I am a technology consultant and pre-sales cloud solution architect.
Assistant Manager at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Optimized cloud solution with reliable recovery and fail services
Pros and Cons
- "Microsoft Azure is an optimized solution when we compare it to any other particular cloud solution."
- "There are multiple DevOps solutions and tools available in Microsoft Azure, but most of the time they are either in the build mode, meaning you don't get complete support for them because they are either making changes, or changing the names of the particular services. Sometimes, services vanish from the portal. We are not able to see that. I think they actually change the names of the services."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
These are the features I have found most valuable with Azure. For any particular cloud world, when we talk about the cloud computing model, it is all about agility, availability, how you are trying to scale up your environment, how you're providing high availability, your disaster recovery mechanism, and what is the service availability matrix that you're following? We then talk about the workloads which are being supported on the Microsoft platform. Then we come to the commercial side of those workloads. For example, if we are trying to migrate the Windows workload, then Microsoft Azure offers a lot of benefits for Windows and SQL licenses. We can include that in the picture while we are trying to draw a comparison between different providers. Because AWS does not provide that DAM facility, though there is something that they provide, but you need to put it on the installs, not on RDS. Make it easy to install.
The second thing about Azure is that if we talk about Gartner, IDC and Forrester, although AWS is leading the chart in the leader's quadrant, when we look at the recent growth and what companies are acquiring and how much business they are pulling in year to year, there is a greater spike in the Microsoft Azure growth as compared to AWS.
I have worked as a cloud solution architect in India and Microsoft Azure works on data centers. They have three different geographical locations where they put the data centers. So as per the ISO 27001 BSI compliance for DR, disaster recovery mechanism, you need to make sure that the primary and secondary data centers are separated by a geographical zone - which Microsoft Azure adheres to. That definitely makes it a good choice for the client who wants the data to be in India and to also follow the BSI compliance.
Other factors include the Azure Site Recovery. The ASR one-stop DR solution provides RPO and RTO. It also gives you failover and failback scenarios. AWS did not have that kind of platform earlier. They had DM, DMS and SMS for small scale and medium scale app and database migration, but they didn't have a one-stop DR solution. They recently acquired cloud in their platform. Microsoft Azure also recently acquired cloud. They have built that particular platform into their Azure Migrate, which is their cloud feasibilities function provider. If we need to do a feasibility assessment or dependency mapping, we can use that particular tool or the Azure Migrate. It's a very good tool. I use that tool for multiple things.
I am trying to draw a comparison between the two leading cloud providers.
When we try to do backup scenarios, Azure Site Recovery is supported with all kinds of platforms. But it is not capable when you are trying to do recovery of a database or a recovery of an application server which are already on HA, high availability. HA would mean that you have only done the clustering. If there was clustering there, then definitely the ASR does not support it. But if you don't have HA, if you don't have the clustering done, then definitely ASR would be supported in that particular scenario. You can also do big database migrations with the Azure Site Recovery if there is a single database. Otherwise, you can use native database solutions to migrate them to cloud. For example, SQL Enterprises uses the Always On, where you introduce a new machine into the clustering. Then you try to put that as a secondary, and then you migrate.
Otherwise, if you have SQL Standard, then you can use a log sheet mechanism, which can be used to migrate the data. For SAP HANA, you can use HSR, HANA Service Replication, and for Oracle you can use the Data Guard, the negative solutions supported, but definitely Azure is doing that, as well. When we talk about a typical DR scenario, the cost that you are giving within Microsoft Azure would be storage, then the Azure Site Recovery cost, and then the network readiness. Microsoft Azure is an optimized solution when we compare it to any other particular cloud solution.
What needs improvement?
In terms of what could be improved with Azure, I would like to see something like what Google has created with their cross-platform solution, Anthos. I would like to see some features like Anthos has. Secondly, there are multiple DevOps solutions and tools available in Microsoft Azure, but most of the time they are either in the build mode, meaning you don't get complete support for them because they are either making changes, or changing the names of the particular services. Sometimes, services vanish from the portal. We are not able to see that. I think they actually change the names of the services.
For example, they had advanced data analytics in Office 365. They actually removed it and they now include all those features in Windows Defender.
One more thing that I would like to say is that AWS works on availability zones. You have multiple availability zones in a particular region, which means that in that particular region you have more than one data center. If any of their single data centers fail, they can do a failover to the next immediate data center, which is in the same region. But in the case of Azure, if the data center fails for one particular region, they need to do a failover to different region altogether, which is separated by a geographical distance. That will be a kind of DR scenario.
Microsoft should focus on the higher availability of data centers where they can have more than one data center in a single region. I think they have implemented that kind of solution in the USA. They are going to do it soon in Europe and other countries as well, but it still is an upcoming feature. It's not completely built. They need to build that.
The second thing which I feel regarding Microsoft Azure in India, is that they have less case studies when we talk about SAP on Azure as compared to SAP on AWS. There are fewer numbers of case studies on the portal. You can't find any. Whereas when you go into the India section for AWS, you will find plenty in terms of SAP and cloud.
Case studies are not there. If you have case studies, good case studies of large banks or any kind of government sectors, those case studies would definitely help to build customer trust on that particular platform.
There is one more thing which I would like to talk about in terms of costing. When you talk about AWS, they have three different types of costing models - partial upfront, no upfront, and all upfront. Azure has two models, all up front and no upfront. But also in these costing models, AWS has multiple other payment modes in terms of one-year or three-year. Azure does not have that. It lacks that particular costing mechanism, which it needs so there are more costing models. There is a lack of pricing flexibility, and I would like to see more costing models and licensing.
The third thing I would like to say, is that Azure was pretty bad in terms of the recent service off-time for Microsoft Azure and AWS. They didn't complete 99.99% of service they provide to the customers as compared to AWS. AWS data centers have also gone out recently, I think, four or five service interruptions, but definitely Azure should be keeping that in mind. I think with the help of clustering data centers in a single region, they can achieve that.
I do not want to take any credit away from Azure or AWS, but definitely Anthos is a big plus point for DCP. Azure should also build that kind of platform. Secondly, they can work on creating more data centers to build the regional availability, which AWS already has across geography. The third thing they can work on is their costing models and the RI models - make them a bit more flexible for the client.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working on Azure for the past seven years.
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.
842,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Regarding stability, Azure is doing well in terms of IES portfolio. They need to progress on the implementation of more data centers in a single region, which would increase their service level agreement by a little. They definitely need to work on their DevOps services. AWS' DevOps services are pretty good. If you go into ratings, the leading raters or the leading magazines, Forrester or Gartner or IDC, rate AWS services much higher compared to Azure. So, they need to increase on their service.
The third thing on the stability factor is that they publish more cases on the core infrastructure migration, the mission critical applications like SAP migration or Apple migrations. Putting the case studies on the portal would alleviate the doubt that Azure is stable. Azure is stable, but the case studies have to be there to support that.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
When we talk about scale and scale out mechanisms, this works pretty seamlessly in Azure. For example, if I need to use the spot instances that AWS has (spot instances are those instances which are actually created at times when you need a high memory or a high CPU for some time) you can configure a spot instance and the spot instance occurs, and it does the load checkpoint. Azure does the same thing with scaling out. However, one thing regarding RI is that AWS does not support that, but when I am in a particular RI, for example my family is the DS series, I am in DS3 or DS4, if I want to scale up, I can scale up with the same RI, but if I need to scale down, I cannot scale down unless I remove that RI and create a new one. I cannot scale into a different family altogether.
Cross-family scaling is not there. Cross-family scaling would help because sometimes being on cloud machines which are in RI, those machines have been used for one year and are currently a very small application host or they are hosting applications or IA services, etc... Now, that particular application has been, or is getting decommissioned, and the company wants to leave the same RI machines for a different application altogether for which they want that particular application to perform on a higher computer issue. For that particular thing I need to cancel that RI and with the remaining my budget, and with the call deduction that Microsoft does, I need to purchase a new RI. If the cross-family RI is there, then it is definitely smoother, and the priority won't be there. So, it will not be an economic blow for the company.
How are customer service and support?
When you open a normal case, Azure has a response matrix. They don't have a resolution matrix - at what particular time that will be resolved. The maximum resolution matrix is not there. But when we talk about the premium support, then Azure has a response matrix and a resolution matrix, and they also have the escalation matrix.
When I was working in Progressive Infotech, we had the advanced support subscription with Microsoft Azure Support. We were given multiple hours of advanced support. We were also provided with other things. I felt then that when you're opening a support ticket, and the support ticket priority is less or if the ticket that you opened is not in the premium bracket, the resolution will be late and the support matrix won't follow the time. They have a response. I think the response matrix is there for basic support and for advanced support. Premium support has the resolution matrix, as well. But the support center needs to have a service level agreement, which has the response matrix, the resolution matrix, and escalation matrix. That will build more trust from the partners in the OEM. AWS actually does not have that, but their response and resolution are pretty good because all the cases that you open in AWS are paid.
How was the initial setup?
Azure materials are pretty good compared to AWS, or any other platform materials. Azure has multiple platforms, and MS Learn is where you can learn about the platforms and the services. Then you have Docs.Microsoft.com, which you can use as a troubleshoot document or understanding of how to implement that solution. With the help of Microsoft Azure, the Microsoft platform, you have multiple types of cases which you can open in the Microsoft Portal. The premium cases are there. Then you have support cases, as well. Azure is pretty good there. Their support matrix is pretty good. The materials are there, the support matrix is there. So, that is pretty good.
What other advice do I have?
Microsoft Azure has multiple levels that an organization can take. Once they had the silver, bronze and the gold partnerships, and in terms of the productivity there is the Office 365 suite or the Azure suite, and they have specialty certifications, as well. You have the premium certifications. If you are also providing support to the client, then as a manager you can join Microsoft as an expert MSP. I think there are 50 or 55 in the country. It started at 15, and it grew to 55. Because many companies who are putting out tenders or an RFP or RFQ, mention in the PQ criteria that the partner should be MSP certified.
It would definitely help. It would act as a USP for you because there are multiple companies in India, more than hundreds and hundreds of companies in India and outside India. The customer would know the first company which is an expert MSP and the Microsoft partners would also give the lead to those export MSPs. Currently, you can also elevate the level by being on a fast track team, which is a one-stop team for Microsoft implementation and support for the Office 365 platform. The fast track team can be a very good asset because you can get a faster certification and then you сan be on the fast track board. You can actually make money when you do a successful implementation or support for a particular client. So the value is there.
On a scale of one to ten, I would give Microsoft Azure an eight.
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.
IT Project Manager at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Reliable single sign-on authentication with access to multiple Microsoft applications
Pros and Cons
- "We like that you sign in only once and that grants access to all of the Microsft applications, as well as others such as ServiceNow and SAP Concur."
- "Ease of use could be improved."
What is our primary use case?
We use this solution for single sign-on authentication.
What is most valuable?
We like that you sign in only once and that grants access to all of the Microsft applications, as well as others such as ServiceNow and SAP Concur.
What needs improvement?
Ease of use could be improved. You wouldn't just be able to use this solution without being trained on it.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have Microsoft Azure for approximately five years.
We are always updating Microsoft.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's been pretty stable. There have only been one or two instances where Microsoft went down. One time, it was the building's main operations center that was struck by lightning and caught on fire.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have 20,000 users in our organization who are using this solution.
As we acquire other companies, we will increase the usage.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support needs improvement. If you are able to get a rep then it's great. If not, you are left hanging.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Previously, we used Okta.
We switched over because we got the Enterprise package with Microsoft Suite.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was completed by our internal Microsoft team.
What was our ROI?
Microsoft Azure definitely provides us with a return on investment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Licensing costs for Enterprise are on an annual basis. In addition, we pay to have Gartner help us negotiate.
What other advice do I have?
It is best to have a dedicated team because it is not easy to use and get set up or to get acclimatized in the amount of training that you need to become familiar with the solution.
I would rate Microsoft Azure a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid 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

Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Azure. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
842,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Technical Support Engineer at Netco Security Solutions
Good solution for small or medium-sized businesses and good performance
Pros and Cons
- "The performance of Azure DevOps services is really impressive."
- "The price should be lower."
What is most valuable?
The performance of Azure DevOps services is really impressive. It really demonstrates the value of the service.
We've had a good experience with their technical support. They are always available when needed.
What needs improvement?
I haven't been involved with continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) services, but I hope there will be more training sessions for them. Other companies and platforms provide technical webinars and training on their websites.
