Minos Pitsillides - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Director at IT-Flow ltd
Reseller
Top 5
User-friendly, scalable, and reliable
Pros and Cons
  • "I use a virtual machine for remote desktop and Microsoft Azure is user-friendly."
  • "Microsoft Azure could improve by having more virtual machine operating systems available."

What is most valuable?

I use a virtual machine for remote desktop and Microsoft Azure is user-friendly.

What needs improvement?

Microsoft Azure could improve by having more virtual machine operating systems available.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Microsoft Azure for approximately three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have found Microsoft Azure to be stable.

Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Azure
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Azure. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
763,955 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability of Microsoft Azure is very good.

We have approximately 25 companies that are using the solution. I do not know how many users are using the solution, but it would be a high number.

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

Microsoft Azure overall is an expensive solution.

In general, if you compare Amazon AWS with the price of Microsoft Azure host cloud service, Microsoft Azure is more expensive than Amazon AWS. I didn't see any hidden costs.

What other advice do I have?

My advice to first-time users of Microsoft Azure would be for them to go through certification training. This way they would be able to understand what they are doing. Without certification, it would be difficult to understand how the system is working.

I rate Microsoft Azure a nine 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 has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: reseller
PeerSpot user
Technical manager at a non-profit with 201-500 employees
Real User
Quick, fluent and elastic; it's easy to build a new service and get it into production
Pros and Cons
  • "It's very easy to build a new service and get it into production."
  • "The solution is too expensive."

What is our primary use case?

I'm the technical manager of our company and we are customers of Microsoft. 

How has it helped my organization?

We're able to provide our customers with what they want and very quickly.

What is most valuable?

This solution is quick, fluent and elastic. It's very easy to build a new service and get it into production. 

What needs improvement?

The solution is too expensive.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for five years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable, it's one of the main advantages. 

How are customer service and support?

Customer service is pretty good for what I need. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is not very complex. It's quite straightforward to get a new platform and be in production. We carried out the implementation ourselves. We have 350 employees and everybody uses Azure. We have four IT professionals dealing with maintenance.

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

We spend around $10,000 per month on licensing and that's just for Azure. In addition, there is a per user charge for using Office 365.

What other advice do I have?

The policy of the company is to use Microsoft products. We took a look at Google and AWS, but very quickly decided to go with Azure. It's a well-known solution and the decision was taken by the finance department.

Stability and simplicity of use play an important role, so I rate this solution 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: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Azure
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Azure. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
763,955 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Senior data Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
It's easy for us to scale by just adding components
Pros and Cons
  • "Azure Data Lake is useful. We are in the process of populating the data lake for our current project. Also, we are directly importing for Power BI to using PowerPlay."
  • "I think it would be good to keep making progress on giving users the ability to do action calls on Data Factory. Right now, it's mostly local. Perhaps Microsoft could add the ability to put some calls in the workflow."

What is our primary use case?

Our current client is in the securities business, so we deal with a lot of trading data, like securities, holdings, etc. We evaluate the data quality of the daily file that comes from the current providers and transform that data using PowerPlay and Dashworks.

We're building cloud-based data warehouses by adapting on-premises data warehouses in MySQL Server. Initially, we migrated everything to the Azure SQL Data Warehouse to take advantage of all the MPP technology and stuff. In the process, we realized it was expensive for us, and we didn't need all that capacity, so we migrated that code to a simple Azure SQL database. We made it work from that point.

In our current project, we're using Power BI with Azure. We directly import data from that SQL database into Power BI using PowerPlay and ask the client architect to do some data engineering so we have serverless capacity in Azure. Right now, we are migrating to Azure Synapse, and we are actually in the process of doing a couple of PLCs with serverless capacity. Maybe we'll also use Databricks. 

What is most valuable?

Azure Data Lake is useful. We are in the process of populating the data lake for our current project. Also, we are directly importing for Power BI to using PowerPlay.

What needs improvement?

There is room for improvement on a couple of Azure services. One that comes to mind is Data Factory. Microsoft has improved a lot of Data Factory's capabilities, so maybe it's now possible to make a green custom database within Azure and Data Factory. 

I think it would be good to keep making progress on giving users the ability to do action calls on Data Factory. Right now, it's mostly local. Perhaps Microsoft could add the ability to put some calls in the workflow. Airflow is a good example. You might say, "Why not just use Airflow?" And maybe you could use that, but I think it would be better if all these things were possible with Data Factory. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been working with Azure for a couple of years. I work for a tech consultancy, so we're not tied to just one project. We work with one client for a year or so, and then we work with another client the next year. Mostly we build data warehouses with SQL using Microsoft Synapse. We also do some things with Power BI and PowerPlay.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Azure is stable. We've never had any problems. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

When you work on the cloud, it's a straightforward process. You start on a PLC and start adding more components like maybe some security with a private network and so on. It's effortless for us to scale by adding additional components. Scalability depends on the service you're going to use. For example, if you are going to change from a SQL database to another database or another inter-processing ending, it's not going to be that easy. It happens with all providers. 

