Azure Stack Reviews

Our company uses the solution for normal production and visibility of our systems. We have 400 users and are at proof of concept while we complete governance. 

The solution integrates and runs well with other Microsoft tools. 

The whole package works very well together for identity management, defending endpoints or servers, and the CM.

Documentation for enrollment is very good. 

The solution could be less expensive. 

So many new features are added at a fast pace that it is sometimes hard to keep up with all the solution offers. 

I have been using Microsoft-based solutions for 23 years. The solution has been added to the mix along the way. 

The solution is stable. 

The solution is scalable. 

We do not have scalability experience because we are in the process of finalizing the cloud adoption framework and giving the green light for production. We have to finalize the governance and other things before we will allow production. While we wait, we are using the solution for proof of concept things. 

Technical support has worked very well.

From our experiences, technical support is rated a ten out of ten. 

If you want to do setup right, then it requires time and is complex. The risks are high if you deploy too quickly. 

We are partnered with consultants for implementation to ensure proper governance and frameworks. 

We will have an agreement with a partner to provide support and maintain at least a part of the solution with our in-house team. 

Pricing could be improved so I rate it an eight out of ten. 

We use Microsoft products but did conduct a lightweight comparison. Because we rely very heavily on Microsoft on-premises, we immediately saw the benefits of using the solution instead of AWS or Google. 

The solution is developing very fast so new features are always being added. It is almost hard to keep up with everything the solution offers. 

The solution has been working very well for our company. For financial institutions, I recommend its use along with Microsoft Identity.

I rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

Our company uses the solution to host and run an application in the cloud. We have 25,000 customers who use our application. 

The solution pairs well with other MS services and saves us a lot of money. 

Overall support needs improvement because they are not agile across services. 

I have been using the solution for three years. 

The solution is stable. 

The word scalability is a misnomer. It is generally said that the cloud has unlimited scalability but that is where we face challenges. When we try to scale the system from one plan to another, our DevOps engineer reports that the system is failing. We have reached out to Microsoft but they have been unable to solve our specific issue so scalability is challenging. 

We had issues scaling from one plan to another and reached out to support. Technical support is not agile across services and has been unable to solve our issue.

Support is rated a five out of ten. 

Neutral

The setup is easy with no challenges but upgrades are complex. We have experienced challenges when upgrading components from one plan to another plan. Setup does not have these challenges. 

We implemented the solution in-house. We slowly started utilizing services but total deployment did not take much time. 

Ongoing maintenance is not a challenge. 

So far, we have not measured ROI.

The solution saves us money but is more costly than other products such as AWS. We have been paying 10 crores for our Azure services. 

We are thinking of moving from Azure to AWS because there are issues scaling the suite of products, support is not optimum, and the solution is more costly than AWS products. 

Before choosing the solution or AWS, it is important to reach out to relevant engagement or sales teams to get product clarity. 

I rate the solution a seven out of ten. 

Our primary use cases are computing, data platform along with migrating event-driven architecture. We use a lot of data bricks and data components. From the integration to data, and from the application deployment perspective to the platform as a service.

Azure Stack enhanced the productivity from the developers to testers to infrastructure engineers in the following way:

* Developers and the QA team focused on delivering business values rather than thinking about the build and deployment

* The infrastructure team focused more on automating the infra-build pipelines for different environments in no time 

* Azure Pipelines automated 80% of manual efforts on both the Development and Infra front. 

We have found the Kubernetes version is one of the key components which we are using heavily.

I would like to see the AI side come to one hundred percent in the near future. I would love to see a more reliable SAP improved.

I have been working with Azure Stack for the past seven years.

Azure Stack is highly stable across the globe from my experience.

Azure Stack is extremely scalable across the globe.

One of the best parts of technical support is they are really on top of all the issues. Once an incident has been raised, their team will call our technical engineers and start supporting them immediately. This is one of the major reasons why I have used Azure Stack. Azure Cloud is becoming so popular because in the end, businesses need assurance and they are always on top of it.

We were using an on-premise solution, but you know that an on-premise solution is not scalable with a cloud-based environment.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. It is a lean, shallow learning curve. They can quickly grasp it and can start working on deployment. The deployment was pretty smooth because we set up the CI/CD pipeline and Azure pipeline, which automatically builds the solution. It does the unit test and performance test, and if everything goes well, it is scheduling the deployments for production quickly.

We have both in-house and third-party teams, depending on the requirements and complexity of the deployment.

The licensing is pay-as-you-go, and Azure also provides a bring-your-own-license. I believe that is a good option if anyone is looking at it and they already have a license. They can get the infrastructure and the provision in a very short time and it will save the existing licenses. 

Different applications will have different licensing needs. It depends on which tool you use. You will then need to secure that license.

We evaluated AWS and Google. It depends on the company and what the best fit is for the organization. If companies have similar requirements, they can follow us, or if they have a different requirement, I believe that Google or AWS might fit their needs as well.

I think that anybody who wants to move on to Azure Stack, needs to assess their requirements, and what business needs they have. I would rate Azure Stack an eight out of ten.

We're using the latest version.

It's deployed on the cloud, mainly as a Kubernetes container.

It's more reliable, secure, and easy to deploy. It's much more stable as a platform.

There's Azure SQL Database on the cloud for small loads, but now they're moving to Synapse, which has a combination of the storage plus the analytics. 

I've been using this solution for more than six years.

It's stable. We haven't had any significant down times, because now you have redundancy across networks. We have not come across any situation where any disruptions have occurred, at least on the cloud connectivity.

It's absolutely scalable. We haven't had any challenges with scalability.

We had some issues, and we directly raised a defect bug to them so they could sort it out. I haven't heard teams complaining about that. I don't see any challenge right now because the stack is much stabler, easier, and we haven't needed to reach out.

Positive

Both AWS and Azure are the best in the world right now. 

It all depends on what our customers need, so we use both.

One or two people are needed to maintain this solution.

I would rate the pricing 4 out of 5. It could be lower.

I would rate this solution 9 out of 10.

Azure Data Factory is a great solution for orchestration. 

From a security perspective, there are certain things which could be improved. We have that option of enabling the datacenter which sits on the Azure site. The solution is difficult to manage if this particular feature is disabled. 

I've been working with Azure Stack for nine to 10 years for me.

This is a stable solution. 

This is a scalable solution. 

The initial setup is straightforward if you are familiar with some of the architecture. The complexity may increase if you have a large amount of data that needs to be migrated. 

Azure is reasonably priced compared to Google Cloud, AWS, or some other cloud giants.

You need to focus on what your end goal to achieve and build the system in a way that makes it easy to maintain from a software, perspective, and platform perspective.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten. 

The solution meets customers' regulatory requirements. Scalability allows for tasks such as transferring data and accessing local files.

The solution could be cheaper.

I have been using Azure Stack as a partner for five years.

The solution is scalable.

Azure changed premier support to unified support, which involves allocating tickets to multiple engineers and discussing the problem multiple times. The resolution time for issues is not satisfactory.

There is free support available, but it comes with limitations. The unified support package is free whereas the enterprise support can be costly.

Neutral

There are various implementations available. There are no issues with these implementations. Initially, Azure Stack was complex around five or six years ago. Nowadays, setting up Azure Stack is much simpler, and there are no problems with integrations, similar to other Microsoft products. For example, products like Azure Monitor, Microsoft Sentinel, and others may encounter issues, but Microsoft's R&D is effective in developing solutions for them.

ROI varies with each and every customer, but by average it is at the end of second year.

The product is a bit expensive, but you got a reliable solution. You pay upfront for the hardware. You can opt to pay as you go or reserve it, similar to purchasing any software licence.

You need the applications. It's like an extended cloud in your data centre. You can access all the local applications and transfer files between the two clouds seamlessly.

When it comes to security, we're talking about the shared responsibility features between the cloud provider and your on-premises data centre. It's like protecting all parts of the security—from users to servers to files—all aspects of data security. It's akin to having an on-premises data environment, so you must implement roles, DDoS protection, and other security components to secure the environment as well as the public cloud itself. Moving to the cloud doesn't automatically guarantee security; the cloud provider only provides an SLA. You have to implement all the necessary security components.

The product might be a bit complex for non technical people.

I can recommend Azure Stack to others but they should be aware of the technical and security aspects. They should have engineers capable of resolving issues, rather than solely relying on Microsoft support.

The main weakness of Azure Stack lies in its cost. Its value for money is good, offering numerous benefits for the client.

Overall, I rate the solution a out of ten.

We are looking to implement asset management of marks and enrollment.

The product is fine. It comes with everything. It is probably the best solution out there.

Certain elements are difficult to deploy.

My organization has been using the solution for a number of years.

The deployment is probably not easy. Certain elements are easy to deploy, but certain elements aren’t. The ease of deployment depends on the maturity of the technical teams. If they're quite mature and experienced, then it's not too much of an issue. If there is a knowledge or skill gap, then, obviously, it'll be quite an issue. However, if it is a large organization, engaging with Microsoft is probably fine since it can fill in all the gaps for the organization.

We have a dedicated Microsoft team always working within our organization.

The product is expensive, but it is fine for the value that the solution produces.

I work for the government in a department related to leasing infrastructure. We are using the latest version of the product. Intune has recently opened a lot of functionality very similar to Jamf. There's quite a big gap between what Jamf offers and what Intune offers.

People planning to use the product should engage with Microsoft quite early on and see what products would benefit them rather than trying to figure it out themselves. It would be good if Intune would offer features aligning with enrollment and asset discovery. Jamf provides these features.

Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

So we have offered Azure Stack to one of the biggest telco companies here in the Philippines. We have two sites there, and so far, their business has been growing good. They want to deploy more sites here in the Philippines using Azure Stack.

