Microsoft Azure VMware Reviews

People are moving to Microsoft Azure VMware primarily due to reducing on-premises hardware dependencies. One key factor is VMware licensing, and another is hardware costs. Hardware prices are increasing, particularly for memory and chips, with predictions for continued increases through the end of 2027. The cost of replacing on-premises hardware is rising, which is a key reason to move to cloud in an as-is manner. Since organizations are already on VMware, they can lift and shift everything to Microsoft Azure VMware, allowing the data center to be moved as a whole rather than as separate servers.

Azure Security Center's controls are effective because they include a multi-cloud component. However, improvements are needed, especially in multi-cloud management. Some features need to be brought into Security Center from other products since they span across multiple products. If these features are bundled together, they can provide more insights, particularly with AI integration. The addition of security copilot into this offering would be beneficial.

Microsoft Azure VMware is an area that requires attention. I believe the VMware part should eventually merge with Azure as a single Azure platform, moving away from hypervisor-on-hypervisor architecture and instead bringing VMware features into Azure as native capabilities or as VMware-labeled features running in a true cloud environment. Some features should be brought in to achieve this integration.

Additional improvements for Microsoft Azure VMware would include integration with Azure Site Recovery and disaster recovery capabilities. The ideal scenario would be VMware as primary with disaster recovery in Azure, connecting in a native manner. These improvements should be delivered as an integrated solution available out of the box rather than as separate components.

Integration with other solutions such as Microsoft Site Recovery should encompass Azure native business continuity and disaster recovery with VMware. Microsoft Azure VMware would serve as primary hosting and connect natively to business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities with Azure. This should be available as a native feature.

I have been working with Microsoft Azure VMware for approximately one year, which is a relatively short timeframe.

I work at the strategy level for Azure and develop strategies at an organizational level rather than on the delivery side. I have previously worked with Azure Firewall and other Azure products, but from a design perspective rather than a delivery perspective, so my engagement at that level has been limited.

Currently, I am working with tools as part of a larger solution involving VMware to Azure migration and on-premises to cloud migration. The migration from VMware to Azure is similar to AVS migration.

Integration of AI and analytics into Microsoft Azure VMware environments using Azure features should be enhanced. Bringing AI features into the environment would be valuable, especially for security and environment optimization. These areas should receive focus with AI in Microsoft Azure VMware, particularly in system management and security clearance. I am uncertain about how this is currently implemented.

My overall rating for this review is eight out of ten.

For Azure VMware services, most of our customers come from a public sector background. These customers are transitioning due to the Broadcom acquisition of VMware. 

They are moving from their on-premises setups and are evaluating the cloud as an option to shift the workload of their existing VMware to the cloud.

The capabilities are like a lift-and-shift operation for moving existing VMware environments to the cloud. The time for migration onto the cloud has substantially reduced. It allows for maintaining the same networking schema onto the cloud, akin to moving a VMware data center onto the cloud as one single block. This makes workload and networking management, including vSAN as part of vSphere, more efficient.

Azure VMware needs to cater to smaller enterprises, as it is currently meant for larger entities. One improvement could be more support for mid-sized or scalable environments. The licensing policy could be more flexible to accommodate smaller workloads, as the current setup suits only larger public sector entities. Additionally, some roadblocks during migration are a work in progress.

We have been using it for just over one year.

I would rate the stability somewhere between nine, because these deployments have been quite recent, with less than a year of usage. We are yet to see what changes occur and how stable it remains.

I would rate it as nine. Scalability is not an issue regarding resource allocation. However, third-party support and specific engineer requirements can be a concern.

Technical support from Microsoft or VMware is good, but on-site support is still essential for everyday operations. I would rate it around eight out of ten due to this necessity.

Positive

I would rate the initial setup between six to 6.5 out of ten as we still encounter some issues with migration and third-party support. An understanding of VMware beyond typical Azure administration is crucial.

The pricing is high, rated around nine to 9.5 out of ten. The mandatory requirements, such as a minimum of three nodes, make it expensive. The customers need to sign up for approximately $20,000 per month.