How was the initial setup?

It is easy to set up Azure. For deployment and maintenance, we have a team of five or six people consisting of one tech leader, three developers, and one QA.

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

Azure's pricing could be more competitive. Some clients mentioned that they are considering switching to AWS because of the price. And AWS can provide you with the instant capacity called SpotLink. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate Microsoft Azure eight out of 10. It's okay for all the use cases we've had so far. If you are going to do it on your own, make sure you read the documentation. All the information is there. Microsoft documentation is good. But if you don't want to take on that burden of reading documentation and so on, you can contact support. They'll know better than you. This is crucial because of the cost. If you choose the wrong services, you could waste a lot of money. 

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 has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Implementer
PeerSpot user
CTO at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Cloud-based, stable, simple to install, and with good advanced-level support
Pros and Cons
  • "It is easy to install."
  • "A good strategy would be to include a feature for integrating with external ecosystems."

What is our primary use case?

We are resellers. We use Microsoft to provide a service to our customers.

We offer SaaS software for the marketplace. 

We offer SaaS software for the B2B marketplace and provide solutions to our customers through public cloud infrastructure.

What is most valuable?

We have yet to explore this solution and what it has to offer because we are still in the transformation phase from Amazon to Azure.

What needs improvement?

It could be more open to external solutions.

Integration with other ecosystems would be beneficial. During this transitional period, this is our primary concern. For example, when we offer solutions to our customers, we must connect to their IT ecosystem, which we are unable to do in some cases.

A good strategy would be to include a feature for integrating with external ecosystems.

We would also like to improve the security.

For how long have I used the solution?

We switched from Amazon to Azure six months ago.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

In the short time that we have been using this solution, it appears to be stable enough for our needs.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We work with 50 companies that use this solution on a daily basis.

How are customer service and support?

We have no issues with the technical support. It's fine.

We needed to find someone who could help us. It depends on the support contract you have with Microsoft. 

The standard level of support was obviously insufficient for us, and we had to resort to a more advanced level of support for partners who had complex technical questions. This meant that there would be some additional support costs, but everything would be fine once you made that decision.

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

We use Auth0, which is an IAM-based solution.

We are using an identification solution provided by a cloud provider. We are based on Azure. We work with a Microsoft Azure infrastructure, and we use the solution provided by Microsoft to authenticate the users.

How was the initial setup?

It is easy to install.

It took us a few months to deploy. I did not take a lot of time to move to Azure but moving to another infrastructure using microservice takes longer.

We are coming from a moderate approach to installation and going for a modular one that is based on microservices.

To be able to manage the microservices, we made some modifications.

The length of time it took to complete the implementation was primarily due to changes we made to the infrastructure that was required for our customers.

What about the implementation team?

We have a dedicated team of ten people who will deploy and manage the infrastructure.

We have a separate Dev team for the application itself.

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

Customers pay for our software and use our solution as a service through monthly payments. They don't pay the licensing fee directly to Microsoft.

We provide a solution as a service to our customers. They pay us for our services, which are based on Microsoft.

What other advice do I have?

We would recommend this solution to others who are considering using it.

I would rate Microsoft Azure 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 has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
IT Security Specialist at a transportation company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Great for single sign-ons and hosts most of our virtual machines; provides good security
Pros and Cons
  • "I appreciate that everything is basically shift forward from a security standpoint."
  • "The authentication method only allows me to have up to 90 users, and there are 2,300 people in the company."

What is our primary use case?

We're using Azure Premium P1 and it hosts our website and most of the applications we use. We are an airline company and for some of our enterprise apps, it enables things like single sign-on and hosts most of our virtual machines, as well as some of our web servers for the on-prem application. Our customer mobile app for purchasing tickets is for that purpose but we also use it for enterprise apps. I use Minecraft for my email security, but I integrate it with Azure to incorporate the single sign-on, as well as for multifactor authentication in my Office 365 environment, and the productive Parti app. I'm an IT security specialist and we are customers of Azure.

What is most valuable?

The feature I appreciate is that everything is basically shift forward from a security standpoint. Most of our systems are integrated with Azure for authentication purposes. Given that I'm a security specialist I use it for that purpose. The rest of the team uses it more for things like application deployment. I also use it to determine sign-ons, and things like compliance to devices. 

What needs improvement?

Microsoft allows you, via Azure, to have different authentication methods. You can use the Microsoft Authenticator app, text or voice, or something called a FIDO, which is like a USB security key. Unfortunately, the authentication method only allows me to have up to 90 users, and there are 2,300 people in the company. When I have to push multifactor authentication, I cannot specify certain users for the authenticator app. It forces me to lock it down and say conditional access only allowed.

