The main use cases for Microsoft Azure include infrastructure, network, storage, databases, and applications; everything.
Microsoft Azure is a versatile cloud platform known for its scalability, flexibility, and ease of use, offering comprehensive solutions like virtual machines, identity management, and data storage with robust security measures and global data centers.


| Product | Mindshare (%) |
|---|---|
| Microsoft Azure | 8.6% |
| Amazon AWS | 15.1% |
| Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) | 7.8% |
| Other | 68.5% |
| Type | Title | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Category | Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) | Jun 22, 2026 | Download |
| Product | Reviews, tips, and advice from real users | Jun 22, 2026 | Download |
| Comparison | Microsoft Azure vs Amazon AWS | Jun 22, 2026 | Download |
| Comparison | Microsoft Azure vs Google Cloud | Jun 22, 2026 | Download |
| Comparison | Microsoft Azure vs Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) | Jun 22, 2026 | Download |
| Title | Rating | Mindshare | Recommending | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon AWS | 4.2 | 15.1% | 93% | 260 interviewsAdd to research |
| Red Hat OpenShift | 4.2 | N/A | 96% | 75 interviewsAdd to research |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 116 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 48 |
| Large Enterprise | 123 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 685 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 322 |
| Large Enterprise | 1104 |
Azure provides a straightforward setup with dynamic scaling and seamless integration with existing tools. Its robust security, compliance with privacy laws, and global data center presence make it a trusted choice for enterprises. With features supporting DevOps, IoT, AI/ML, and hybrid cloud environments, Azure facilitates efficient cloud migration and modernization, enhancing operational efficiency.
What are some of the key features of Microsoft Azure?Organizations primarily use Azure for infrastructure services, application hosting, and data management across industries such as finance, healthcare, and retail. Resellers deploy cloud services for clients in private, public, and hybrid clouds, supporting enterprise applications and digital transformation projects.
Microsoft Azure was previously known as Windows Azure, Azure, MS Azure.
BMW, Toyota, easyJet, NBC Sports, HarperCollins, Aviva, TalkTalk Business, Avanade, and Telenor.
| Author info | Rating | Review Summary |
|---|---|---|
| Snr. Infrastructure Architect (Data Centre) at LogicEra | 5.0 | I've used Microsoft Azure for six years and find it scalable, flexible, and rich in features, though support needs improvement. It's affordable and reliable, especially for infrastructure and databases, with good documentation and evolving tools. |
| Technical Director / Market Evangelist at CAST Software | 4.0 | I use Microsoft Azure for deploying our CAST Highlight SaaS solution; it's stable, scalable, and integrates well, though FinOps management is complex. Overall, it's flexible and effective, but I rate it 8 out of 10. |
| Cloud Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees | 4.5 | I use Microsoft Azure for cloud infrastructure, valuing its scalability, identity management, and reliable support. Despite complex cost management, it offers strong ROI, and I recommend it for its broad services, rating it 9/10. |
| Senior Consutant at HCLSoftware | 4.0 | I've used Microsoft Azure for about a year to migrate from on-premises Active Directory to the cloud. It's user-friendly and scalable, but reporting features need improvement, especially with exporting data that appears visually. |
| Freelancer at Foryouandyourcustomers GmbH | 2.5 | I've used Microsoft Azure for over two years; it's stable and feature-rich, though I prefer AWS's UI. Azure's AI capabilities and UI need improvement, and while deployments are smooth, I’d rate it 5 out of 10 overall. |
| Senior Associate at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees | 4.5 | I've used Microsoft Azure for over 10 years to manage our reinsurance operations, finding it stable, user-friendly, and effective for disaster recovery, though occasional slowness and hardware issues have occurred; overall, I highly recommend it. |
| Solutions Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees | 5.0 | I use Microsoft Azure with the Power Platform to design AI-integrated solutions, appreciating its native integrations and support, though I find the shift from low-code tools and complex licensing could be improved for better accessibility and clarity. |
| Freelancer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees | 4.5 | I've found Power BI, especially when integrated with Azure and DevOps, highly effective for reporting and version control, though rising costs with Fabric and slow support response times are areas that need improvement. |
| Director at Apeiros Solutions | 4.0 | We extensively use Microsoft Azure for cloud deployments and advanced data analytics, leveraging its scalability and cost efficiency. While it's difficult to pinpoint improvements, more custom integrations would be beneficial. Documentation for new products could be enhanced. |
| Head Of Security Management at Ipko Telecommunications | 5.0 | We utilize Microsoft Azure to enhance our business through cloud implementation, Active Directory, and Office services. While it offers good scalability and security, we seek improvements in AI features, pricing, and support to better align with technology developments. |

