Wai KongWong - PeerSpot reviewer
Information security consultant at Ypsilon System
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Helps to deploy web servers but navigation needs improvement
Pros and Cons
  • "Microsoft Azure has proven to be beneficial for our organization due to its quick deployment capabilities. Setting up virtual machines or any required infrastructure is fast."
  • "The tool needs to improve its navigation."

What is our primary use case?

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

What is most valuable?

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

What needs improvement?

The tool needs to improve its navigation. 

For how long have I used the solution?

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

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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The product is scalable. My company has five users. 

How are customer service and support?

I haven't contacted the technical team yet. 

How was the initial setup?

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

What about the implementation team?

The tool's deployment was done in-house. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate the product an eight out of ten. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Darren Brodrick - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Owner at Transform8tion Limited
Real User
Top 20
Provides useful features and can be deployed within a few hours
Pros and Cons
  • "SQL Server has been most beneficial for our client’s workload."
  • "The security must be improved."

How has it helped my organization?

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

What is most valuable?

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

What needs improvement?

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

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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

How was the initial setup?

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

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

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

What other advice do I have?

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

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
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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.
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Co-owner at Min shan saw
Real User
Can be used for operations, email, and office applications
Pros and Cons
  • "We use Microsoft Azure for operations, email, and office applications."
  • "The solution’s learning curve could be improved."

What is our primary use case?

Our people are familiar with Microsoft Azure, and we use it for our day-to-day operations.

What is most valuable?

We use Microsoft Azure for operations, email, and office applications.

What needs improvement?

The solution’s learning curve could be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Microsoft Azure for two to three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Microsoft Azure is a stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Around nine people use the solution in our organization.

How are customer service and support?

We contact our local partners so that they can help us with our issues. For some difficulties, we try forums and open support. We don't contact enterprise support because we don't have it.

How was the initial setup?

The solution’s initial setup is very straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented Microsoft Azure through an in-house team consisting of two to three people. The solution’s deployment takes a few weeks.

What other advice do I have?

Microsoft Azure is deployed on the cloud in our organization.

Overall, I rate the solution a seven or eight out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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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
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
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.