Microsoft Azure Block Storage Reviews

We are using Microsoft Azure Block Storage primarily for transferring data through the FTP. The system stores data that is sent to it and we create information reports going out. Additionally, we store data from logic applications and message logs in a storage channel.

We have different deployments of the solution, such as hybrid, cloud, and on-premise.

One of our clients is utilizing an on-premise warehouse management system with two interconnected data centers for data transfer, ensuring disaster recovery. Their system utilizes JDA web query due to its seamless integration with their warehouse machines. To enhance their operations, they have hired Azure-implemented API-driven solutions using logic apps and other tools. 

We are using Power BI and data gateway to extract data from Oracle tables and databases. While we try to utilize logistic data to answer queries, we have a series of APIs available, which they often call upon using established logic apps.

The solution can be used for many purposes it is flexible.

The most helpful features of Microsoft Azure Block Storage are the many use cases. Additionally, it can be locked down well and has two-factor authentication.

The solution has been improving over the time I have used it with new features, such as private links and managing identities.

Microsoft Azure Block Storage could improve the SFTP. The SFTP can be used for exchanging data between two parties and it works but Microsoft is new to this market and they could be a lot better in this area with its features.

The querying could be improved in the storage system. SQL is a fundamental technology but there are only partition rules and row IDs, and it is slow to query the data.

The day and time stamps are not indexed in any way which makes it very slow. Additionally, if you wanted to remove all the data over a month, there is no option to do so. There are areas that the solution can improve on in the future.

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

The stability of Microsoft Azure Block Storage is good, I have not had an issue.

The solution is highly scalable and there are not a lot of limits. However, you do have to pay money for scalability.

We've never had to seek support for setup for Microsoft Azure Block Storage as it has always been relatively simple. With numerous YouTube videos and Microsoft Learn providing active examples, we were able to set everything up with ease. In most cases, the instructions were straightforward, and we only needed to follow them.

Having used Amazon S3 before, Microsoft Azure Block Storage is superior because it offers much more than just block storage. It has various other functionalities, allowing users to store files, tables, media, and more. It's a versatile storage solution that we're using for content delivery networks, coupled with the Microsoft content delivery network. Overall, it's an excellent storage management solution.

The solution is easy to set up.

The price of scaling the solution is not expensive.

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

The use case for Microsoft Azure Block Storage depends on the project and the users. Still, I use it for storing and extracting data, such as images, videos, and documents.

What I like best about Microsoft Azure Block Storage is the accessibility because it's very easy for me to access it. Microsoft takes the user's approach, so you don't have to take many steps before accessing the tool. As soon as you create Microsoft Azure Block Storage resources, you'll automatically find it easy to use it.

If you need to learn how to start, you'll find different resources and documentation about the tool, so this is another pro of Microsoft Azure Block Storage.

Another advantage of using the tool is that it's convenient because if you want to deploy new infrastructure, you can connect to the cloud and download the files to your new site.

I found that everything works fine in Microsoft Azure Block Storage; though it may be because I have less experience with it, I cannot give any areas for improvement.

I want to see my region added to the data center. I'm in Africa, and if a data center is specifically added under Central Africa, that will reduce data latency when accessing data. Right now, you can only find the USA, China, Europe, South Africa, and Egypt, but no Central Africa. It'll be great if Microsoft can add my region or location as a data center for Microsoft Azure Block Storage. Doing that will respect privacy, too.

I've used Microsoft Azure Block Storage for six months. It depends on the project I'm working on.

Microsoft Azure Block Storage is scalable. When you use Azure File Sync, Microsoft gives you five terabytes of storage on Microsoft Azure Block Storage. You can scale by paying for a group or a big enterprise if you have a considerable amount of data.

I didn't have to contact the technical support team of Microsoft Azure Block Storage because I had all that I needed from the documentation.

I didn't use a different solution. I only used Microsoft Azure Block Storage. You can integrate it with various services, and it has the facility to connect to your site and communicate with it, but I don't require that. Enterprises can use that functionality of Microsoft Azure Block Storage, though.

Setting up Microsoft Azure Block Storage was easy, and it only took two minutes. I researched how to do it, but before you set up Microsoft Azure Block Storage, you must create your agile accounts first, and inside the agile accounts, you'll find different types of storage. In my case, I chose Microsoft Azure Block Storage for data storage and extraction. It was easy to set up.

I deployed Microsoft Azure Block Storage.

Microsoft Azure Block Storage is a good investment. The tool helps an enterprise save data in the cloud. Sometimes there is a natural disaster, or your electricity is cut off. Sometimes your physical servers can have problems. You can store data in the cloud through Microsoft Azure Block Storage to avoid problems, so it's a good investment.

Microsoft Azure Block Storage is not an expensive tool. I'm subscribed to the Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors program, so Microsoft gives me between $120 to $150 credit each month. It's renewable, and if I use that credit for Microsoft Azure Block Storage, it'll not consume half of my credit, so I'd say it's very cheap.

I use Microsoft Azure Block Storage personally. My company doesn't use it.

I recommend the tool to others who want to use it.

Based on my experience, I rate Microsoft Azure Block Storage nine out of ten.

We integrated Commvault as the customer's backup solution, allowing us to copy the backups to their Azure infrastructure via Block Storage. In Commvault, we configured Block Storage as the destination to write the data for the backup.

The solution is easy to purchase and is a Microsoft product, making procurement straightforward. Additionally, the majority of engineers have extensive knowledge of Block Storage, meaning that if this solution is implemented in any organization, it is easy to find a support person who is well-versed in the product. Technically, this solution has a lot of features, such as deduplication, to choose from.

Microsoft Azure Block Storage can improve the configuration to be more user-friendly.

The solution's user interface can be more user-friendly.

I have been using the solution for three years.

We implemented the solution six to seven months ago, and we have not encountered many challenges. We have faced some minor operational issues, but overall it is functioning as expected.

I give the stability a nine out of ten.

I give the scalability of the solution a nine out of ten.

We have over 25,000 customers using the solution.

We will receive the necessary support for the integration and supporting aspects. Microsoft's full-time support team is always available to provide assistance with various processes.

Positive

With an Azure level of understanding, the solution is relatively straightforward to implement. However, from a technical standpoint, it is not the most straightforward to configure, and so I would rate it a seven out of ten.

We implement the solution for our clients.

Customers with an enterprise agreement typically receive Microsoft products at a discounted rate compared to other products.

The cost of procuring storage depends on the customer's license availability. If the customer has an EA agreement in their price agreement with Microsoft, they can access storage at a cheaper price. However, if they do not have the EA agreement, they will incur a higher cost.

When comparing G-Cloud and AWS to Azure, the challenge isn't necessarily from other products, but rather the customers seem to have a greater investment in Azure.

I give the solution an eight out of ten.

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.

We deployed our website on Azure, and Block Storage is for storing large objects. We use Azure Block Storage for embedded videos that any person coming on the website needs to use. 

The most important reason we use Azure Block Storage is the ability to store large files. When we were building the solution, we knew we needed to store images and video files that are 100 MBs or more. The second thing is speed when dealing with such large file sizes. 

It would be nice if the Azure Block Storage could integrate with microservices-based mobile apps, too. 

We started using Azure Block Storage for a project two or three weeks ago.

Block Storage is stable. 

I can't say much about scalability because these are small projects, so it's not like we've utilized Block Storage for a million users. We only have a few hundred users.

The setup process is pretty straightforward.  The documentation from Microsoft is clear enough for anyone to set up a storage account. Two or three people are enough to maintain the solution we've built. It's a stable solution that more or less works on its own.

There should be a discount on Block Storage for people who use it more often. Right now we pay somewhere around maybe 30,000 rupees monthly.

Most of our solutions are built on Azure, so that is our first choice. However, we also considered AWS Storage Services. We thought about using the AWS S3 bucket, but our in-house team mostly has experience on Azure, we stuck with that. I think the Azure documentation is easier to understand than AWS's, so that's the main advantage. The costs are more or less the same.

I rate Azure Block Storage eight out of 10. My biggest concern is the pricing.

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.