. There's no scaling that will be done in the near future on our end.
How are customer service and technical support?
We've been in touch with technical support in the past. We had a question we needed them to answer and they were able to help us. I'd say they were knowledgeable and responsive and that we've been happy with the level of service so far.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing is based on usage. I'm not sure of the exact costs involved as it's not an aspect of the solution that is my responsibility.
That said, it is my understanding that it is a bit expensive.
What other advice do I have?
We're just a customer. We aren't a reseller or consultant and we don't have a professional business relationship with Microsoft.
We only really use the solution to host a website, and therefore we don't really use the full scope of features right now.
I'd recommend the solution to other organizations as it is rather easy to use.
Overall, we've been quite happy with the product. I'd rate it 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.
Platform Engineer and Infrastructure Management at Colciencias
A stable, scalable, and useful solution
Pros and Cons
- "It is stable and scalable. It is useful for many applications and services, such as SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, and OneDrive."
- "They can add more documentation about the solution."
What is our primary use case?
We use it for various services and business applications.
What is most valuable?
It is stable and scalable. It is useful for many applications and services, such as SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, and OneDrive.
What needs improvement?
They can add more documentation about the solution.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable. We have around 100 people in the organization.
How are customer service and technical support?
Their technical support is good. There are no problems.
How was the initial setup?
It is easy to set up.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution. It is a good solution.
I would rate Microsoft Azure a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Data Architect at Prolifics
The data factory is a valuable feature; ML component could be improved
Pros and Cons
- "The data factory feature."
- "Auto ML could be improved technically."
What is our primary use case?
My current project is to carry out a comparison between Azure, AWS, and GCP, the three variants of cloud in order to analyze the best possible solution. In terms of costing and services I've been carrying out a comparison between all three. We are currently building the machine learning pipeline. We're partners with Microsoft and I'm a data architect.
What is most valuable?
The data factory is a valuable feature. I come from a hardcore Microsoft background so I was able to relate to the data factory best among all the components as it's close to my existing system.
What needs improvement?
I think the pricing model could be improved. I have that clarity with AWS but with Azure it's not that easy. If I am building a solution on Azure, the first question that stakeholders will ask me is about the cost. If I'm using multiple services of Azure, then how do I figure that out given that it's all on cloud.
Technically, I would say there could definitely be improvement on the AutoML part, which is the machine learning component of Azure. I made a comparison between AutoML versus DataRobot, another vendor that provides machine learning. DataRobot is definitely ahead of Azure AutoML. Of course that could be because I'm using the licensed version of DataRobot versus the free version of AutoML but there does seem to be a gap.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for about six months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I haven't had any issues with stability. I think it's more to do with the volume of data that I am playing with which for now is only 5GB of data. I don't expect any problems.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I don't see any issue with scalability. But here again, on the cloud platform, there won't be any issue with the scalability but you need to understand the pricing. Once you have that, scaling will never be an issue.
How was the initial setup?
The complexity or otherwise of the initial setup depends on the person who will be using it. If you take the AutoAI services from other vendors, those are more graphical, more eye pleasing versus what Microsoft offers and less complicated to implement. With Azure ML, values have to be manually fed into the columns and that's clearly going to be more time consuming.
What other advice do I have?
There are multiple players in the market and this seems to be a good solution. It really depends on the use case and on the customer. I would personally choose AWS over Azure because that's where my experience is and I'm more familiar with AWS.
I would rate this solution a seven out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
General manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
A scalable solution that requires minimal administrative effort
Pros and Cons
- "The scalability is good."
- "I would like to see more advanced functionality in terms of information security."
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use Azure for our ERP system and DR usage. It is set up for multiple production workloads.
What is most valuable?
This solution requires minimal administrative effort.
The scalability is good.
The most valuable feature is Azure SQL.
What needs improvement?
Improvements need to be made with respect to the availability of third-party services.
I would like to see more advanced functionality in terms of information security.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Microsoft Azure for six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
There is room for improvement in terms of stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is one of the best features. We have thousands of users.
How are customer service and technical support?
I have been in contact with technical support and would rate them better than average. I find that it takes a long time to reach somebody who is a subject matter expert. This is because they first need to escalate requests from the level one or level two helpdesk. For the problems that we have experienced, we needed support directly from people with expertise.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward and the deployment can be completed within short time. Now we can deploy most components/services within a day or two.
What about the implementation team?
When we first implemented Azure, we engaged with a third-party system integrator. Now, however, we can do everything ourselves. We have approximately five people who do the maintenance of the cloud infrastructure.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price of Microsoft Azure is pretty good. Among the top market players, it’s usually the cheapest or the one after. Our usage is more than $1,000,000 USD annually.
What other advice do I have?
My advice for anybody who is considering this product is that it can be a good start for SME, up to MNC who needs to see their full environment, rather than just a particular system or area.
Overall, this is a good solution but there is room for improvement.
I would rate this solution 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.
Microsoft and Dev-ops Architect at Mphasis
Very easy to create a Kubernetes cluster
What is our primary use case?
Working Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) to create a Kubernetes cluster.
We are maintaining two environments of Kubernetes cluster on Azure using Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).
We have used other managed PaaS services like ACS, Database, and monitoring, integrated with Jenkins for continuous integration and continuous deployment.
How has it helped my organization?
We are running our product which is deployed on Azure AKS cluster. This really helps us to drive more business from customers.
What is most valuable?
- It's very easy to create a Kubernetes cluster with the Azure Console
- Able to connect to the cluster using Azure PowerShell
- Able to connect to the cluster using kubectl
- Very good help from Microsoft Knowledge Base and also from the community
- Very good support from the Microsoft team
- Easy to manage as the core part is handled by Microsoft
- Easy to add/scale up the cluster with more nodes by using the Azure console window or through scripting
- Can integrate plugins with Jenkins for auto deployment
- Integrated with a lot of open source tools for easy deployments and other functionalities like logging, monitoring, etc.
What needs improvement?
Better logging part when deployments are crashed, even when the entire cluster is crashed.
For how long have I used the solution?
One to three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Should always go with recommendations provided by Microsoft during the creation of new clusters. Otherwise, stability is an issue.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is very good.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support is excellent. Recently, we have encountered a few issues however, the customer support team helped us very quickly to come out of it.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did not previously use a different solution. Kubernetes is the one we are using for container orchestration through Azure-managed Kubernetes service.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very easy; straightforward.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Updated: December 2024
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