Microsoft Azure Block Storage Reviews

Block Storage can be used for storing files of varying formats. It can be used as an object storage as well, so people can dump a variety of files into it. It's called a storage account, actually. This storage account can be used to store any application-specific files and there could be different Azure services which can consume the files, like that storage account, as part of the architecture. There could be an application storing the data, and there could be some other service that picks those files up from there. This solution is part of that entire architecture. It's kind of similar to a history you have in a website. It is almost exactly the same as that.

It has capabilities such as versioning and, from a security point of view, you can also back it up. It has resiliency features as well.

You can have GRS, like a during and end storage feature, enabled so that it can be replicated to a secondary region in Azure. This can prevent an outage in the primary region. 

There is a drawback or limitation to the GRS storage feature because depending on the amount of data, it could take a lot of time. There are a lot of steps from the application perspective, so it's not easy and straightforward from a business continuity perspective. That is one of the limitations I see in the solution. 

It's about the time it takes to revert back. The failover takes a couple of minutes but then it takes a lot of time to fail it back to the primary region again, so you have to do a synchronization again. That's a bit of a challenge because if it contains a lot of data in terabytes, the cost to do a replication again but reverse the direction from secondary to primary is a bit extra. Obviously, though, this only happens when there is an out, when a DR is involved, so it's not very often that companies would come across this. It's only in the worst case scenario. 

It's not a big thing, but some companies have limited time for their DR, like there's a RPO, or a recovery point objective and recovery time objective, that is very short. In that case, this product may not be suitable or may not meet their customer's requirements. That is something that Microsoft should focus on, to bring the time down or make that process, the DR process, a bit easier for this product. Maybe as they continually improve this product they can add improvements in this aspect to reduce that DR time, recovery time, for the solution.

I have been working with this product for about four or five years.

I have seen this solution be pretty stable. I've never had an issue with it. I'd rate the stability as a five out of five. 

It's very scalable. It has really high limits, so I don't think most customers will hit that limit. I'll give it a five out of five for scalability. 

Big enterprises as well as medium enterprises use this solution, and even smaller enterprises. There are organizations with 100 users, 1000, and even some with 5000 and above. There could be only applications consuming this, or end users also, but the end users directly connecting to the solution are a lot less.

It's mostly the developers who configure the application to use this solution as the object storage. Eventually, the end users of the application could be in the 1000s, and they utilize this back end solution via the application, so it is getting utilized by the end users, but it's via the application.

There was one issue I had with the backup. I didn't get a proper response and it took a couple of days for the response. It turned out to be a restriction and limitation, so it didn't get solved, but I was told that it was a limitation. I would rate the technical support as a three out of five.

The solution can be deployed manually from the Azure portal, or it can be done programmatically, via code. The setup is very easy and straightforward. It only takes a few minutes. I rate it a five out of five. 

I have deployed this solution for customers, and just one person is required for deployment. Anybody who has knowledge of Azure and has some administrative experience in Azure can do this. It's a very straightforward solution to deploy.

There is hardly any configuration in this solution, so it's maybe a day's task to deploy, but not beyond that. Once the design for this product is confirmed and completed, then the deployment is just following those design inputs which have been already signed off on by the customer. Customer requirements and specific features that need to be enabled in this tool need to be finalized first, which happens in the design phase. Once all of that is finalized, deploying it with the agreed configuration can be done in a day, max.

It's fairly cheap and it's also fully managed by Microsoft, so you don't have to manage the storage as much.

The solution is pay as you go, so it depends on the amount of data that is stored and the transactions. There's no licensing requirements. Also, we can have a subscription, like reservations for the storage. If we have a lot of data, then that can help reduce the cost, at least to some extent. The technical support is part of the support plan. 

The price depends on each customer. If they use a lot of data, the cost can be very high. I think it would be the same case with other tools as well, though, so it is quite affordable. 

The solution has life-cycle management, versioning, and a lot of protection features like sub-delete and all of that. It's pretty much complete, so it satisfies most of my customers' needs and requirements. I recommend this product because it is straightforward and well-documented.

I would rate the solution as an eight out of ten.

Azure Block Storage is for integrating and storing logs and things like that. It's for short and medium-term intermediate storage. Around 3,000 people are using the solution indirectly. 

The security is poor, and the sharing model is confusing, conceptually. I'd prefer not to use it. I'd like a user-friendly web interface and a better security model. 

I've worked with Azure Block Storage for a few years. 

The block storage itself is good, but Azure's overall reliability is poor, especially in this region. It usually goes down a couple of times a month. 

I rate Azure support six out of 10. It could be better. I get an answer, but it takes a while. 

Neutral

The other solution we use heavily is Google Cloud Storage. I prefer Google because it's easier to set up and you don't need to download a client. It's just simpler overall.

Everyone is familiar with the Google interface. It's essential because you're dealing with a lot of technologies, and people don't have the time anymore to figure it out.

Setting up Azure Block Storage is more complex than it should be.

The price is decent. I rate Azure Block Storage eight out of 10 for affordability.

I rate Azure Block Storage three out of 10. It's just storage, and it's more complicated than it needs to be. 

I have used Azure Block for two or three projects. It's used to store images or videos for multi-tenant applications or a particular tenant. We recently did one project for multi-tenant products. 

Any customer registered to the website can sell their product on a small scale without a website or server. It was like a platform as a service multi-tenant product. With the site ready, they can post any images or videos to Azure Storage Block. They're creating a subscription site for each unit.

For example, if you register on that website, you can allocate the memory size based on license cost: premium, gold, etc. We allocated some memory, and you can navigate to the site whenever you're ready. We provide a unique ID and an encryption key. 

You can create several users for your subscription. For example, if you're an owner of this subscription, you can assign users a status as contributors, readers, or administrators. You can add images or videos through a Block via an administrative portal with a mobile or Angular application. That image is rendered to your website or any products they need. We can use that signature access key for authentication. We enable our product based on the site subscription ID.

There are different tiers, and you can create a container to solve this. First, we create a block and containers, then allocate images to that container. Once we make the container blocks, we get a primary and secondary access key. After you get the details, you can do the same for Azure. If you want to use your middleware, you need to add a library, so you can contribute a URL shared access key. You need to access it via UCA. You can upload via UCA binary format data or a content file. That is where we can upload any data with Block Storage.

When you access a unit to pass that Block ID, you can download it using ByteArray. You can send that ByteArray streaming data to your Angular application on mobile. They can convert any videos, images, or documents to display them on your mobile application. However, a security breach could allow a hacker to download anything for a particular user, so we recommended middleware for interacting with Azure Block Storage. 

There are different approaches. We can use it for proper container image names or containerization with a shared activity URL. We need to consider the client's mission. If a client uses Azure Key Vault, any authorized person with the shared key can access confidential data on a centralized system. Our service can access that key to connect users to Azure Block, whether on your application, Angular, or any other web application. It will not provide users credentials or a URL directly. 

Azure Block Storage lets you customize code you can use on that endpoint. If you want to write a logic for something, Azure Function can be used to deploy that application. 

We need to write code and plan for deployment. You can write a function in C# and use that server or any VM or Kubernetes container. If you want to release any APA or application with AKS, there are Kubernetes cluster master nodes. We recommend doing it manually if it's a simple POS or something. I strongly recommend using DevOps Tools Continuous Integration if you're an enterprise.

One thing that needs improvement is authentication. They need to improve the integrated Azure Active Directory for the enterprise level. For single sign-on, we can try any authentication or portal for Block Azure Function AKS. For example, if you're an administrator or user contributor, you will generate a token, then your internal middleware connects to any Azure Cloud service. You need to generate different credentials for each service. We cannot use the same token.

Some services like Azure Key Vault support a single token for access that you should be able to use for the Kubernetes site, but some services are not supported. Authentication should be centralized. My understanding is that the data on this file path is streaming. Whenever you get this data, it is converted to streaming ByteArray and Base64. The file path is another security vulnerability.

Azure Block Storage is mainly used for streaming data nowadays. Companies are moving to digital platforms. They stream data from IoT, mobile, offline sources, and other systems. There are different styles and formats, including unstructured, semi-structured, relational, and platform data, so we cannot use a single database for all requirements.

We cannot say to a client, "Sorry, I need only to support this product in JSON." If we say that, competitors will dominate us. We must be prepared to accept any kind of free input or solution from clients. Then the Block supports any semi-structured data or structured data. If you go with File Storage, queuing or messaging will support storage, and the Block will support videos or images.

I have been using Azure Block Storage for more than three years.

Azure Block Storage is scalable. It's widely used for Kubernetes for memory profiles. We recommend auto-scaling for scalable or regional models. All the Azure Blocks should be identical, with the same configuration. Each starts with a memory size too high for one Block container or another. 

That is challenging to accomplish because everything should be identical. The blocks should be identical if you want three, five, or six nodes. 

We have an internal support team that provides support to our clients. When we are designing a solution and run into something they can't handle, we open a ticket with the Microsoft team. We work closely with them. They'll give me some confirmation of whether it's feasible. 

If yes, we can update management about whether this is possible. They are charging per solution on the global partner level. Once approved, we work with Microsoft to come up with a solution, PoC, or sample code. 

Creating blocks or containers is easy. We can deploy according to a rule-based access controller policy. For example, when you are adding some documents for your owner or administrator, but somebody accesses your log or something, it prevents them from deleting or it or modifying that content because it might be sensitive. 

Creating the block itself is straightforward. Then we create a shared access policy to allow us to manage access directly. If I'm doing development, I can limit it so that we can make it read-only. That is possible, but we need to plan accordingly. 

Azure Block Storage pricing charges differently for hot and cold storage based on our business scenario. For example, data that isn't frequently accessed costs less. Data that is accessed often costs more. Storage on the cloud is cheaper.

AWS has a similar solution for S3 Bucket that will support any document images, videos, etc. They have a platform supporting authentication but a different approach. The AWS and Azure solutions are about 80 percent the same. The difference is the migration process. We can migrate our data or documents with the trickle-based or Big Ben model and access any application via their APA, their authentication model.

We cannot jump in because even Kubernetes is also on the cloud. We can plan the image, optic tree, and master node and then reuse the maximal level, but we cannot recreate that.

I rate Azure Block Storage eight out of 10.

We use the solution for several key purposes: first, as a source code repository; second, for software testing life cycle management, including test cases and bug tracking; and third, for deploying our projects through pipelines, supporting continuous deployment and continuous integration.

Microsoft Azure Block Storage has high-security features and is very reliable. Its maintenance is done through the cloud, which reduces costs. 

Microsoft Azure Block Storage needs to improve its migration and reporting processes. 

I have been working with the product for three years. 

I rate the solution's stability an eight out of ten. 

My company has 35-50 users. 

We chose Microsoft Azure Blob Storage because we've been using their solutions for a long time, starting from Team Foundation Server since 2010 and even earlier with Visual SourceSafe. We kept upgrading versions, which led us to adopt Azure Cloud. Additionally, the licensing cost was favorable for us. 

Deploying the tool is easy, but we encountered challenges while migrating our old repositories from EFS 2015 and 2019. The main issue was that we had to migrate the entire default collection to do it properly, and there wasn't a straightforward way to handle this. For example, while test cases must be migrated through the default collection, repositories for source code can be migrated alone, which poses a significant challenge for us.

It generally took more than a day to set up and plan everything for on-premises setup. For cloud installations, it was easier because you could pick items from Microsoft storage or repositories and switch them on. However, final configurations for pipelines and other elements still require significant time.

We expect ROI through cost reduction after three years. 

I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten. 

I rate Microsoft Azure Block Storage a ten out of ten. 

Use cases for Microsoft Azure Block Storage involve cloud storage for website publishing and customer data sharing. Many customers utilize it for data-sharing purposes. Customers commonly use flash storage to store and access data. Storage is integral to various Software as a Service solutions, where Block Storage is automatically provisioned for premium or standard tiers.

Performance improvement depends on how we utilize the resources. The tool is most valuable for scenarios involving logs and monitoring. For example, logs are generated when using services like Front Door. The tool's most valuable function is providing secure access. Additionally, it connects with websites, allowing users to upload and download data. 

The tool is reliable and works fine. 

Improving the pricing structure would be beneficial. If the pricing could be more flexible and reduced, Microsoft Azure Block Storage would likely see increased usage.

I have been working with the product since 2014. 

I rate the solution's stability a nine out of ten. 

I rate the tool's scalability a ten out of ten. 

I've had a poor experience with Microsoft's technical support. Even without premium support, Microsoft's assistance hasn't been satisfactory. There have been instances where support staff lacked sufficient expertise to address issues. 

The tool's deployment is simple. 

The solution is useful for enterprise customers. I rate it a nine out of ten. 

We use Microsoft Azure Block Storage to store, upload and download data. We can also use it as a backup. 

Microsoft Azure Block Storage's stability needs improvement. 

I have been working with the tool for three to four months. 

I would rate Microsoft Azure Block Storage's stability an eight out of ten. 

Microsoft Azure Block Storage's setup is straightforward. You need to create a storage account and give a unique name to it. We have deployed the solution on the cloud. 

I use Microsoft Azure Block Storage's free version. 

I would rate the product an eight out of ten. 

We use the tool for static website hosting and log storage. My company also uses it to store static information, and as a backup solution to store files.

I like the product’s versioning and file share features. The file share feature is most useful when we are connecting on-premises services. Azure file share helps to migrate small data amounts from on-premises to the cloud.

