Microsoft Azure Reviews

We use the solution for pipelines.

Because of automation, everything from the beginning of the development project is stored on one side and brought from the development side to the production side.

Due to automation, the development process is streamlined from the beginning. 

The process involves understanding what is provided from the repository side, managing the code, and handling changes and responsibilities. This includes staging in the pipeline. 

Sometimes, I have issues configuring settings, setting up policies, and communicating with others on Microsoft Azure.

Pricing is high, especially if you plan to use it on a larger scale, with more teams, or want to include additional features. The costs can increase significantly as you add more features and expand usage.

I have been using Microsoft Azure for two years.

Stability is straightforward when combining some Linux features or Linux kernels. Additionally, integrating with other operating systems can sometimes be challenging.

It takes time to get familiar, but after, everything is fast.

When I experienced a crash, I received a response within a few days. The level of support depends on your user status. If you are a minimal or ultimate user, and if you pay more, you receive more support. Everything goes much faster.

Everything is okay if you are familiar with Teams and how it works. However, combining Teams with other tools and APIs can make things much faster. Additionally, the plugins provided by the official Microsoft site can enhance its functionality.

The deployment is manageable in one day and takes only one person.

It automates and saves time. Microsoft Azure breaks entire products into modules, making it easier to implement changes. These changes can be deployed much faster compared to traditional methods.

It is payable for what you need and how much you use.

I preferred Azure because it's more robust, it's easy to get around.

Code breaks from time to time, so maintenance is required periodically, especially for extensive codebases. Regular testing and checks are necessary to ensure reliability and performance.

I use other tools that integrate Copilot, which will soon be integrated into Microsoft Azure. I rely on other sources when I need to find information. There's also the security issue, as there's always a risk concerning where company data will ultimately be stored.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We are using the solution as a cloud environment. 

The solution is user-friendly and compatible. 

The platform should be available at the same price worldwide. 

I have been using Microsoft Azure for the past 5 years. 

 I don't see any major bugs in the cloud environment.

Two hundred people are using the solution at present.

They are quick to solve issues. 

Positive

Microsoft provides very easy documentation, for each and every resource. So there is a very clear documentatio. It is very easy to install and start up with the cloud environment.

The pricing is cheap. 

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

I use the solution in my company to virtualize apps that haven't quite become SaaS products yet. My organization gets to deal with travel-based companies, mining companies, and logistics companies that have software on which their business runs, for whom we need to put such software tools into a cloud instance because there are no current SaaS offerings in the market. My company tends to host certain software products on Azure and then deploy such solutions through Azure Virtual Desktop.

The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it is a quite cheap tool compared to any other private cloud offerings. It makes good commercial sense to have Microsoft Azure when you compare it to an on-premises infrastructure.

The permissions and controls in the product are not easy to use. From an improvement perspective, the permissions and controls in the product need to be made easier. I believe that the product is working to improve the native domain controllers in the cloud. My company studies the road map of Microsoft Azure quite frequently and closely. I believe the solution is working on areas where my company finds ideas or areas for improvement.

The product's current price needs to be lowered from an improvement perspective.

I have been using Microsoft Azure for four and a half years. My company has a partnership with Microsoft.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten. The scalability of the product is a selling point of the solution.

The product is suitable for companies of all sizes. Small companies can use Office 365. Requirements might arise for businesses, regardless of the size of the companies.

The solution's technical support was very good.

The product's initial setup phase was simple. There are some complexities attached to the solution when it comes to certain niches and during migrations.

The solution is deployed on a public cloud.

The product helps save costs for our company since we need not refresh the hardware part every four years. The box provided by the solution can be turned on and off. Most of our company's clients save a fair bit of money with Microsoft Azure.

I rate the product price a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is high price, and ten is low price.

Microsoft Azure offers a better all-in-one package than Google Workspace or G Suite. Compared to its competitors, Microsoft Azure is a much better option for mature businesses.

I recommend the product to those who plan to use it.

I rate the overall tool a nine out of ten.

We use it internally to manage all of our clients, but it also helps us connect with different customers located globally.

It is a very straightforward solution that provides a wide range of services. I highly appreciate its help availability. If there is any issue in operating, it only takes to Google a solution and it can be easily fixed.

I would recommend some enhancement regarding integration features. 

Our company has been utilizing Microsoft Azure for five to six years. 

Microsoft Azure is a very stable solution. 

It offers good scalability. 

Our experience with their customer service is satisfactory. We find it valuable that numerous essential information are readily accessible. 

Positive

The initial setup was seamless and very fast. It took a few hours to complete the whole process. 

The deployment process was efficient and fast. Due to the complexity and extensive range of services and configuration options, it took a significant number of IT professionals to execute the task. 

Microsoft Azure provides a reliable cloud platform and comprehensive services so it would be a great choice for first-time users. I am rating it eight out of ten. 

We are using Microsoft Azure for many purposes in our project. We have a cloud-based SQL Server and we are bringing data to Azure DB through the Area feature. We are using SQL Server as a database, and from there we are using the data for analysis. We are doing forecasting using all the data. 

The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure is the Area feature. Additionally, the SQL Server DB as a serverless pool is useful, storage-wide external tables are helpful, and PolyBase is very good at reading external data. The capacity of Synapse to analyze in analytics is very good and it supports a range of data.

I have been using Microsoft Azure for approximately one year.

The scalability could improve.

We have many teams that are using this solution in different projects.

I rate the scalability of Microsoft Azure a four out of five.

We did not contact the support from Microsoft Azure often.

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

Positive

I did not use another solution prior to Microsoft Azure.

The deployment of Microsoft Azure is easy because it is cloud-based.

We have one person that can deploy Microsoft Azure when they have proper access rights. If the project is small it can be seamless. For example, I'm handling a 10 to 12 person team, and for deployment, one person that has all access writes can deploy Microsoft Azure seamlessly.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse an eight out of ten.

In general, we use Azure for financial services.

Azure helps us take a few things to the market predictably and robustly. It gives us the speed and predictability to build something in a short time. The cost can sometimes be clumsier, but I believe it is similar to other cloud providers. These are the main advantages, but the price is one factor that has really bothered our clients.

Azure's Data Lake services are decent. I like AKS, and API Management is relatively straightforward to use. The security and SIEM options Azure offers are good. All the infrastructure services are easy to use and set up. 

In terms of adoption, one issue we face is providing training for users who are new to Azure and want to try some features out. There are some methods by which the organization has to allot some budget to them, but it has to be apart from the developer endpoints. It's difficult for them to try out something new. It would be nice if Azure had an evaluation period of 30, 60, or 90 days, so people could try out a few things and learn.

That is one challenging area, but this is a problem with all cloud providers, not just Azure. Some free subscriptions are available, but they are for the cloud platform as a whole rather than just a single service. For example, say I don't have a trial subscription, but I want to try something new like Azure AKS for 30 days to learn and to try out. 

It's hard to say what Azure could add. There are a few specific requirements that clients raise based on business needs. In general, I don't think there is any particular feature I can recommend.

I've been using Azure for about four or five years.

Azure has had some issues on and off, but that was a couple of years back, and now it seems okay. Sometimes the performance of the cloud degrades, but there are workarounds. 

We mainly use AKS, which is pretty scalable, so I don't see any issue there. Azure's scalability is relative, so it depends on the client and the solution. Most of our clients are B2B, so they don't have many users. However, we provide a retail banking solution that involves hundreds of transactions per hour. Azure can handle up to a hundred transactions per second can be supported, so I think it's okay.

We talk to Microsoft support often.

Azure setup is pretty straightforward and we mostly handle it in-house. However, it depends upon the complexity of the use case, how we are deploying, and the kind of application we are building. The build and deployment times depend on how we structure our packaging. 

Azure is expensive, but that depends upon who you ask. It probably wouldn't be considered a significant expense for a large corporation, but it's costly for smaller enterprises or startups.

Pricing is one area where Azure has room for improvement. There should be some due consideration. Azure has solved some issues with pricing from the development team's standpoint, but it is still quite costly. They should also offer a trial period for the individual platform solutions. I think that would be pretty handy for the developers.

