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Senior Devops at a computer software company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Good hub integration with lots of new features and easy to integrate
Pros and Cons
  • "I know there have been a lot of improvements and a lot of new services lately. I'm really not aware of all of them."
  • "I haven't checked the console for some time, however, compared to the AWS console, the interaction console of the web part, the web services, it's not so easy."

What is our primary use case?

I was testing the integration capabilities. I deployed a simple solution with a front and back end with an SQL database. For the server-less solution, it was just to interact with the database. That's what kind of the load that I was testing. The use case was to integrate with the directory, authenticate, and then consume some of the services there.

What is most valuable?

One of the services that I found to be great is the connector. For example, the other day, I was creating an application for internal research. With that connector, it was really easy to integrate some services to interact with the connectors. The credential allows you to authenticate with the active directory. Then, with that authentication, you can have the assurance that the people who are consuming the application are the right ones.

I know there have been a lot of improvements and a lot of new services lately. I'm really not aware of all of them.

One thing which is great is that they give users hub integration. That's a strong aspect, which would be good for many people and clients and developers so that they have that integration right away.

What needs improvement?

I haven't checked the console for some time, however, compared to the AWS console, the interaction console of the web part, the web services, it's not so easy. That will be a good area to improve, which is to make the console for interaction with services a little easier.

Another point to improve could maybe be the pricing model or maybe the interaction with information. When you look for information in AWS, it's more straightforward and clear. It's hard to find that information on Azure.

For how long have I used the solution?

I used the solution for maybe one month at the beginning of maybe March of this year. I was doing some tests with Microsoft Azure. I was deploying some services.

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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is fine. However, it may be another thing to improve. I haven't look looked at it in some time, however, I remember at the beginning, I tried to research for the price, for rates, and things. I didn't find it easy to locate, which made it hard to gauge the cost of scaling. 

From my side, I don't plan to increase usage. Right now, I'm working for other clients, and with the solutions of the clients. For research purposes, I will do maybe one or two instances, just for testing. It's not a big deal.

How are customer service and support?

While I've never needed technical assistance, my understanding is that it's pretty good.

How was the initial setup?

It was not very difficult to set up the solution. In the beginning, it's a bit difficult to just find the services and things like that. They need a kind of list or something, something more visible. That would help. 

Our implementation was not too big. It took maybe two days. Another deployment we did took maybe three. I'm not really a complete expert. It might have taken a bit longer for me due to my lack of experience.

What about the implementation team?

I did not use consultants or resellers for deployment. I did it myself. There wasn't too much pressure. I was doing the deployment more for research purposes. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price of the solution is unclear. it's hard to find the costs. 

What other advice do I have?

The company I am working for is a Microsoft partner.

I'd advise potential new users to try to get as much information as possible about licensing and about the products that they are going to use. That will be good to have a very clear understanding of. Beyond that, it's not a problem to get started and go.

I'd rate the product at an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Manager at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
It's a versatile platform that offers solutions for a wide range of clients and use cases
Pros and Cons
  • "Virtual machine services, in SaaS services, M365, and Data Lake are all popular with our clients."
  • "I'd like to see better integration with S/4HANA integrated and other services, like monitoring, for example."

What is our primary use case?

The use case varies by client. Sometimes it's financial tools or websites. We build tools for DevOps applications too. Our most recent use cases are retail and construction.

What is most valuable?

Virtual machine services, in SaaS services, M365, and Data Lake are all popular with our clients. 

What needs improvement?

When you use one feature in six months or a year, it changes for the others, and it isn't very easy. The filters are too complicated. I'd like to see better integration with S/4HANA integrated and other services, like monitoring, for example.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used Microsoft Azure for approximately two or three years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Azure is highly scalable.

How are customer service and support?

In my experience, Microsoft support is outstanding. We're Microsoft partners, so when we need support, we get it immediately. 

How was the initial setup?

I think the setup is complicated, but if you have experience with other Microsoft products, you should be able to figure it out. The time needed for deployment depends on the client and the solution. For example, it's very different in the case of Data Analytics, which took us two or three months to deliver the solution. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price of Azure is competitive with other cloud providers. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate Azure nine out of 10. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Azure
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Azure. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer1729404 - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner at a media company with 1-10 employees
Real User
Multiple tools available, updated often, and performs well
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure is it has everything together in one place. It is one large tool with lots of small tools that are updated often."
  • "There is a need to be better on-premise solutions that are more helpful. However, I don't think that is the goal of Microsoft Azure. They want the solution to be secure cloud solutions with cloud applications. This is their main goal at the moment."

What is our primary use case?

We are using Microsoft Azure mainly for our test environment. Addiotanlly, we use it for our enterprise resource management as we have installed a SaaS solution.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure is it has everything together in one place. It is one large tool with lots of small tools that are updated often.

What needs improvement?

I have found that if you not working with Microsoft Azure's GUI every day, it's not very user-friendly. It changes very often and fast. They are implementing new functionality. If you're not working with it every day, it always takes you additional time to get acquainted with the GUI. You always have to know all the tools because it's one software solution where you work with different kinds of tools to achieve results by implementing policies and other parameters. It would be better if they had everything in one place so that it is clear what type of operations we are doing, such as DLP. However, that's is how it is with all of the tools of Microsoft Azure at the moment.

There is a need to be better on-premise solutions that are more helpful. However, I don't think that is the goal of Microsoft Azure. They want the solution to be secure cloud solutions with cloud applications. This is their main goal at the moment.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Microsoft Azure for approximately five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The performance of Microsoft Azure depends on whether you have good bandwidth for your data connection, if the connection is strong then the performance is good. If you have a very poor connection, then it's can be a little slow, but has been okay.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have one administrator and one system engineer that are using the solution. They are doing the administration for our solution. We're not a big company, we have 19 employees.

We haven't tried to scale Microsoft Azure. It's not necessary for us to scale it at the moment. We have started out with one issue where we needed it and for very sensible documentation, now we are using it in different kinds of projects. For example, for many types of data classifications.

If it's necessary we will increase usage. Otherwise, we will keep the same amount of usage.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support of Microsoft Azure was helpful. They were very good because they spoke the same language as we did. We both spoke German. It worked very well, we have no complaints.

How was the initial setup?

Some of the aspects of the implementation of the solution are very easy if you know which tool you have to use. It's not too complicated if you know which tool you will be using but to find the right tool to do the necessary functions sometimes takes some time. I'm not doing the setup every day. I have one engineer that it is his job. But nevertheless, I also want to do the setup to know how it's working.

I am not sure how long the implementation took for our DLP project, once we started the implementation we started to use other tools and eventually returned to the main project.

What about the implementation team?

We did the implementation internally.

We have one engineer that is administrating and supporting Microsoft Azure.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

With every cloud solution, you have to know what you need and the cost can be fine. The price can be a little bit high depending on how you manage your costs, but overall it's still a bit cheaper than an on-premise solution but with the advantage of flexibility. You're always up to date with the software, you only need to use it. You no longer have to be concerned with the on-premise physical security. We do not need to create a data center, it's more convenient for us.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Some of our customers are looking for on-premise solutions other than Microsoft Azure which is cloud-based. We help them find the solutions they need.

What other advice do I have?

My advice to others thinking about using this solution is to try it out. There are features which are very good and some other features where you should watch out but that's for every solution, you have pros and cons. When you're a small company, try everything out that is offered by Microsoft because they're one of the best. Microsoft is still the market leader in a lot of fields. I would suggest using Microsoft tools if they fit the relevant use case. If the solution does not fit the use case, or you need more security or other aspects, then you can look around for other tools. additionally, on the marketplace, Microsoft provides enough other tools you could use.

I rate Microsoft Azure an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1128801 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of Analytics and Cognitive Computing at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Real User
Straightforward setup, helpful support, but better dashboards needed
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution has enabled us to provide advanced indicators and analytics to the client on their data."
  • "There are always new features to add in terms of additional indicators, improving the looks of the dashboard and stuff. There are some dashboards that are not attractive, we are looking to make them fancier and nice-looking."

What is our primary use case?

We use Microsoft Azure to store our data and build analytical tools on the platform. Our Trade Insight Dashboards allow users to explore trade and investment data for more than 150 countries. Users can discover the most traded products of each country, where they are sent to, where do opportunities lie, and which industry has the most potential. 

How has it helped my organization?

Our data is kept in a secure, reliable, scalable platform. Data is easily available to our consultants and customers from anywhere around the world. We no more have on-premise servers. Azure has helped our digitalisation process and was key to our latest success. 

What is most valuable?

The ability to scale up and down the azure services when needed. We could better manage our costs. 

What needs improvement?

We work mostly with the data services and the SQL database features. We like the optimisation recommendations we get such as creation of indexes etc. What I would like to see further is  some basic data profiling stats or charts representing data stored to be integrated in the SQL database services instead of using other services such as the Azure Data Catalog.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Microsoft Azure for approximately two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Microsoft Azure has been stable for us, we have not faced any issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have found Microsoft Azure to be scalable. Our business has not been growing very fast on the solution but it has the capability of expanding.

We can keep track of how many people are downloading the applications and there are approximately 2,000 people using the solution.

How are customer service and support?

We have been in touch with technical support several times. The assistance and support provided was very good. 4 to 5 stars on average. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is not complicated.

What other advice do I have?

My advice to others before implementing this solution is to be well-documented in your needs and to have support from a solution provider. Additionally, be aware of exactly what support you might require before starting.

I rate Microsoft Azure a seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Implementer
PeerSpot user
reviewer1753023 - PeerSpot reviewer
Independent consultant
Real User
The license is reasonable, and the packages are competitive
Pros and Cons
  • "Azure services like EDM and Batch are all famous, but one of the most popular services for development is Azure Functions, especially the PaaS option. Depending on a customer's environment, they can go for the PaaS."
  • "The management portal can be confusing sometimes. We have difficulty navigating the menus because the terminology is unclear, especially when referring to the content or actionable items."

What is our primary use case?

Most workloads can be migrated to Azure. For example, say a small business wants to have a website or even do development. 

What is most valuable?

Azure services like EDM and Batch are all famous, but one of the most popular services for development is Azure Functions, especially the PaaS option. Depending on a customer's environment, they can go for the PaaS.

What needs improvement?

The management portal can be confusing sometimes. We have difficulty navigating the menus because the terminology is unclear, especially when referring to the content or actionable items. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been working as an Azure trainer for about a year and a half. In my last job, I was working with on-premises solutions, but the whole industry is transitioning to the cloud, so Azure, AWS, Google, and many other cloud providers are trying to get a market share now.  

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I don't have any issues with scalability or stability. We moved migrated from our physical infrastructure earlier, and we haven't seen any problems. It's more about the organization getting comfortable with the solution. That's the only thing.

How was the initial setup?

Azure setup is straightforward. There is no comparison to on-premises deployment because it's all automated. It's very fast, but I can't compare the speed to other vendors because I've never deployed AWS or Google.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

AWS is good, but Azure's license is reasonably priced, and Microsoft is gaining market share with a competitive package overall. Moreover, Microsoft is well ahead of AWS in terms of ease of use and billing, so I think I still love Microsoft. Obviously, both have a market, but customers working on development projects or using Microsoft products often go for Azure because of the license benefits and product support. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate Microsoft Azure eight out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Software Architect at AIOPS group
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Powerful and easy to integrate
Pros and Cons
  • "One of the most valuable features of Azure is that it's a very integrated solution. You have to learn how to use it properly, but it's not that hard, and you can define your whole scrum process and deploy it from one place. It was a really nice surprise to see how easily integrated this tool is."
  • "I would say an improvement could be allowing for more external, third-party tools. However, I think that's their vision, how they develop the product."

What is our primary use case?

We have many use cases of Azure. For example, in this project, we usually use Jira for tracking the tasks, stories, etc., but in this case we used Azure. We used it for the whole scrum process. We also used it as our deployment environment for testing the software and production. The production was also deployed on the Azure cloud. 

What is most valuable?

One of the most valuable features of Azure is that it's a very integrated solution. You have to learn how to use it properly, but it's not that hard, and you can define your whole scrum process and deploy it from one place. It was a really nice surprise to see how easily integrated this tool is.

What needs improvement?

I would say an improvement could be allowing for more external, third-party tools. However, I think that's their vision, how they develop the product. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Azure for about a year. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This solution is stable. We were quite happy with Azure's performance.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Azure is scalable. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have also used AWS. To put it this way, I don't think Azure is worse than AWS—certainly it's not the same, so if you're used to using one, it may initially be different, but it's not hard to learn. Maybe if I use it more, I can give some specifics, but I think Azure is a very good solution. 

How was the initial setup?

Azure is a cloud tool, so the installation is a very easy process. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Their licensing costs might be a little bit lower, compared to AWS, but I'm not sure. I think we get licenses, especially on long-term projects, on a yearly basis. It could be cheaper. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate Microsoft Azure an eight out of ten. There is some hype in the industry around AWS, but I think Azure is quite powerful and could be a really nice alternative to AWS. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1037115 - PeerSpot reviewer
senior system integrator at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Highly stable and scalable
Pros and Cons
  • "Microsoft Azure is scalable."
  • "There are many bugs in the solutions and we already have a ticket to Microsoft. Their content team is working on that."

What is our primary use case?

We are using Microsoft Azure for deploying our Windows. Additionally, Microsoft Azure for some analytic functions where we can have all our sales data and budgeting can be done.

What needs improvement?

There are many bugs in the solutions and we already have a ticket to Microsoft. Their content team is working on that.

We don't have the active-active options for Microsoft SQL Server. This is something they can work on.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Microsoft Azure for one and a half years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is scalable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Microsoft Azure is scalable.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Microsoft Azure an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Implementer
PeerSpot user
reviewer1724199 - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Architect at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Good for managing and configuring infrastructures
Pros and Cons
  • "In terms of managing and configuring infrastructures, Azure is fairly good."
  • "Azure could be improved with better security. The world is changing and their security could be better. Compared to five years ago, many of these cloud systems are a lot better, especially since you can set up a private cloud and configure your services to make it more secure."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use cases are for GPU-centric computing and deploying web services infrastructure solutions. 

What is most valuable?

In terms of managing and configuring infrastructures, Azure is fairly good. 

What needs improvement?

Azure could be improved with better security. The world is changing and their security could be better. Compared to five years ago, many of these cloud systems are a lot better, especially since you can set up a private cloud and configure your services to make it more secure. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Microsoft Azure for more than two years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This solution is stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I used Azure in a research-related context to see what features were possible, not a scalability context, so my impressions are limited. 

How are customer service and support?

If you require a good amount of support, you may have an easier time with AWS. 

How was the initial setup?

Installation may not be easy for novices, but for experienced folks, it's fairly straightforward. You can do it yourself. 

What about the implementation team?

I implemented this solution myself. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Licensing is available for Azure. We mainly use Azure in a research context and to showcase what's possible, not from a scalability context, so our usage is limited from that standpoint. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I have also worked with Amazon AWS. In general, AWS is fairly good too. I also know that many people also look at Google Cloud, which offers similar features and services. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate Microsoft Azure an eight out of ten. There are some quirks, but in terms of managing and configuring infrastructures, it's fairly good. I recommend Azure because it's a top-class cloud solution provider, so there aren't many issues. 

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Microsoft Azure Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: December 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Microsoft Azure Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.