Microsoft Azure Block Storage Reviews

We use the solution for data storage. 

We can store data and not worry that it might be lost. 

Although cheaper than Amazon, licensing expenses for Block Storage are pretty high. 

We've been using this solution for several years.

The solution is stable. 

The solution is scalable although we have very few users.

The customer support is very good. 

The initial setup was straightforward, we had assistance from a third party.

Licensing is paid on a monthly basis and it's on a pay as you use basis. 

We evaluated Amazon as an option but went with Microsoft because it was a cheaper solution. 

I recommend this solution and rate it seven out of 10. 

Our customers basically use this program for virtual data center extension, as a hybrid extension of their local or on-prem or private data center. It offers them an automated way of running new workloads or creating new workloads with governance on it.

The reason why people choose this solution is that it has a good infrastructure. It also offers an easy way to provide workloads. We mainly use this solution for the development, testing, and production of our data and infrastructure in a standardized way. I also like the fact that the deployment is fast.

I would like to see an improvement in the networking and cost transparency part. What I mean by this, is that we provide certain workflows for our customers and we usually calculate what is local, but even then it's not really upfront. We must know what the usage will be in DMs. So the price is different, and that is where provisioning and cost transparency comes in. We must know what it will cost in the OPEX work that we do. We do have some cost analysis, overdose cloud, but still, it's not always the right amount that's reflected for our customers for each application or each analysis that they want to do. The invoice type is therefore different for each client.

The company I work for has been using Microsoft Azure Block Storage for two to three years and I've been using it for almost a year now.

Most customers are happy with the stability. Some bigger customers, however, have experienced problems with the stability of the Azure cloud. 

One can easily scale with this program so I am satisfied with the scalability. 

I haven't used customer service before.

Our setup is rather complex. It is easier for our customers - they simply get the tenants in our products and within the tenants, we just plug in all the drivers on-prem and then he gets a complete insight of the overall workload. 

I am, however, not involved in the installation. Another difficult thing is to create a good architecture that's strong on networking and that will enable customers to deploy or provide all those different environments in an easy way. So the thinking is critical, and architecture is very important, which is kind of complex. 

Deployment takes between two to five days, depending on the customer and the speed on the cloud.

We have a power desk with three people who are responsible for support and maintenance, customer queries, etc. 

The solution is affordable and we only pay for what we use. There are additional costs for backup and disaster management and we use separate products as service providers.

I personally feel that this is a good program. My advice to others is that they should determine beforehand what they want to use it for. The biggest lesson I've learned so far is that, if you go to the backup part, you have to be careful about how you do the backups and what the retention times are. 

I would like to see improved file sharing and better security in the next release. 

On a scale from one to ten, I will rate this program an eight. 

The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure Block Storage is the security and the management of user access from on-premise to the cloud.

Microsoft Azure Block Storage could improve by allowing the switching of the hot tier to the cold tier.

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

Microsoft Azure Block Storage is stable.

The solution can expand, and it is scalable.

We have approximately 200 users using this solution. We plan to increase the usage of this solution in the future.

I did not use the support from Microsoft Azure Block Storage. However, I did use the support for other solutions. 

We deploy Microsoft Azure Block Storage with Linux SUSE or Red Hat, but Microsoft will not give us support for these solutions.

I rate the support from Microsoft a three out of five.

Neutral

The initial setup of Microsoft Azure Block Storage is simple.

The price could be more flexible, and it can be expensive.

I rate the price of Microsoft Azure Block Storage a three out of five.

I have not evaluated other solutions.

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

We use this solution for the availability and to archive data. I am using the latest version.

It provides secure cloud storage.

The performance could be improved, but all the services in the cloud are improved every week.

I have used Azure Block Storage for many years.

It's stable.

It's easily scalable.

Technical support is always helpful.

Setup was easy.

The cost is very low. The cost is something like $0.01 to $0.50 per gig.

It's pay per use. We have a yearly license.

I would rate this solution 10 out of 10. 

For those who want to use this solution, my advice is to know how to use the services and make a proof of concept for the requirements. If all goes well, then go to production.

We are creating VMs for some of our development testing, and we are using Azure Block Storage in that context. We are not using anything from Azure for production systems. We are just using it for staging and development.

Azure Block Storage is

• easy to deploy
• easy to scale up
• pay-as-you-go. 

So whenever we need something, we use it.

One of the biggest challenges on Azure infrastructure is that sometimes we don't get what we want. Either we have to wait for it or contact support because something is not working for us. Most of the time it works fine. But sometimes, when we want something critical, apart from block storage — we want to increase the capacity of the VM or we want to increase the cores of the VM — we have to wait. We get a response from Microsoft from a North American location. We want to host everything within the UAE. But we are redirected through North America or Europe. That is a challenge with Azure. It's the system availability that is the difficult point.

Also, billing is an issue. We have had a lot of problems when it comes to billing. We started working with minimal resources and we opted for pay-as-you-go mode. Microsoft needs to invest in some resources to improve the billing part. It's not about the money, but the visibility. I see a lot of invoices, but I don't see whether we have paid them or not. And if we have paid, I don't see when it was paid and through which credit card or account we paid. I see invoices, but I don't see the information related to those invoices.

I have been using Azure Block Storage for less than a year.

Availability is sometimes an issue.

Technical support, overall, is good. The response is very good. We don't have any issue with that.

We have our own data center and we use its storage system. But we want to upgrade that because it's not fulfilling our current requirements and we don't see it fulfilling our future requirements either. We have a need to upgrade our system.

Initially, we had some issues but we were not trained. We were used to the legacy environment, so we had challenges. But anyone who has technical knowledge will be able to set it up and understand it, once they start reading about how to set it up and how to use it. 

There are a few challenges, especially when we are setting up block storage or setting up the network. There are complexities of the network environment, such as creating the virtual networks, etc. It's complex.

We started looking at Dell EMC and some other solutions such as QNAP. We are evaluating them.

We have our own team to maintain it. We are still trying to add more resources to the team and trying to find someone who Azure will certify.

I would recommend Azure Block Storage so far, per my current usage, but I would also highly recommend learning how it works and how to configure it properly. Block Storage, in particular, is a bit confusing. People who do not have proper knowledge should not try R&D with it. I would highly recommend getting professional support if you really want to use it. The solution is very good, but the configuration and initial implementation should be done by professionals.

We're mainly using this solution for cloud container data and backup data. 

It's deployed on a hybrid cloud.

There are around 500 users in my organization.

In terms of latency, bandwidth, and productivity, Azure Block Storage is better than other solutions.

There have been problems with integration, but it's getting better.

I have used Microsoft Azure Block Storage for more than a year.

I would rate the stability as seven out of ten. We sometimes face issues.

I would rate the scalability as six out of ten.

Setup was simple. Between 5-10 people are required for maintenance.

I would rate the pricing as five out of ten.

I compared Azure Block Storage with AWS. The cost is the main difference.

I would rate the solution as six out of ten. I would recommend it to others.

The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure Block Storage is the backing up of files.

Microsoft Azure Block Storage could improve by having integration with Amazon AWS. The file transfer could be easier.

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

Microsoft Azure Block Storage is stable.

The scalability of Microsoft Azure Block Storage is good.

We have approximately 30 people using this solution in my organization.

The technical support from Microsoft Azure Block Storage is good.

I rate the support from Microsoft Azure Block Storage a five out of five.

I have not used another solution in the category of Microsoft Azure Block Storage.

The installation of Microsoft Azure Block Storage is simple.

I did the implementation of Microsoft Azure Block Storage myself.

The price of  Microsoft Azure Block Storage could be less expensive.

I rate the price of Microsoft Azure Block Storage a four out of five.

I rate Microsoft Azure Block Storage a seven of ten.

We recently moved to Block Storage for SQL on Azure. It enables our employees to work remotely. We are customers of Microsoft and I'm a technical infrastructure analyst.

This is a very robust and flexible solution.

I'd like them to improve the features of data gathering - sometimes you need to get the data from the block and it's usually very expensive.

I've been using this solution for six months. 

The solution is stable. 

This solution is very scalable. 

Microsoft provides good support. They respond quickly and their technical people are very helpful. 

The initial setup is easy. 

It's important to analyze your requirements because it can sometimes be a problem in terms of price. Pay attention to locking because sometimes the amount of data on the block can lock your business.

I rate the solution 10 out of 10.