I rate Azure eight out of 10. I would recommend it. I don't see any challenges from a technology standpoint.

I am a technology consultant and pre-sales cloud solution architect.

These are the features I have found most valuable with Azure. For any particular cloud world, when we talk about the cloud computing model, it is all about agility, availability, how you are trying to scale up your environment, how you're providing high availability, your disaster recovery mechanism, and what is the service availability matrix that you're following? We then talk about the workloads which are being supported on the Microsoft platform. Then we come to the commercial side of those workloads. For example, if we are trying to migrate the Windows workload, then Microsoft Azure offers a lot of benefits for Windows and SQL licenses. We can include that in the picture while we are trying to draw a comparison between different providers. Because AWS does not provide that DAM facility, though there is something that they provide, but you need to put it on the installs, not on RDS. Make it easy to install.

The second thing about Azure is that if we talk about Gartner, IDC and Forrester, although AWS is leading the chart in the leader's quadrant, when we look at the recent growth and what companies are acquiring and how much business they are pulling in year to year, there is a greater spike in the Microsoft Azure growth as compared to AWS.

I have worked as a cloud solution architect in India and Microsoft Azure works on data centers. They have three different geographical locations where they put the data centers. So as per the ISO 27001 BSI compliance for DR, disaster recovery mechanism, you need to make sure that the primary and secondary data centers are separated by a geographical zone - which Microsoft Azure adheres to. That definitely makes it a good choice for the client who wants the data to be in India and to also follow the BSI compliance.

Other factors include the Azure Site Recovery. The ASR one-stop DR solution provides RPO and RTO. It also gives you failover and failback scenarios. AWS did not have that kind of platform earlier. They had DM, DMS and SMS for small scale and medium scale app and database migration, but they didn't have a one-stop DR solution. They recently acquired cloud in their platform. Microsoft Azure also recently acquired cloud. They have built that particular platform into their Azure Migrate, which is their cloud feasibilities function provider. If we need to do a feasibility assessment or dependency mapping, we can use that particular tool or the Azure Migrate. It's a very good tool. I use that tool for multiple things.

I am trying to draw a comparison between the two leading cloud providers.

When we try to do backup scenarios, Azure Site Recovery is supported with all kinds of platforms. But it is not capable when you are trying to do recovery of a database or a recovery of an application server which are already on HA, high availability. HA would mean that you have only done the clustering. If there was clustering there, then definitely the ASR does not support it. But if you don't have HA, if you don't have the clustering done, then definitely ASR would be supported in that particular scenario. You can also do big database migrations with the Azure Site Recovery if there is a single database. Otherwise, you can use native database solutions to migrate them to cloud. For example, SQL Enterprises uses the Always On, where you introduce a new machine into the clustering. Then you try to put that as a secondary, and then you migrate.

Otherwise, if you have SQL Standard, then you can use a log sheet mechanism, which can be used to migrate the data. For SAP HANA, you can use HSR, HANA Service Replication, and for Oracle you can use the Data Guard, the negative solutions supported, but definitely Azure is doing that, as well. When we talk about a typical DR scenario, the cost that you are giving within Microsoft Azure would be storage, then the Azure Site Recovery cost, and then the network readiness. Microsoft Azure is an optimized solution when we compare it to any other particular cloud solution.

In terms of what could be improved with Azure, I would like to see something like what Google has created with their cross-platform solution, Anthos. I would like to see some features like Anthos has. Secondly, there are multiple DevOps solutions and tools available in Microsoft Azure, but most of the time they are either in the build mode, meaning you don't get complete support for them because they are either making changes, or changing the names of the particular services. Sometimes, services vanish from the portal. We are not able to see that. I think they actually change the names of the services.

For example, they had advanced data analytics in Office 365. They actually removed it and they now include all those features in Windows Defender. 

One more thing that I would like to say is that AWS works on availability zones. You have multiple availability zones in a particular region, which means that in that particular region you have more than one data center. If any of their single data centers fail, they can do a failover to the next immediate data center, which is in the same region. But in the case of Azure, if the data center fails for one particular region, they need to do a failover to different region altogether, which is separated by a geographical distance. That will be a kind of DR scenario.

Microsoft should focus on the higher availability of data centers where they can have more than one data center in a single region. I think they have implemented that kind of solution in the USA. They are going to do it soon in Europe and other countries as well, but it still is an upcoming feature. It's not completely built. They need to build that. 

The second thing which I feel regarding Microsoft Azure in India, is that they have less case studies when we talk about SAP on Azure as compared to SAP on AWS. There are fewer numbers of case studies on the portal. You can't find any. Whereas when you go into the India section for AWS, you will find plenty in terms of SAP and cloud.

Case studies are not there. If you have case studies, good case studies of large banks or any kind of government sectors, those case studies would definitely help to build customer trust on that particular platform.

There is one more thing which I would like to talk about in terms of costing. When you talk about AWS, they have three different types of costing models - partial upfront, no upfront, and all upfront. Azure has two models, all up front and no upfront. But also in these costing models, AWS has multiple other payment modes in terms of one-year or three-year. Azure does not have that. It lacks that particular costing mechanism, which it needs so there are more costing models. There is a lack of pricing flexibility, and I would like to see more costing models and licensing.

The third thing I would like to say, is that Azure was pretty bad in terms of the recent service off-time for Microsoft Azure and AWS. They didn't complete 99.99% of service they provide to the customers as compared to AWS. AWS data centers have also gone out recently, I think, four or five service interruptions, but definitely Azure should be keeping that in mind. I think with the help of clustering data centers in a single region, they can achieve that.

I do not want to take any credit away from Azure or AWS, but definitely Anthos is a big plus point for DCP. Azure should also build that kind of platform. Secondly, they can work on creating more data centers to build the regional availability,  which AWS already has across geography. The third thing they can work on is their costing models and the RI models - make them a bit more flexible for the client.

I have been working on Azure for the past seven years.

Regarding stability, Azure is doing well in terms of IES portfolio. They need to progress on the implementation of more data centers in a single region, which would increase their service level agreement by a little. They definitely need to work on their DevOps services. AWS' DevOps services are pretty good. If you go into ratings, the leading raters or the leading magazines, Forrester or Gartner or IDC, rate AWS services much higher compared to Azure. So, they need to increase on their service.

The third thing on the stability factor is that they publish more cases on the core infrastructure migration, the mission critical applications like SAP migration or Apple migrations. Putting the case studies on the portal would alleviate the doubt that Azure is stable. Azure is stable, but the case studies have to be there to support that.

When we talk about scale and scale out mechanisms, this works pretty seamlessly in Azure. For example, if I need to use the spot instances that AWS has (spot instances are those instances which are actually created at times when you need a high memory or a high CPU for some time) you can configure a spot instance and the spot instance occurs, and it does the load checkpoint. Azure does the same thing with scaling out. However, one thing regarding RI is that AWS does not support that, but when I am in a particular RI, for example my family is the DS series, I am in DS3 or DS4, if I want to scale up, I can scale up with the same RI, but if I need to scale down, I cannot scale down unless I remove that RI and create a new one. I cannot scale into a different family altogether.

Cross-family scaling is not there. Cross-family scaling would help because sometimes being on cloud machines which are in RI, those machines have been used for one year and are currently a very small application host or they are hosting applications or IA services, etc... Now, that particular application has been, or is getting decommissioned, and the company wants to leave the same RI machines for a different application altogether for which they want that particular application to perform on a higher computer issue. For that particular thing I need to cancel that RI and with the remaining my budget, and with the call deduction that Microsoft does, I need to purchase a new RI. If the cross-family RI is there, then it is definitely smoother, and the priority won't be there. So, it will not be an economic blow for the company.

When you open a normal case, Azure has a response matrix. They don't have a resolution matrix - at what particular time that will be resolved. The maximum resolution matrix is not there. But when we talk about the premium support, then Azure has a response matrix and a resolution matrix, and they also have the escalation matrix.

When I was working in Progressive Infotech, we had the advanced support subscription with Microsoft Azure Support. We were given multiple hours of advanced support. We were also provided with other things. I felt then that when you're opening a support ticket, and the support ticket priority is less or if the ticket that you opened is not in the premium bracket, the resolution will be late and the support matrix won't follow the time. They have a response. I think the response matrix is there for basic support and for advanced support. Premium support has the resolution matrix, as well. But the support center needs to have a service level agreement, which has the response matrix, the resolution matrix, and escalation matrix. That will build more trust from the partners in the OEM. AWS actually does not have that, but their response and resolution are pretty good because all the cases that you open in AWS are paid.

Azure materials are pretty good compared to AWS, or any other platform materials. Azure has multiple platforms, and MS Learn is where you can learn about the platforms and the services. Then you have Docs.Microsoft.com, which you can use as a troubleshoot document or understanding of how to implement that solution. With the help of Microsoft Azure, the Microsoft platform, you have multiple types of cases which you can open in the Microsoft Portal. The premium cases are there. Then you have support cases, as well. Azure is pretty good there. Their support matrix is pretty good. The materials are there, the support matrix is there. So, that is pretty good.

Microsoft Azure has multiple levels that an organization can take. Once they had the silver, bronze and the gold partnerships, and in terms of the productivity there is the Office 365 suite or the Azure suite, and they have specialty certifications, as well. You have the premium certifications. If you are also providing support to the client, then as a manager you can join Microsoft as an expert MSP. I think there are 50 or 55 in the country. It started at 15, and it grew to 55. Because many companies who are putting out tenders or an RFP or RFQ, mention in the PQ criteria that the partner should be MSP certified.

It would definitely help. It would act as a USP for you because there are multiple companies in India, more than hundreds and hundreds of companies in India and outside India. The customer would know the first company which is an expert MSP and the Microsoft partners would also give the lead to those export MSPs. Currently, you can also elevate the level by being on a fast track team, which is a one-stop team for Microsoft implementation and support for the Office 365 platform. The fast track team can be a very good asset because you can get a faster certification and then you сan be on the fast track board. You can actually make money when you do a successful implementation or support for a particular client. So the value is there.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give Microsoft Azure an eight.

I know Azure. We have the tools for optimized Azure infrastructure. As a partner, as an active integrator, I am looking only for plays to make the deal. I am not an end user, prospector or client. I use it in my projects but I am not buying any solution from Microsoft for ourselves. I am the seller.

When I talk about the Infrastructure as a Service from the Microsoft, I am referring to a hybrid infrastructure. We are talking about the moving of virtual machines and workload from on-premise system to the Cloud. This is my main topic when we are talking with the client. My technical team worries about the details of how we do this. I am not so good in the technical details.

In terms of our customers' use cases, in our last project, the customers migrated the SAP system from on-premise to the Azure with SQL as a database. We helped the customer to compare on-premise infrastructures and Infrastructure as a Service in Azure, and to help them migrate the machines, the tech, and the servers from on-premise to the Cloud and to have the tools from the Quest to help them optimize because they did not want to pay so much. They only wanted to pay by use. We are looking for the perfect tier from Azure to finish the project. This was our job. That's why I like the Azure.

There is not too much perfect information out there about how to optimize the infrastructure. Microsoft is looking for the bills where the sky is the limit but the customer is looking for the real cost. We help the customer and we have the answers regarding which tier or which configuration in Azure is proper for them.

Microsoft Azure is so complicated inside. If you should do something internally, if you have to configure something, the opinion about Azure is that it is a little complicated inside. That's why the end users and clients are looking for help and why we help them configure and do anything inside of Azure. That is why we offer other tools to optimize the Azure environment.

Microsoft makes the space for such tools because it is a little complicated and end users know it. That's why we sell these tools to optimize the Azure. I think the Microsoft team knows this and they create the space for other third party partners.

I know all the points about how the Cloud is so beautiful but if somebody starts to do something inside the Azure, it is a little hard to understand. Many services are so complicated to configure out. That's why sometimes clients are obviously confused inside the Azure. That's why they are looking for help with it and why they are looking for a Microsoft partner with the knowledge of how to connect this software into one solution. From my perspective, I like Azure because it makes me money from the end user clients. But for the customers, their opinion is, "Oh, my god. The AWS is easy."

It is well-known that Microsoft is not so easy for the end users. Maybe it's because there is a note of everything changing. They add new features and new functionalities. Azure is growing. From my point of view it's okay. From the customers, it's also ok, but they are looking for someone who understands how to configure it.

From the beginning, the first move to Azure as a solution, it's a long journey with many, many services to find the final configuration for the customer. But it's okay for me.

In terms of scalability, it is perfect. If you are a rich partner or a rich company and you have a lot of money on your credit card, the scalability and the possibility of using Azure is a perfect play. If you want two servers, if you want 200 servers, it's one click. From the marketing point of view, it's the perfect place to spend the money. I think the customers are really worried about the cost. If you request a lot of machines, it's only one click in the setup but the bill for that is so huge. They ultimately worry about how to prepare their production environment just for us. Not for the sky is the limit but for our requirements to help. We have tools for monitoring consumption of the Azure and we can switch virtual machines off when at the end of the day. Customers are happy that we offer that because they are a little worried.

For example, if you buy one huge service for your on-premise project, you pay for that one service. But if you put a development team on the project and they request a lot of virtual machines because it's so easy to deploy, someone should pay for that. This is literally one big worry from the client side.

The calculator from Microsoft for Azure is very basic. This tool only shows what you consumed and what you will pay. There is no answer if you want to know how big a credit card you need to run the project. We make money answering exactly how much you really need for your project. We save the budget for the customer. We find opportunities for Microsoft but when the customer is worried, we help them. It's also good for Microsoft because they run the project.

We have support but Microsoft is trying to cover only Azure as an infrastructure.

They are not interested in talking about current applications or current systems from a customer perspective. This is the job for the partner. Microsoft covers only the chief environment. The job for the partner is caring about the customer's real needs. That's our job.

We only have experience with AWS because for us it doesn't matter whether we run virtual machines on AWS or Azure. If the client is only looking for power servers, then the machine they are looking for is AWS. If they are not only looking for IaaS, Infrastructure as a Service, but are also looking for the DaaS or Database as a Service, they are looking for Azure. It is exactly the same way for customers that are using SQL Server. The first choice is Azure.

If you are looking for Oracle, they're thinking about AWS. Of course, if we are talking about the containerization, about the Kubernetes, AWS is also the first choice for our clients.

The initial setup depends on the project. Because we are the Microsoft partner and we have some money for our internal tests we do the setup part. We use Azure infrastructure for our demo when we show our virtual demo machine. For my colleagues, it's not so complicated but we are using only a very small part of Azure.

When we talk about the real project, it is not so easy. We are using a very basic functionality, but I know from the other projects that it is not so easy to implement, run, test, et cetera because it's always a little complicated. Maybe it's okay. It depends on the current customer's needs.

ROI is a very tough topic because with the first step, every customer is trying to compare what they pay on the infrastructure and what they will pay in Azure. This is never the same number.

The challenge is to show to customers the added value because Azure is not only a different type of data center, but is also a place where you can make the innovations and add some new services. It is much easier than on-premise. We have a lot of ready-to-use functionalities on Azure, but the magic is how to use it.

Sometimes, the customer does not have the knowledge to create new value for the business using the ready-to-use functionality on Azure from the Microsoft offer. This is the challenge.

Moving the one virtual machine is easy but knowing how to run your business application for the customer, this is the main challenge.

My advice to anyone considering Azure is if they want to make jumping to the Azure or to the Cloud easier, they should focus on and discuss what the steps are. When you are on premise, figure out the development and how to configure it to the Azure. I have had so many marketing presentations from Microsoft saying, "Oh, it's easy. You have the Advisor. Blah, blah, blah." This is pure marketing. The clients know it is only a commercial about Azure. If Microsoft wants to really get customers, they should help them step by step by showing them how it is easy and how to control every step of the project. They should care more about the customers during this type of project. If you did 10 project delegations, the next one is much easier, but the first is really not so easy. That's why customers are afraid about migrating to the Azure. "What about the bills? What about how to administrate? How long to build the infrastructure?" There are a lot of questions from the customer side.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give Microsoft Azure a seven. That is because there is always space for improvement. For me it's okay. It's reliable and it really works.