For new users, if you have a scalable environment where a VMware data center makes sense for your business, I definitely recommend AVS. It combines the flexibility of cloud with Microsoft's ecosystem support and the robust experience of VMware. It sorts out many issues, particularly for customers moving to the cloud to save money and administrative headaches, especially those not renewing agreements with VMware due to Broadcom's stipulations.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

My company provided the tool to a public healthcare client for whom we did the assessment and recommended which migration would be good. I cannot tell you about the customer because it is something that is confidential. I cannot give details regarding the customer.

The pro for Microsoft Azure VMware is that it will be a good option for the first step of shift and lift migration. The other thing is the extension of the VLANs for the network extension. We have on-premises, and we can do the extension of all the network VLANs or Microsoft Azure VMware, and we can continue working as if we provisioned another data center on the site. For me, Microsoft Azure VMware is not a real cloud solution. It is a good option for the first step of migration. If we have a scenario where it is mandatory to move to the cloud with timelines or something like this, we could do the first step by going to Microsoft Azure VMware, and after this, do the transformation, modernization, and move to the cloud solution.

I cannot tell you exactly what will be added except one thing. The tool already did a great job integrating the native Azure SaaS and PaaS solutions. I think the tool can do better integration. We need to have a dedicated network connectivity with a dedicated ExpressRoute circuit. For example, in our experience with this client, we ended up with two circuits for ExpressRoute. If the tool can do better and flawless integration with the native Azure services, it will be a good enhancement. What we have right now is not bad, but it is an area where the tool can do a little bit of enhancements.

I have been using Microsoft Azure VMware for eight to ten months. My company has a partnership with the solution.

Regarding stability, it is like a five-star solution. The only issue is that a small challenge was found regarding the network because, since the local on-premises infrastructure was very complicated, the client had the expectation to have a kind of extended network from the on-premise to Microsoft Azure VMware. In the end, it worked well with the proof of concept, but to have extended, smooth VLANs and everything else was a little bit complicated. Regarding the stability, the client was very happy.

Regarding the scalability, the client mentioned that they found the storage part very interesting. With the on-premises version, the issue is that if we need more storage, we have to buy a new storage unit to deploy this on two sides and get it working together. According to Azure VMware, the idea of having flexible and scalable storage on demand was very interesting for the client.

My company mainly uses enterprise businesses and public organizations. It is used in healthcare, cities, and by the government.

In the two projects my company worked on, we got VIP support from Microsoft. Since we are not in operational mode but in project mode, we have very high-level support. It was very interesting to work with the people from Microsoft. We had access to all the required people, so if we had any issues or questions, we had all the time and access to the people from Microsoft.

We haven't gone into operational mode yet for us to open a ticket. In the project mode, we were treated as VIPs to get inside Microsoft Azure VMware. I cannot tell you that it was not perfect. I know that when we go into operational mode, we will have to go through the standard process, open a ticket, and talk to support for level one, level two, or level three. We haven't gone through any process related to the support yet since we are still in project mode.

I rate the technical support a ten out of ten.

Positive

In the two cases that we worked with, the deployment was on the public cloud, on Azure in the Canadian central region.

The solution deployment has not yet been 100 percent done. Our company worked with Microsoft to get the requirements regarding the computing and which SQL to use. We put in place the architecture and one proof of concept to move a couple of VMs just to do the test and the proof of concept. The deployment itself is planned for September 2024 or by the end of the fiscal year to manage the production, migration, and everything, but for now, it was only the proof of concept that we did with the solution.

There is some ROI after two or three years. Even if the price is higher, the ROI is there.

To be honest, the tool comes at a high price. If we look at it from an absolute perspective, the price is high. The client does deep analysis, and to see or check what he is paying for the on-premises part.

Regarding the pricing, we assessed and defined the requirement, and then we got the yearly price. The client has an enterprise agreement with a discount, so the price was labeled on a yearly basis, but the payments were made on a monthly basis. I received the official prices or the standard prices from Microsoft. As it was a huge organization, they had a structure for the payment with central payment. I was working for one of the business units in the company. I did not have access to the final price at the end.

In Azure, there is a principle or concept called cloud-first. Inside the cloud, the most important thing is to use a fully managed solution, and this is what gives the cloud the advantage over other options. In Azure, for example, as a designer or an architect, all the time, I am looking for built-in features fully managed by Microsoft called SaaS and PaaS tools, and then we have to go to the third option, which is IaaS inside the cloud. The platform as a service is something that is very interesting on the cloud.

Speaking about the scalability impact of the tool on your client's day-to-day operations, I would say that from my last experience, I saw that we are leveraging this solution to limit the time for the cloud journey, to use it as a first step to move to the cloud and it is very interesting. For me, it is not a solution that we consider to be the final goal. For me, the tool is something to move to the cloud, being on the same configuration and pattern, and to keep it like this back to the cloud is called the transformational modernization of the applications.

I am not using the solution. The tool is just a recommendation for integration purposes. We did the assessment for the on-premise infrastructure, and the client asked our company to help them get to the cloud as soon as possible. The strategy that we put in place is to move as a first step to Azure VMware solution and, after this, as a second step, to do the transformation and go to Azure to use Azure services, like the PaaS, IaaS, and other SaaS areas.

There was no AI involved in the project. The client was not ready to hear about AI. The project involved standard migrations. We have workloads on-prem. The clients ask to move the workload to Azure and, as a first step, to put them on Microsoft Azure VMware solution. The next step was to have this through with the transformation to use the standard Azure services. AI was not a part of the proposal.

As a consulting company, we are seeing that people are moving to other tools to avoid paying because my understanding from this experience is that with the new licensing model with VMware after the Broadcom acquisition, the pricing of the licensing model gets higher and more complicated. There are a lot of people to whom we are moving to Microsoft Azure VMware solution. The tool is for those who still want to use VMware at the right price. Another recommendation from me for others is for migration. The tool offers a great migration path to start with Microsoft Azure VMware, and after that, they can move to Azure on the Paas, IaaS, and everything. It will give a lot of flexibility during the migration.

For example, our client's infrastructure team was spending for storage management, and it was, like, 20 percent for two people working to manage the storage. Storage acquisition for an organization has to do a kind of assessment of which store and which solution they have to buy, go to the market, and analyze everything. After this implementation, it becomes a project. With Microsoft Azure VMware, I need another storage, and that is it, so you have it for 24 hours. At the end of the year, regarding infra management, we will have at least two or three FTEs of money that will be saved, which is a lot of money in the end. It's like we have two or three salaries that we get rid of and use in some other areas. The other thing with the tool is the usage of computing, so it is flexible. When we are using it, it's like a pay-as-you-go model. Suppose I need one hundred vCPU. I will buy them all. But on-premises, when you need one hundred vCPU, you have to buy a lot of servers, and you have to put this on two areas, and then you have to buy for the next three, four, or five years. We cannot buy what we need today by checking all the growth, including the growth, and buying what we need for the next five years. However, when using services like Azure, we have to buy what we need today. Tomorrow, if I need more, I can request more, and that is it. These are the two areas that we saw where the tool helps with saving money and ensuring ROI.

The agreement that Microsoft had with VMware regarding the pricing and the model licensing has helped many since a lot of people struggled with the licensing when they were buying VMware after Broadcom's acquisition. When people are facing Microsoft and using the same licensing model for Microsoft Azure VMware, I would say that it is a good thing that it was added under Azure.

I rate the tool an eight and a half to nine out of ten.

We mostly use them for data engineering for, like, the whole ETL process. We use data break splits. We use Azure Life. It's Azure Data Factory, Azure. We use only everything of Microsoft.

The integration is very good. 

Well, sometimes they release product after product, so it's it's kind of hard to keep an overview of all the different aspects of of the solutions.

I have been using Microsoft Azure VMware for one year. 

The stability of the solution is good. I rate the stability an eight out of ten. 

The solution is easy to scale but it's not really simple to understand. We understand it's very well because we have a lot of experience. But if we go to small companies, they don't necessarily understand everything about the data aspect. 

The initial setup is straightforward. Usually, it's it's just three guys to implement the the solution. 

The solution is very competitive. 

I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten.