Microsoft Azure Reviews

The typical use case is where you are trying to avoid investing in a solution that you are only going to be using on a limited basis. You need a pay-as-you-go solution where you can have access when you need it, but you don't have to make a major long-term investment. For example, say you need a software application but you want someone to build that application for you, and you don't want to invest in hardware or networking or other things for on-premise deployment. You can have your solution hosted on the cloud on the Azure platform so that it can be accessed from anywhere and you don't need someone to take care of it or maintain it. You can access your software application from your home or wherever without having to worry about the server going down or anything like that.
In these cases, a cloud-based platform like Azure or Amazon Web Services can be useful.

Azure is very user-friendly. I was able to create some database servers really fast. The user interface is intuitive. I don't work on the networking or firewall side of things. So I'm not familiar with those areas. 

Some of the capabilities available in an on-premise SQL Server aren't available in Azure. For instance, we found Azure Managed Instance to be lacking in certain aspects. One of our clients decided to stay on-premise rather than migrate to Azure because of this reason. Maybe Microsoft is working on building these capabilities in the future, and we are unaware. 

I've been using Microsoft Azure for a couple of years.

With Azure's capabilities, like sharding, we can really scale it up. They also offer features to increase performance, such as the ability to switch between performance tiers as needed.

It's fairly easy, but it really depends on a lot of factors, such as the size of your application, how many databases you have and how many web servers you have. 

We outsource some of the work of the actual deployment to external consultants. And we don't do any work on the hardware side of things ourselves.

Azure uses enterprise licenses, and I believe they are on a yearly basis. One piece of feedback from other users I have heard from is that Azure is somewhat expensive, so I would advise anyone thinking about this solution to be aware of the cost. You need to take into account the configuration you are going with or it could turn out to be a more expensive solution than you anticipated. Sometimes, I feel that it may not be very straightforward for a consumer to estimate the cost. It's important to be clear in terms of your budget and what you're actually purchasing.

I would rate it eight out of 10.

We are using Microsoft Azure for the UAT environment and data warehousing purposes.

I have been using Microsoft Azure for approximately seven years.

The solution is stable.

Microsoft Azure is scalable.

We have 12,000 users using this solution.

I use other cloud services, such as Amazon AWS and Google Cloud services.

The initial setup is straightforward.

We have a team of 30 that does the implementation of the solution.

We are on a monthly subscription for Microsoft Azure and the cost is more expensive than some of the competitors, such as Amazon AWS. They should be more competitive with other solutions.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Microsoft Azure a seven out of ten.

We are customers of Microsoft and I'm the IT technical manager. 

The most valuable feature for me is the high level of availability and the 99% uptime of the system. I also appreciate the technical simplicity of the system in terms of implementation.

I'm currently based in the Philippines and the availability of services locally could be improved. Technically speaking, I'd like to see more flexibility in terms of storage or resource allocation. Resourcing is currently quite fixed so that if you want to move between level two and level three resources, or customize resources, you can't do that. The discrepancy in terms of costing is around $200. If they improved flexibility for selecting resources it would be easier for us to get the costing approved.

I've been using this solution for around two years. 

The solution is stable, one of the most reliable in the Philippines. The downside is that currently all the services are outside the country. Singapore and Hong Kong provide the closest service but we have laws that prohibit certain amounts of data residing in other countries. None of that affects stability. 

One of the key takes from using cloud services is scalability and flexibility. If a company hits some roadblocks financially, they can reduce infrastructure and also reduce what they use in the cloud lowering the cost. 

I've had several outages or major issues and I've had good experience with technical support. They resolved the problems in less than a day. The only downside is that in the Philippines you're dealing with the vendor and not Microsoft direct. I have two steps of support; if the vendor can't provide the support, then they escalate to Microsoft. 

The initial setup is quite simple. We currently have 20 users on the infrastructure side in addition to 20+ developers.

We have difficulty in getting the costing approved. We pay for a virtual machine and the resources currently implemented there, then we need a license from Microsoft Windows OS and the database itself. In our latest license purchase, the manager approved a monthly fee of around $2,000 for the resources we use. If you're going to the cloud, that's currently included in the cost and will be less if you have the software assurance from Microsoft; on-prem is more expensive.

The big takeaway on this product is the high availability of the system on cloud and reduction of on-prem costing. There are no concerns about the electrical doing some redundancy in between, cooling, purchasing, procurement of IT equipment. Instead of budgeting based on CAPEX, we're doing it from an OPEX point of view. One of the key takes for moving to the cloud is the cost. You can leverage with the cloud and let go of some things required to maintain a system on-prem, the kinds of things that alleviate some complexity in doing maintenance of the system. The solution is suitable for any size company. 

I highly recommend Microsoft Azure. Everyone knows Microsoft so the learning curve is easier. I rate the solution nine out of 10. 

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.

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.

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.

I have been working with Microsoft since the very beginning.

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.

Scalability is complex, but only because our company is complex.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

The monitoring features are very good.

Some of the dashboard features can be improved.

Some of the backup solutions for SAP are not compatible. For example, we have a Sybase database running, and Azure does not have an agent tool for connecting with it. This means that we have to use a third-party tool to properly backup our SAP Sybase system.

We have been using Microsoft Azure for between two and three years.

Azure is a stable product.

This is a scalable solution and we have been 200 and 300 people who use it.