I wish I could learn more about CI/CD, but the resources aren't readily available. I haven't been able to find webinars or training sessions. Maybe I'm not searching correctly, or the information isn't presented clearly.
The price should be lower. My company used the demo product because of the cost. Price is an important point for all clients and companies who want to obtain this solution.
I also have a question: what about review platforms for forensic technology? Is there a way to integrate these platforms with Azure? It would be great to have a web-based review platform integrated with Azure. Currently, we use a third-party software to launch this review platform. Is there any way to review documents within a web-based solution in Azure? This is something I wonder about.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used Azure for a year and a half, specifically for DevOps services. Unfortunately, I worked with a demo product, as the company couldn't purchase the actual product. I mainly used Azure DevOps repos and some basic concepts like Azure state plans.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Azure solutions are stable. Many companies find clients who want the solutions because of the stability and high performance.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's a good solution for small or medium-sized businesses.
How was the initial setup?
The setup is very straightforward. The Azure services and platform for storage are easy to understand, with clear steps. It's easy for any user to install services on the platform.
I haven't had any issues with integrating Azure services. We use the integration services with Azure with a very intuitive UI. So, I didn't face any issues while integrating Azure services.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate it an eight out of ten. There are a lot of benefits. The integration options for all services are great.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Last updated: Jul 30, 2024
Flag as inappropriateCEO at Semper Systemis Ltd
A flexible and highly scalable solution that provides a host of security tools and a responsive support team
Pros and Cons
- "The product provides a host of security tools."
- "The solution must improve its pricing."
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution for hosting business applications and the test environment.
What is most valuable?
The compliance is really good. It provides visibility of our top risks and recommendations on how to close them. Sentinel is really good from a security standpoint. The product provides a host of security tools. We deploy and configure everything ourselves. So far, we have not had any issues related to Azure.
What needs improvement?
The solution must improve its pricing.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for a couple of years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate the stability of the tool a nine and a half out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The tool is highly scalable, depending on the design. I've not had any issues. We have to factor in cost and design. About 2000 people use the solution in our organization. It is extensively used in our organization. Based on business growth, we might increase the number of users.
How are customer service and support?
We had some technical issues. The support team was ready to support us once we raised a ticket. They responded in a reasonable time and escalated the issue when necessary.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is pretty straightforward. The information is readily available, and there are many local partners who are extremely supportive. Deployment is just a matter of getting the login set up. It was pretty fast.
What about the implementation team?
Our in-house team had been trained to deploy the tool, so they knew what to do. We have a few trained cloud admins who can manage the product. There are a lot of automation options, so they don't need a big crowd to work with it.
What was our ROI?
The product has a good ROI. It depends on how we handle the cost based on resource creation and the data we build based on our setup.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We have a licensing option from our partner in which the solution is bundled up with a whole host of other services. There are no additional costs associated with the product.
What other advice do I have?
It is one of the best tools in the market. It's a very good cloud service. It has a lot of good security options. The reporting options are also good. The on-premise AD is fantastic. The tool gives us flexibility in deployment. If we get the design wrong, that's not Azure’s problem. It's our problem. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Cloud Architect at a legal firm with 10,001+ employees
A classic solution in jeopardy of losing its flexibility due to becoming SaaS
Pros and Cons
- "If you're interested in going with Microsoft, my advice would be to do it. Everybody's using Microsoft."
- "The support, the cost, the way they have the tiers, this could all be improved."
What is our primary use case?
I work for a Naval Shipyard. We build fighter ships for fighter aircraft. The Navy is our sponsor. Everything that we do is Navy or Navy-related. A lot of what we do is classified; however, I can say that we do some robotic AI work.
Microsoft is our corporate authentication piece, so everything has to authenticate to Microsoft Azure. Everything in the whole entire company has to authenticate there. Even if you're building something, you have to be leading up to the point where it's going to authenticate to Microsoft. They are the vendor of choice, as far as authentication, but they're not the vendor of choice as far as all things at the shipyard.
Our entire organization uses this solution. Size-wise, we're similar to a small city.
What is most valuable?
No features really stand out in particular. The reason that we use Microsoft Azure is that Microsoft has left us no choice — that's what I would say. If you use Microsoft, you've been curtailed in your on-prem data center. There are certain things we can do with Azure on-prem that we can't do on the cloud. We're now fully in the cloud. But even most of the Office products, which are in Office 365, are still on-prem. I came to this company to do cloud, but the company isn't ready to go to the cloud. It sounds like upper management is going to be changing some of the business structures. The better information I can give upper management, as far as our features and capabilities, will help them to make better business decisions. That's kind of where I am currently.
What needs improvement?
The support, the cost, the way they have the tiers, this could all be improved. For example, our company has been purchasing Microsoft Office 365 cloud licensing for approximately five years, and we do not have any production. We have five divisions and these divisions have different classification and levels of data. This company has changed hands over the years. We now lead the was as far as IT, but the corporate office didn't do a top-down infrastructure. It's a long story, but the way that we do things is not the way that everybody else does things. Just because others are moving to XYZ doesn't mean we're going to go there today. We might look and see how everybody else is doing everything, and once we decide we're ready to go, then we'll go. It might be 10 years later. It might be next week, but we don't follow the crowd. We follow the Navy.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Microsoft since the very beginning.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Although I am not the administrator, there are some things that are kind of quirky. The biggest problem is that we're a really, really, really big SharePoint user. Everything that's 100% SharePoint online, is not a one-for-one into the SharePoint that we have on-prem.
Security is a problem, that's why we only allow web products for Office 365. SharePoint doesn't give us everything that we need. These are a few of the drawbacks for us.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is complex, but only because our company is complex.
How are customer service and technical support?
Support depends. For the professional services, they're usually pretty good.
For other divisions, the support hasn't been that good. Anytime we have problems and we try to ask for support, what we paid for is one thing and what we're getting is another thing. Because of this, we often have to renegotiations with Microsoft.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very complex because we're a complex corporation.
The review board has actually approved all of the Microsoft Office 2016 products and applications. We have the licenses, however, we're not using them.
Teams is the one collaborative product that everybody wants to use. We've approved Microsoft Teams on the web only. Because of our security constraint, we don't want our users to use every feature that's actually on Teams. We don't want to allow third-party vendors to use that application in order to get into our environment.
For example, you can share your screen, but I can't share my screen. I can share an application if it's been approved, but I can't share my screen. The only way I can actually talk to you is if we talk about topical issues that you would read about in the newspaper or something like that. I can't tell you anything that's company proprietary.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Right now we're looking at Microsoft TFS, Azure on DevOps. However, all of the features have to be configured by someone. It's not that ADO can't do it, it's just that it would take a lot of time — we'd have to have someone physically come in and do it. That would require Microsoft Professional Services which costs a lot of money. Often, people can just buy stuff off the shelf when they want to use another product. For example, all the ALM tools actually integrate with TFS. So, if we have a product that already has that capability, why are we purchasing those new products? Why are we doing a POC for that? So that's what kind of hat I wear here.
What other advice do I have?
If you're interested in going with Microsoft, my advice would be to do it. Everybody's using Microsoft.
Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of seven.
The problem is that I'm an old Microsoft engineer. I like to build it the way I want to build it. I don't want it to be SaaS. I liked the fact that you could build your servers in the AWS environment and build out the servers the way you want. They're actually taking away a lot of the applications. More and more companies are switching to SaaS or IAS, etc.
Now, the structure is going towards SaaS. I think I have a three-year lifecycle on my licenses and then I will have to drop or either migrate my data to SaaS. It's probably cheaper for people to go that way, but it gives you less flexibility. There's probably more security, but you're depending on the vendor's security or however they have that set up. You lose a lot of your flexibility when you go into SaaS.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Senior Administrator at Wipro Limited
It is very easy to install and start up with the cloud environment
Pros and Cons
- "The solution is user-friendly and compatible."
- "The platform should be available at the same price worldwide."
What is our primary use case?
We are using the solution as a cloud environment.
What is most valuable?
The solution is user-friendly and compatible.
What needs improvement?
The platform should be available at the same price worldwide.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft Azure for the past 5 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I don't see any major bugs in the cloud environment.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Two hundred people are using the solution at present.
How are customer service and support?
They are quick to solve issues.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
Microsoft provides very easy documentation, for each and every resource. So there is a very clear documentatio. It is very easy to install and start up with the cloud environment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is cheap.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Commercial Director at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Helps save costs and offers an all-in-one package compared to its competitors' tools
Pros and Cons
- "The solution's technical support was very good."
- "The permissions and controls in the product are not easy to use."
What is our primary use case?
I use the solution in my company to virtualize apps that haven't quite become SaaS products yet. My organization gets to deal with travel-based companies, mining companies, and logistics companies that have software on which their business runs, for whom we need to put such software tools into a cloud instance because there are no current SaaS offerings in the market. My company tends to host certain software products on Azure and then deploy such solutions through Azure Virtual Desktop.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it is a quite cheap tool compared to any other private cloud offerings. It makes good commercial sense to have Microsoft Azure when you compare it to an on-premises infrastructure.
What needs improvement?
The permissions and controls in the product are not easy to use. From an improvement perspective, the permissions and controls in the product need to be made easier. I believe that the product is working to improve the native domain controllers in the cloud. My company studies the road map of Microsoft Azure quite frequently and closely. I believe the solution is working on areas where my company finds ideas or areas for improvement.
The product's current price needs to be lowered from an improvement perspective.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft Azure for four and a half years. My company has a partnership with Microsoft.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten. The scalability of the product is a selling point of the solution.
The product is suitable for companies of all sizes. Small companies can use Office 365. Requirements might arise for businesses, regardless of the size of the companies.
How are customer service and support?
The solution's technical support was very good.
How was the initial setup?
The product's initial setup phase was simple. There are some complexities attached to the solution when it comes to certain niches and during migrations.
The solution is deployed on a public cloud.
What was our ROI?
The product helps save costs for our company since we need not refresh the hardware part every four years. The box provided by the solution can be turned on and off. Most of our company's clients save a fair bit of money with Microsoft Azure.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I rate the product price a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is high price, and ten is low price.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Microsoft Azure offers a better all-in-one package than Google Workspace or G Suite. Compared to its competitors, Microsoft Azure is a much better option for mature businesses.
What other advice do I have?
I recommend the product to those who plan to use it.
I rate the overall tool a nine 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
Product Architect at Wolters Kluwer
Limited maintenance, good interface, helpful support
Pros and Cons
- "The valuable features of Microsoft Azure are that it is cloud-based and has good storage. The storage is completely managed by Azure. We do not need to do any patching of security because it is handled by Azure which is a benefit. The solution is fully compatible with the Microsoft technology stack and is very scalable."
- "The solution should improve the shared cache. For the shared cache, Microsoft uses RADIUS third-party services. We have a lot of trouble with RADIUS and I suppose that is due to the fact that is not owned completely by Microsoft."
What is our primary use case?
Our target markets are advisors and all the staff they need to manage for their customers, such as regulatory information, accounting tax, tax income, tax regulation, accounting, balance sheets. We have also targeted different niche countries. It's a very regulated market and these are our principal customer.
At the corporate level, we have another division. That does not produce or sell software, but content, normative content, educational content.
For the software division, we work with advisors and payroll consultants.
How has it helped my organization?
Microsoft Azure has helped organizations because they no longer need to do a lot of server maintenance.
What is most valuable?
The valuable features of Microsoft Azure are that it is cloud-based and has good storage. The storage is completely managed by Azure. We do not need to do any patching of security because it is handled by Azure which is a benefit. The solution is fully compatible with the Microsoft technology stack and is very scalable.
All the Microsoft Azure's interface for managing the portal is very good and responsive.
What needs improvement?
The solution should improve the shared cache. For the shared cache, Microsoft uses RADIUS third-party services. We have a lot of trouble with RADIUS and I suppose that is due to the fact that is not owned completely by Microsoft.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft Azure for approximately five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Microsoft Azure is highly stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Microsoft Azure is scalable in my experience.
We have approximately 400 customers with many terabytes of data. We have some customers that are using this solution that has 400,000 customers.
At the moment our product is intensively being used by the advisors that are onboarded because our software is the primary tool for the advisors.
How are customer service and support?
If we have a problem with Microsoft Azure we open a ticket with Microsoft and they respond very quickly and are very helpful.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have previously used other solutions but nothing comparable to the Microsoft Azure cloud solution.
We chose Microsoft Azure because it's tied to Microsoft technologies. We are already working with Visual Studio and other Microsoft technologies, such as .NET, and other on-premise products. The migration path is all shorter and our corporation suggested using Microsoft Azure.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is difficult because when you move into a fully managed cloud environment with a lot of services, you change your mind completely about how you operate and in the first month we had to learn a lot of tasks.
Looking back to the past the difficulty was not the interface of the solution, there was a lot of information to know and to have knowledge about concepts for cloud service that took time. There was a lot of documentation and finding the correct one can be difficult sometimes. When I used Google to find something, I can find a lot of information but the problem is to find the current information or the most effective information.
There is a lot of different elements you need to set up or configure, such as the environment, monitoring, deployment of applications, preparing the dashboard for monitoring, and the continuous development integration by clients.
We have two kinds of deployment, a continuous integration deployment when we don't change the database schema. This is fully unattended and can be done online with no problem for the users. It takes approximately 30 minutes but the time can vary.
Once a month, or less, there is a major release. In this case, often we modify the database schema. This requires stopping all the applications, no user can have access while the modification to the database is taking place. The operation takes from half an hour to an hour and a half depending on the database schema and the types of modification required. When we change the structure of tables we have hundreds of thousands of records that can take a lot of time.
We are moving to a more continuous development strategy. We are trying to have more applications because at the moment we have approximately seven web apps and a lot of services, but they are too tightly bound to the database. They're trying to divide them for more flexibility and to have continuous deployment. We had no continuous deployment. Normally we deployed some minor releases once or two a week, and there is a major release once a month. We are moving to have more continuous deployment.
We are working this year on test automation from unit test integration. They're investing a lot in this because we managed numbers for the tax declaration. Regulation can be problematic.
What about the implementation team?
We are producing, maintaining, and are selling solutions for our customers, such as Microsoft Azure. We do not use an integrator.
We have a two-person team that does the implementation and maintenance of the solution. Once you prepare the infrastructure, sometimes we have to improve by changing some things. Recently we had to prepare for the disaster recovery from Europe to Europe, and we had to invest time in the pipelines and deployment.
What was our ROI?
When you have on-premise solutions you have to manage lots of aspects, such as security, patching, large expense, and acquiring hardware and servers. With Microsoft Azure, you have the ability to activate a lot of processing power and then dismiss it when you do not need it. It saves you a lot of money not have to have the infrastructure or the maintenance.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The cost of Microsoft Azure depends on the services that are used and there can be a discount at a corporate level from Microsoft.
What other advice do I have?
In the next release of Microsoft Azure, they will be addressing the problem of the continuous ETL workload to continually extract the data and ingest it in a docker analysis database. This will be released in the next version released in 2022. Microsoft Azure is continuously improving the solution for the market.
It is important to know that cloud services work differently than on-premise solutions.
I was talking with our colleague in the internal department to let me test the scalability of his system because we have a process from our application to the online shop. They are having a problem with the scalability test because of their hardware. They have hardware that they can't scale the testing environment. Using Microsoft Azure we do not have these issues because it is on the cloud.
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.

Buyer's Guide
Download our free Microsoft Azure Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Updated: December 2024
Popular Comparisons
Amazon AWS
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)
Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode)
Google Cloud
Alibaba Cloud
Google Firebase
SAP S4HANA on AWS
VMware Cloud Foundation
Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)
11:11 Cloud
DigitalOcean
SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud
Equinix Metal
Google Compute Engine
NTT Cloud
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Microsoft Azure Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Quick Links
Learn More: Questions:
- Gartner's Magic Quadrant for IaaS maintains Amazon Web Service at the top of the Leaders quadrant. Do you agree?
- PaaS solutions: Areas for improvement?
- Rackspace, Dimension Data, and others that were in last year's Challenger quadrant became Niche Players: Agree/ Disagree
- What Is The Biggest Difference Between Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud Platform?
- Which backup and recovery solution can backup Azure machines to its own (dedicated) cloud?
- Which is better - SAP Cloud Platform or Microsoft Azure?
- Which solution do you prefer: Alibaba Cloud or Microsoft Azure?
- How does Microsoft MDS (vs Informatica MDM) fit with Azure architecture?
- SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud (HEC): how to migrate to Microsoft Azure?
- Does F5 Advanced WAF work with Azure App Service?
Microsoft Azure is the #1 ranked solution in top Infrastructure as a Service Clouds and PaaS Services. I like it ,its easy to use.