I find the user interface of newer versions, particularly, the flows, not user-friendly. The UI of Azure’s initial version was very comfortable. I didn’t have to remember floor menus. I knew where I had to go to see the logs or grab configuration parameters.

I have been using the solution for four years.

The tool’s stability is fine and I would rate it a ten out of ten.

I would rate the solution’s scalability a ten out of ten. The product has become a common requirement for all projects. Almost all people in my company use it. There are more than 100 users for the solution in our company. We are a startup, and not a big company.

The solution’s support is very helpful. Whenever I am at a dead end or need help, I would seek the product’s support which is like an ex-colleague to me. I had had some incidents where there were outages.

Positive

The solution’s initial setup is simple and straightforward.

The tool’s deployment was done by our in-house team members.

I would rate the solution’s pricing a nine out of ten and it’s cheaper than Amazon S3.

I would rate the overall solution a nine out of ten. Azure has better usability and user experience compared to Amazon S3. Both products have similar functionality and I would say that both of them have reached saturation. S3’s storage account is also costlier compared to Azure. S3 is also complex in configuration and UI is not user-friendly like Azure.

We use Azure Block Storage in two different use cases. In one case, we use it as a staging layer where the files are dumped. Then, within the release, we create and curate layers in different containers, where one container has the raw data and another standard container has the transformation-level data. The next layer is the curated layer, which we use in the views to expose the data to downstream systems like PowerBI or Tableau.

RBAC, access control, soft delete, hard delete, and cool and hot storage tiers are some of the features I have found valuable in Azure Block storage. Basically, if the file is greater than six months, it will get deleted automatically, regardless of whether it's present or not. These features have indirectly helped us to save on storage costs.

The feature that requires improvement is the hierarchical naming step. Enabling this step could provide access to certain features that are currently missing.

Another area for improvement in Microsoft Azure Block Storage is the cache feature. So whenever we upload a file to block storage and then download it to check whether it was uploaded successfully or not, it downloads the older file due to caching. But when we directly download the file without clicking on the preview options, it shows the correct file. The cache issue needs to be addressed to ensure that the correct file is downloaded, especially when it's done manually into the local storage. Because I have checked in other services as well, and the issue only arises when we download it manually into the local storage.

I've been working with Microsoft Azure Block Storage for three years now.

I would rate the stability a nine out of ten because downtime is very rare, and the backup and redundancy features are strong. So its stability is very fine.

I would rate the scalability a nine out of ten. We have 150+ users because we have RBAC, and I can only see my teammates. But I can see 50+ and could be more.

It's not just one team, but multiple teams across five to six blocks who use it according to their process.

It was mostly handled by our company's Microsoft gold partner, who received seamless support from Microsoft whenever we needed help with any settings that our team couldn't figure out. I'm not sure about other organizations, but since we were a gold partner, support was always available to us.

I found the configuration of Amazon complex compared to Azure, and the cost of Amazon is higher. The documentation is slightly better in Azure. 

The initial setup is easy. There won’t be any hiccups. Even a beginner who is interested in learning the cloud will have any issues setting it up.

I would say the price is low. When I compare it to its competitors like Ebik, Azure's price is lower.

I would give it an eight out of ten.

Overall, I would rate it a nine out of ten.

We are managing numerous data sources, including Excel, CSV, and ZIP files, with some of them being located on the public Internet. Our current task involves transferring this data into a data warehouse using Microsoft Azure Block Storage.

The major benefit of using Microsoft Azure Block Storage is that it supports various types of data, including structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data, without requiring different tools to read each type. This comprehensive approach simplifies the data handling process for data engineers and allows for seamless data transfer to downstream applications. In essence, this is a data paradigm shift that enables easy ingestion of diverse data types.

I encountered a challenge where certain metadata was located on a secured network that could only be accessed through a VPN. As there was no direct connector available to reach the private networks that require VPN access, we had to rely on manual effort to access the data. This could potentially be addressed as an area of improvement, especially with regard to accessibility issues where data is only accessible through a VPN connection.

It appears that the solution we are working with is already in a beta version, and we have been managing a large volume of files by pulling them in at fixed schedules to determine whether a file is new or has been modified, we need to obtain the last modified date and compare it with the previous value. However, there is a new concept of a rolling window that can automatically detect newly arrived files and push them into downstream processes. From the logs I have seen, it appears that Microsoft is actively working on simplifying the file management process and reducing the need for engineers to manually pull files using specific logic. This includes developing a feature that automatically identifies new files and distinguishes them from old ones based on their metadata. It would be helpful to have this feature implemented.

I have been using Microsoft Azure Block Storage for approximately two years.

I did not face any glitches or stability issues.

I rate the stability of Microsoft Azure Block Storage a nine out of ten.

We have more than 20 developers and 50 to 100 business users using the solution in my company. 

The scalability of Microsoft Azure Block Storage has different options.

When opting for a pay-as-you-go service, several options exist, such as enabling the Autoscale feature or fixing the scalability ratio. It is essential to keep in mind that choosing the scale-out option comes with additional costs. Therefore, it is crucial to select whether to go with auto-scaling or manual scaling carefully. The system provides the flexibility to choose either option based on specific needs and budget constraints.

I rate the scalability of Microsoft Azure Block Storage an eight out of ten.

The level of support provided by Microsoft Azure Block Storage is impressive, as they offer three different levels of assistance based on the priority level of the issue. For technical issues, they can typically provide support within one day for critical issues, two days for high-priority issues, and three or four days for normal-priority issues.

I rate the support of Microsoft Azure Block Storage a nine out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup of Microsoft Azure Block Storage does not take long to deploy. Each service can take 10 to 15 seconds to set up.

The price of Microsoft Azure Block Storage has a fair price. However, the price could be lower.

I rate the price of Microsoft Azure Block Storage a seven out of ten.

We have evaluated Amazon AWS. They provide a good service. However, Microsoft solutions have more user-friendly interfaces.

I would advise others that this is a good solution and it is reliable. I strongly recommend this solution.

I rate Microsoft Azure Block Storage a nine out of ten.

The solution is compatible with every format, and different types of data. This is useful for data engineers. This is the best solution to have because everything is in a single point.

We use Microsoft Azure Block Storage for storing files. We don't use it for anything else.

Microsoft Azure Block Storage has the same features as other solutions, but I like that its implementation process is straightforward.

The performance of Microsoft Azure Block Storage needs improvement because it's laggy. My company used it in different places, including the Microsoft browser, but it still lags.

Pricing for the product is another area for improvement.

Microsoft Azure Block Storage also has a lot of limitations on file sizes. The rendering and loading times also need improvement. Sometimes, Microsoft Azure Block Storage crashes, an issue that needs to be taken care of promptly, but Microsoft hasn't been able to do that for a very long time.

I've been using Microsoft Azure Block Storage for many years since its inception.

I didn't find Microsoft Azure Block Storage stable or secure.

I would not even think of scaling Microsoft Azure Block Storage based on its current performance.

The technical support for Microsoft Azure Block Storage is horrible. Whenever my team reaches out, Microsoft support will keep escalating the issue because of a lack of expertise, so my company ends up paying for useless technical consultations. The support team could be more knowledgeable.

We use Microsoft Azure Block Storage, but usage is limited to specific clients because it comes with very high pricing.

The initial setup for Microsoft Azure Block Storage is simple. It's more of tweaking the connection settings or connecting it to your DB.

Deploying the product took two hours.

The pricing for Microsoft Azure Block Storage is high because of MSA and SBA contracts, where Microsoft takes care of the security aspects, apart from the maintenance, and Microsoft has service level agreements with the customers. On the other hand, AWS requires you to purchase items independently, so my company only typically refers Microsoft Azure Block Storage to other clients if the client signed an MSA with Microsoft.

Both Microsoft Azure Block Storage and AWS cost hundreds of dollars. The licensing for Microsoft Azure Block Storage is yearly. How much you pay depends on the amount of storage. Microsoft will start charging you from $100 to a few hundred per month, depending on how much you're trying to store.

Microsoft Azure Block Storage has hundreds of items inside, so each item has its own cost.

We tried Google Cloud Storage, but we had a terrible experience with the product because, at the time, Google was new in the market.

I would not recommend Microsoft Azure Block Storage to others, especially if you plan to use it for business purposes, because it's laggy.

My company has several clients on Microsoft Azure Block Storage, but it's been trying to get clients off it.

I advise anyone looking into using Microsoft Azure Block Storage not to. It's best to try avoiding Microsoft Azure-related microservices. Microsoft Azure is good on the dev ops side, such as Kubernetes, but not on storage or other services because Microsoft Azure has its version of services. Still, AWS overshadows Microsoft every single time. For example, if you want to do some heavy deployment, then Microsoft Azure Kubernetes, which is more of a database cluster, is nice. The pricing is also good for Microsoft Azure Kubernetes versus AWS, which has premium pricing, but it is still trying to figure out its solution in this area. Microsoft and AWS have different packages and offerings, so it's up to you to choose wisely. Go for AWS for scalability and Microsoft for reliability and security, in the dev ops area, for example.

My  Microsoft Azure Block Storage rating is four out of ten because of its file size limitations, stability, and technical support.