The most valuable features are related to managing Kubernetes cluster nodes.

When it comes to room for improvement, there should be more focus on the user interface, specifically for the management console.

In the future release, I would like to see better UI. 

I have actually been with HPE for five years now, and we have been a partner of Microsoft Azure's teams even before I joined. So I would say five years.

We always use the latest version. The latest is HCI version 21H2.

It is very stable. I would rate it a nine out of ten. 

I would rate the scalability a nine out of ten. Our clients are enterprise businesses. And I think they've been using it for about four years now.

Sometimes there have been software issues, but customers still need assistance from us, the hardware vendor. So I think the ticketing and issue logging need to be more available.

Positive

I would rate the initial setup a seven, where one is difficult, and ten is easy. The deployment took around two to three months. 

If we compare it in the market to other vendors, I think it would be around four out of ten, where one is low, and ten is high. There is additional fees required for support. 

I have conducted cost analysis and simulations using AWS, Azure Stack, and Google Cloud. So I've performed several cost analyses based on customer requirements. But I haven't had extensive hands-on experience with those public clouds.

Overall, I would rate the product a nine out of ten because Azure Stack is very reliable. It's highly available and provides the requirements needed by the customers' applications. It's also very secure.

I don't have a specific feature, my customers use all of the features that are available and the entire stack.

I believe the only room for improvement is that I am based in Nairobi, if it has even a local node for Azure, I believe most customers will prefer that to reduce latencies and everything else when using the Azure Stack. They'll be better off if they can set up a local node in Nairobi, Kenya.

There are local things specific to the Kenya market, which are integrated into local development platforms available in Kenya, which would be helpful if it could be integrated with Azure Stack. We have a solution called M-Pessa, for example. If that can be done on a regular basis, I believe it is time to look for customers who want to use that channel today.

I have been working with Azure Stack for six years.

Azure Stack is a stable product.

Azure Stack is a scalable solution.

Technical support is okay. My customers have not complained about the technical support.

I actually work for an integrator company that specializes in UiPath. I primarily use UiPath, but I also use Automation Anywhere and Microsoft Power Automate.

We use Power Automate, but we also use Power BI for dashboard visualization. Then there's the standard Office 365, and we do have customers who use Azure.

I would say the initial setup is medium. It all depends on who is using it, but most customers rate it as a medium. It's not easy, but it's also not difficult. It's average. It's a medium.

In terms of pricing, my customers believe AWS is slightly more reasonably priced than Azure. They believe it is significantly less expensive than what Azure offers. It is simply a matter of pricing.

I would advise them to conduct a thorough assessment of the types of applications they want to host on Azure Stack before beginning the migration process. They must be absolutely certain. Then there are all kinds of local policies, security policies, on migrating data into the Cloud, to put it mildly. They should be on the lookout for such things. So, first and foremost, a proper assessment of what types of applications should be moved entirely to Azure Stack. Then, examine the policies, security policies, and cybersecurity that are associated with all of that.

I would rate Azure Stack an eight out of ten.

We are using it in our company and the customer's company as well. So, it works on both sides. For certain development environments, we need to build our internal environment, and we need it for that. Similarly, we need to build the production environment for the customer, and we use it for that.

The beauty of Azure is that most of the features are easily accessible. It is user-friendly. Almost all resources in Azure are very easily accessible. For example, you can access a virtual machine, and you can scale it up. You can go ahead with different infrastructure-as-a-service in Azure for the platform or for the cloud. Different levels of development could be done using it.

It should be improved in terms of integrations. It could be integrated more with external tools. 

We have Azure Purview for governance, but that is for data governance. For code governance, we have to use SonarQube or WhiteSource for vulnerabilities and license management. We would like to have a native code compliance tool.

I have been working with this solution for three years. 

It is absolutely stable.

It is scalable. The resources in Azure are scalable for a smooth transaction. 

Their technical support is very good. They are always easily available when we need them.

Positive

I have been working with different automation tools such as Jenkins. Jenkins is a good tool to start with. Being a DevOps person, I had to go with Azure ADO and Azure DevOps, which basically gives you the view of how DevOps actually works.

It is easy to set up. It takes you minutes to set it up.

Azure has a subscription version. It has a pay-as-you-go subscription with a subscription ID. So, you have your particular subscription with an enterprise agreement. There is a dev-type subscription for development and testing.

The pricing seems pretty reasonable. The pricing could be per resource. For example, you have Databricks, Data Factory, Scaled DB, and Cosmos. You have everything in Azure. They have an Azure pricing calculator that you can use to check the price of every resource. It gives you a proper cost estimation. You can compare the cost and then go for the best resource for your project.

I would definitely advise others to implement it as an infrastructure service only because you get to learn more. You get to explore the code more and know different steps. You can automate more and better. You can get automation done on top of what is already there, which could lead to another invention. 

I would rate it an eight out of ten.