Another issue I have is that Microsoft notifies me retroactively about certain things. For example, when a user sends an email with over 200 recipients, it can take half an hour for me to get a notification but sometimes it can take 24 hours. I have the same issue when it comes to things like phishing attempts. It's a problem. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Azure for three years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable, although I'd like some advance warning when they make changes. It can sometimes take hours to update so that if I have a user using multifactor authentication and I take them off, it can take up to an hour for it to take effect.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is very good. 

How was the initial setup?

I can only speak from my own experience and I have many Microsoft certificates, including as a Microsoft solution architect expert in Azure, so it might be easier for me than it is for others. I tend to do a lot of things on the app and I use it on a daily basis. Even if I don't know where something is, the documentation on techniques, everything is there. I wasn't involved in the deployment at this company but in my previous position, it took a couple of days, not very long. Microsoft provided support. It's just a matter of configuring the tenant.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend Azure because there's a lot of documentation available and a lot of user guides, it has everything. 

I rate the solution eight out of 10. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Amey Darekar - PeerSpot reviewer
Personal Banker at HDFC Bank
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Feature-rich, easy to use, scalable, and stable
Pros and Cons
  • "It has multiple features that can be used from the start."
  • "Ideally, Microsoft Azure should be compatible with the applications that we are using in my environment."

What is most valuable?

It has multiple features that can be used from the start.

It is easy to use.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see support for the applications that are currently in place. Ideally, Microsoft Azure should be compatible with the applications that we are using in my environment.

For how long have I used the solution?

I am not using Microsoft Azure, but I have been doing an assessment for the last five years.

I am using the latest version.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's a stable product.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Microsoft Azure is a scalable solution.

How are customer service and technical support?

I have not contacted technical support.

How was the initial setup?

The installation is handled by another team. I was not involved in the installation of this solution.

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

As of now, there are no monthly or yearly subscription fees.

What other advice do I have?

Definitely, I would recommend this solution to others who are interested in using it.

I would rate Microsoft Azure a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Regional IT Infrastructure Consultant at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
A feature-rich and stable platform with good redundancy and scalability
Pros and Cons
  • "The redundancy across different regions is the most valuable. It provides a big value for cloud services, especially for Microsoft."
  • "The level of authorization or authorization cascading can be improved. We have the most powerful admins and then we have sub-admins, but the level of authorization is not that easy to handle or manage."

What is our primary use case?

Azure cloud is a platform for many things, such as hosting, file services, application or power apps, and data lake. All these things are a part of Microsoft Azure. We're using it as a full suite. We are a big tenant with all solutions for Microsoft. We are using the latest version of Microsoft Azure.

What is most valuable?

The redundancy across different regions is the most valuable. It provides a big value for cloud services, especially for Microsoft.

What needs improvement?

The level of authorization or authorization cascading can be improved. We have the most powerful admins and then we have sub-admins, but the level of authorization is not that easy to handle or manage.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Microsoft Azure for three years. I am using this solution on a daily basis. It is the main platform that we have.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Its stability is good. It is very stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is very easy to scale. We have more than 7,000 users. 

How are customer service and technical support?

They are pretty sufficient. I would rate them an eight out of ten.

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

We also have different cloud vendors like Amazon and Salesforce, but they all are for different purposes, so it depends on the service.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was simple. It was done in stages. 

What about the implementation team?

We had the full support and dedication from Microsoft for its installation. Its maintenance is done by a vendor, and we also have some technical support from Microsoft when we are doing this stuff.

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

Microsoft always provides the entry-level solution with a cheap license. Once you start to like the product, then you have to pay for the full package, which is more expensive than the entry-level solution. Every feature comes with a license and a cost. Some licenses have multiple features, and some features require a specific license.

What other advice do I have?

I would advise starting directly with Microsoft and then asking the vendors to recommend the trusted partners to work on the implementation or migration, and not vice versa. First, talk with the architect of the design and see if they can recommend a trusted partner who can do the implementation.

I would rate Microsoft Azure a nine out of ten. It is a big product and platform. It covers many things in terms of features.

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: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Quality Assurance Engineer at OAD
Real User
Easy to set up and has high stability
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution has high stability."
  • "We have reported some bugs we encountered, and it would be good if those bugs were resolved more quickly."

What is most valuable?

The solution has high stability.

What needs improvement?

We have reported some bugs we encountered, and it would be good if those bugs were resolved more quickly.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Microsoft Azure for more than one year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate the solution a nine out of ten for stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Currently, we are happy with how the solution scales. Around 60 users use the solution in our organization on a daily basis.

I rate the solution an eight out of ten for scalability.

How was the initial setup?

The solution's initial setup was quite easy, and you can get support to help you with the installation.

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

On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten.

What other advice do I have?

We use management tools for APIs. A few people were involved in the solution’s deployment and maintenance. I would recommend the solution to other users.

Overall, I rate Microsoft Azure a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Flag as inappropriate
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Microsoft Azure Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: March 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Microsoft Azure Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.