The technical support is really good.

We have not used another public cloud.

We have an in-house team, and between 10 and 20 people maintain it.

The pricing model can be improved because we find that Azure pricing is a bit high.

We are planning to migrate our SAP system to the cloud, so we have been looking at and comparing different cloud solutions. We are analyzing and comparing Google Cloud Platform, Amazon, and the IBM Cloud. After we compare them all we will make a decision.

The suitability of this product depends on the customer's requirements and needs. AWS is stable and nice, the Google Cloud Platform is really improving a lot, and IBM Cloud is also available. The decision for which to use will be based on what kind of solutions you are deploying and how you want to integrate them. Ultimately, it is best to choose the provider that is most suitable for your existing workload. 

Overall, this is a good solution but there are certainly features that need to be improved, as well as the pricing.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

This solution is used to migrate data to the cloud. They have a few different ways that this can happen. You can use the public cloud or private cloud, for example. Or you can use a hybrid as well. 

If you want to add some services, they have that capability to do that. Even if you want to improve your network, and you want to add your storage, or you want to maybe improve the speed of your infrastructure, they have that capability. 

They own a SaaS model. They have applications such as Microsoft Office 365, which is a cloud service. When I was using Oracle Linux desktop, I was still able to use Microsoft Office 365 to do my daily work.

If I want to send a Word document, I don't have to install anything. I don't have to hassle with the installation of Microsoft Office in Linux. It's quite a process to do that. However, if we have the internet, we can do everything we need to without having to install anything. You can do all of the Office activities including PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook. It's very easy.

Microsoft offers free courses and an exam on their products. Many of my colleagues who use Microsoft Azure take advantage of those free courses to help them learn about the solution in depth.

It would be nice if there was an on-premises version of the solution, and it wasn't just cloud-based. Oracle, for example, has both capabilities. Some people don't understand the cloud, or are hesitant, and this might prevent them from adopting the product. Also, migrating to the cloud can bring a lot of misunderstanding and a lot of trouble to some companies. Some prefer that their data is not moved from the premises, or have requirements to that effect. If Microsoft could address these concerns, that would be ideal.

The solution has a lot of terms of services. These should be simplified.

I haven't been using the solution for very long. In fact, it has only been a few weeks at this point.

The solution is quite stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's quite reliable for our organization.

I have noticed that they have the capability to scale. Even you are not using some of the services, you can still scale. Let's say, you have bought large storage, and you notice that you no longer want to use it anymore. You have the chance to reduce that and not have to pay for more than you need. You pay as you go, therefore they have the capability to accommodate shifts in sizing. Most of the cloud providers do have that capability whereby you don't have to use something that you do not need.

We do plan to use the solution into the future as it does offer us good flexibility.

I'm not really on the technical side of things, and therefore I don't generally deal with technical support. Therefore, I can't speak to their level of knowledge or their responsiveness.

Previously, I've also used Oracle and IBM.

I personally didn't have to do an installation.

All you need to do is read the documentation, and everything you need to know is right there. It's quite straightforward in that sense.

The solution offers a freemium model. There are some things that they can give for free, however, if you exceed certain levels in terms of what you were initially given, then they have to charge you for that. That's why, usually when you create the account, they want you to use your credit card so that when you exceed your limit, they will be able to charge you for that.

When you want to do the license, there is a certain amount that you need to pay. The pricing varies according to usage and differs in terms of the services and the models that you need. For those who need a platform as a service for developers, or infrastructure as a service, or software as a service, they provide for those scenarios. However, the pricing will depend on the service that you want.

I'm a consultant. I work as a partner with Microsoft.

We're using the latest version of the solution at this time.

I would recommend the solution to others.

I'd rate it nine out of ten overall.

We use the solution to set up access to process queuing, configure virtual instances, obtain a domain name, acquire the necessary certificates, and deploy the web server to the internet.

Microsoft Azure has proven to be beneficial for our organization due to its quick deployment capabilities. Setting up virtual machines or any required infrastructure is fast. 

The tool needs to improve its navigation. 

I have been using the product for two to three years. 

Microsoft Azure's stability depends on the resources allocated. If you provision sufficient resources, it tends to be stable. However, choosing lower resources, like two gigs of RAM and CPUs, might lead to less stability.

The product is scalable. My company has five users. 

I haven't contacted the technical team yet. 

Microsoft Azure's deployment is straightforward for me, given my experience and understanding of the Azure system. It is not difficult for me to handle.

The tool's deployment was done in-house. 

I rate the product an eight out of ten. 

We had a cloud migration project from on-premise to the cloud. We used various components like Azure’s cost calculator to provide the ongoing running costs.

SQL Server has been most beneficial for our client’s workload.

Everything needs improvement. The tool must constantly improve to provide a better experience. The security must be improved. The scalability could also be improved.

I have been using the solution for five years.

I rate the tool’s stability an eight out of ten.

I rate the tool’s scalability a nine out of ten. Our clients are medium to large businesses.

I rate the ease of setup a five out of ten. The product is deployed on the cloud. The deployment took a few hours.

I rate the pricing an eight out of ten. All cloud services are expensive.

I rate the solution’s ability to support our client’s business growth a seven out of ten. We don't get direct support from Microsoft. I rate Azure's integration capabilities a seven out of ten. I will recommend the tool to others. Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten.