The most valuable feature is the interface.
Cloud Consultant at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Stable, easy to setup, and quick to deploy with a good interface
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature is the interface."
- "The price could be improved as well as the interface speed, and technical support."
What is most valuable?
What needs improvement?
The price could be improved as well as the interface speed, and technical support.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft Azure for four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This solution is stable.
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What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Microsoft Azure is a scalable product.
We have more than ten users.
How are customer service and support?
I am not satisfied with the support. It seems that they outsource to different companies with people who don't even know the basics.
You get asked several questions but never get any resolutions.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was easy and it only takes a few minutes to install.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The cost is a little high and can be more competitive.
What other advice do I have?
Microsoft Azure is a good service and I recommend it.
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
IT Analyst at a government with 501-1,000 employees
The Canvas flow interface brings a very nice functionality that improves self-learning.
What is most valuable?
The Canvas flow interface brings a very nice functionality that improves self-learning.
How has it helped my organization?
Selecting and applying a machine learning algorithm is not a click-and-run process. In this case, clustering our data has helped us to find patterns and trends that were not visible using conventional (internal) classification.
What needs improvement?
Stronger R integration in a circular fashion (Azure->R->Azure). Nowadays, it has an unidirectional bias.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used Machine Learning Studio for the last six months.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
We've had no issues with the deployment.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
By using a free account for cloud services can bring you "queued" status, but normally it runs smoothly. The quota defined for free account is enough for a variety of experiments and none of the features are blocked.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We've had no issues with the scalability.
How are customer service and technical support?
Customer Service:
As a cloud service, online chat and email service are available, but the community forums are the best place to solve issues.
Technical Support:We have a support maintenance agreement for Windows/Office.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
There are a few competitors in place, and their number is increasing, but friendliness is the strong point of AzureML, comparing to Amazon AWS or BigML.
How was the initial setup?
It does not involve any setup, just having an Outlook or Microsoft account.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Using a free account leads to offline projects. For online projects those issues must be evaluated according to client side company's environment.
What other advice do I have?
Machine learning is just one part of the whole data science cycle. Big data (streaming, video, etc.) or deep learning needs must be addressed with additional tools. But for prediction/classification this is a fantastic tool.
Below is a PCA graph generated by K-means training model and its Qlik Sense panel. The idea is to segment unlabeled data based on numerical features in order to find common patterns that can be grouped, named clusters.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Head of PMO and Service Delivery Management at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Easy to use, simple setup, and reliable
Pros and Cons
- "Microsoft Azure has been easy to use in my experience."
- "The local support is fair but it is sometimes limited, the service could be better."
What is our primary use case?
We are using Microsoft Azure for hosting our applications in a secure environment. We are using AI and machine learning models.
What is most valuable?
Microsoft Azure has been easy to use in my experience.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft Azure for approximately two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Microsoft Azure is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have approximately 50 people using the solution in my organization.
How are customer service and support?
The local support is fair but it is sometimes limited, the service could be better.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward.
What about the implementation team?
I am able to do the implementation of the solution.
We have some system engineers and developers that manage the solution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price of the solution could be cheaper in general. We are on a monthly subscription to the solution.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution to others.
I rate Microsoft Azurean eight 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.
CEO at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Easy to use, stable, and no installation required
Pros and Cons
- "Microsoft Azure is easy to use."
- "I would prefer Microsoft Azure to increase the free trial, then developers can take advantage, and it could increase their sales."
What is most valuable?
Microsoft Azure is easy to use.
What needs improvement?
I would prefer Microsoft Azure to increase the free trial, then developers can take advantage, and it could increase their sales.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft Azure for approximately three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Microsoft Azure is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have approximately six customers using this solution.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support could be faster and the information should be more precise.
How was the initial setup?
The installation is straightforward because there is no installation required.
What about the implementation team?
The number of support staff that is required depends on the use case.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
There is a monthly fee you need to pay for the use of Microsoft Azure.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution to others.
I rate Microsoft Azure an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Enterprise Technology Architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Can be used to modernize environments and reduce the time spent on building infrastructures
Pros and Cons
- "I think the most useful feature has been the remote desktop. It has been very helpful when customers have old applications that are not architected to run remotely."
- "In my opinion, what could be improved is making the actual costs more predictable. It is very difficult to estimate the cost or the budget you are going to need to run your environment in Azure Cloud. You have to be a specialist to understand how you will be charged, which constantly changes."
What is our primary use case?
We have been using it to modernize customers' environments. We propose that the customers consider moving a number of things into the public cloud instead of building and maintaining everything on-premise.
How has it helped my organization?
The organization can focus more on real business problems instead of IT problems. It can also reduce the time spent setting up the infrastructure. This then makes the organization more agile and, in a lot of cases, more reliable. With the public cloud, if your design is okay, the chance of running into a serious outage is, in most cases, lower than that when relying on your own on-premise IT infrastructure, particularly in the case of companies with 50 to 500 people that typically don't have very big IT budgets.
What is most valuable?
I think the most useful feature has been the remote desktop. It has been very helpful when customers have old applications that are not architected to run remotely.
What needs improvement?
In my opinion, what could be improved is making the actual costs more predictable. It is very difficult to estimate the cost or the budget you are going to need to run your environment in Azure Cloud. You have to be a specialist to understand how you will be charged, which constantly changes.
As for additional features, it would be great if the pricing could be cheaper for those trying to study and use the cloud. Having a discounted pricing scheme or even a free usage scheme, like a sandbox that is free to use on a continuous basis, for those who are studying would help them to actually generate more business later on. The more people learn to use the clouds, the more business they will actually attract.
They will start pushing solutions into the cloud, but if they have no time or opportunity to learn to use it, they will not be confident in proposing cloud solutions. So until they have been able to validate it in a test environment or a learning environment, they won't take the risk and propose a cloud solution.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been involved with this solution for one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I think Microsoft Azure is fairly stable. It also depends on how you set up your design.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
As advertised, the scalability should never be an issue. The only thing that would stop you from scaling would be that your application has an architecture that is not scalable.
How are customer service and technical support?
For public clouds, customer service/technical support is okay. In general, the documentation is very good.
How was the initial setup?
For those who are familiar with Azure, the initial setup is not that complex. However, for those who are using Azure for the first time, it's probably a bit more involved because they may need to create their own virtual data centers in the cloud with the necessary security measures. I think that often this is a bit underestimated mostly because of a lack of knowledge on the part of the new customer.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Software licensing models can be expensive depending on what you need compared to open source solutions, for example. However, if you don't have the technical skills, you may be better off paying for a license and support instead of trying to use open source solutions.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Microsoft Azure at eight on a scale from one to ten.
I would advice others to take the time to study it carefully because there's a lot to understand and a lot to know before putting a solution in the clouds. Don't underestimate the complexity.
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
Architecture and Solutions Director at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
A stable platform with instant availability of resources
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature is the instant availability of resources."
- "The initial setup is quite complex because of the number of options that are available."
What is our primary use case?
We are a system integrator and Microsoft Azure is one of the products we implement for our clients. We offer a service for DR solutions with it.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the instant availability of resources.
What needs improvement?
The initial setup is quite complex because of the number of options that are available.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Azure is a very stable product.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This is a scalable solution. Our clients are small and medium-sized businesses.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is complex because there are a lot of options used to configure it.
What other advice do I have?
I can recommend this solution because of its capability and scalability. In terms of improvements, I cannot think of any specific requests for new features at this time.
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: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
Sr System Engineer at a outsourcing company with 501-1,000 employees
We moved our accounting database from an in-house SQL Server to MS Azure cloud and saw a significant increase in performance.
Valuable Features:
High availability rate anywherem, anytime.
Periodic workloads options let me pay only for the time I have used it.
It is easy to backup database via BCP program or tools available on codeplex site.
It supports multiple languages such as Java, .NET, Ruby and PHP.
Room for Improvement:
Needs fast Internet connectivity.
Fear of being data being hacked or captured.
Other Advice:
We moved our accounting database from an in-house SQL Server to MS Azure cloud and saw a significant increase in performance.
We can now connect to the database even while roaming and back it up anywhere, anytime.
Data replication services make it highly reliable and always available.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Stable and flexible, easy to install, and the support is good
Pros and Cons
- "It's a flexible solution."
- "We need more customization and support for doing so."
What is our primary use case?
We are using Microsoft Azure to access the Azure cloud database.
What is most valuable?
It's a flexible solution.
What needs improvement?
We need more customization and support for doing so.
I would like to see more customization on the DevOps side.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft Azure for approximately two years. The organization has been it for more than five years.
We are working with the current version.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's a stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We plan to continue using it in the future.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support is very good.
How was the initial setup?
The installation is straightforward.
If you want to install it, it would have to be on a VMware virtual machine.
If you have some experience, it doesn't take much more than thirty minutes to an hour to complete the installation.
What about the implementation team?
I completed the installation myself.
What other advice do I have?
This is a good product and I recommend it to others who are interested in using it.
I would rate Microsoft Azure an eight 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.
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SQL Azure is a service, and even it is pretty much the same as a SQL 2012/2014 server, you have to take in mind some considerations that can affect your application or your intentions on what use you will give to the SQL Engine. You can find links on the web that show the basic differences between SQL Server and SQL azure. The principal caveats is the way you can interact with the SQL Azure service and the SQL Transact commands that you can work with at an administrator level. You are limited on this commands and the things that you can accomplish. Also, there are some functionality (like temporary tables) or field types that do not work or exist on SQL Azure.
Also there is a limit on the number of transactions per second that you can realize, it is called throttling, you have to keep in mind that if you expect to do a great amount of transactions per second, SQL Azure could not be the service that you need.
There is also limits on the DB size that SQL Azure can handle. I think that right know this limit is set on 150GB. You can work around this limitation with DB federation, but requires some additional work on your queries side.
For a regular database operations and maintenance, it will fit well. It is a perfect integration for PAAS solutions.