The main use cases for Microsoft Azure include infrastructure, network, storage, databases, and applications; everything.
With Microsoft Azure, we have between 200-300 clients who find useful features such as compute infrastructure with network, firewalls, web apps, databases, SQL, Oracle, and everything else. For security purposes, they're using Defender, Sentinel, and other security tools.
The benefit of this integration in Microsoft Azure is that it is very flexible and beneficial to users, bridging internal integration, all kinds of applications, databases, and services such as Entra and other tools. Service principals and other integrated features are very beneficial for clients, providing a very flexible and scalable environment.
For Microsoft Azure improvement, they need to enhance their support system.
The first level of support should be improved in terms of quality and response time. They need more technical support at the first level, as there are currently only one or two technical people among five to ten staff members at this level.
They should ensure that the first level support is more technical because we normally provide services to technical users ourselves. When an issue arises, it usually escalates to the second or third level. When facing first level support, they may have limited knowledge and only collect screenshots to forward to their seniors. They should ensure that the first level support is aligned with L2 and L3 to better assist us, especially since we mention in the ticket that our issues are related to specific problems and require that sort of support.
I have been working with Microsoft Azure for the last six years.
I have faced challenges with Microsoft Azure during my time working with it. With the passage of time, Microsoft Azure is improving their services and the backend is also upgrading. Old tools become obsolete while many things have improved, including the introduction of copilot and other helpful features, making it a very comprehensive tool.
Regarding challenges on Microsoft Azure, there is good support and documentation available. When we perform migrations, we face challenges that we ultimately fix. Regarding the landing zone, there are multiple scenarios, including network issues, but they are recoverable and under control. When we migrate from on-premises to Microsoft Azure, we may face challenges such as compatibility, OS compatibility, and libraries, but as technical professionals, we configure and troubleshoot them before migrating.
For stability, Microsoft Azure is generally stable. Though six months ago there was an issue with one zone, we are now migrating clients without the zoning into mandatory multi-zone deployments, so if one zone goes down, their application and database remain live.
Microsoft Azure is easily scalable. It has different kinds of designs that allow for management and deployment in multi-zones, offering both scalable and non-scalable options. Costs vary for different things, so every option is available whether it is infrastructure, compute, databases, or services.
I would rate Microsoft Azure technical support as good, with a rating of eight out of ten. However, Microsoft needs to engage L3 and L2 in support when specified in service tickets.
When I have a virtual machine on Microsoft Azure and face a problem, being a technical person, I raise a ticket specifying that I need level three support. If I mention this reason in the ticket, Microsoft should align L3 support with me, but instead, if the person who responds is level one, they cannot fix the problem. They merely collect information and pass it on to L2 and L3.
Positive
For setup, it is straightforward for technical people, but for new users with little knowledge, they need to read through the complete documentation before they can deploy. Microsoft Azure is very vast with too many services and configurations.
Regarding affordability, Microsoft Azure is reasonable in price. They have discounts and also provide promotions for a three-year reservation which comes with significant discounts on the infrastructure part, and there are flexible options such as pay-as-you-go plans.
I have not used the Microsoft Azure IoT features as that is related to other teams. I am primarily involved with infrastructure, systems, and databases such as SQL and Oracle.
I recommend Microsoft Azure to those considering it as it is comparatively cheap and flexible, including internal features from Microsoft that enhance the experience over AWS and other cloud services.
On a scale of 1-10, I rate Microsoft Azure a 10 out of 10.

In this case, I was looking at open source management as my company's product is CAST Highlight, which includes open source management functionalities.
I do not have experience working with other solutions rather than CAST solutions. I have not really had any experience in a customer situation. When I have been able to do some trying, I have done it mainly to complete my level of information to be able to better sell my solution.
My company is using Microsoft Azure to deploy the software when we are selling in SaaS environments, and we have the solution deployed both on Microsoft Azure, on AWS, and on Google Cloud, so we have experience with the three.
We have successfully migrated our CAST Highlight solutions to Microsoft Azure to be able to sell them as a SaaS solution.
We have been doing a very simple type of deployment, and what is very interesting in terms of scalability is the automatic possibilities to provision some new machines to be able to absorb the number of users we have in the system.
Microsoft Azure's integration capabilities with my existing tools are very good, and on a one to ten scale, I would rate it eight.
I am not having enough experience to answer what the room for improvement is for Microsoft Azure, but maybe not only in the technical aspect. The design could be a little bit better, the technical support could be better, and the price could be even cheaper.
We still have to manage the cost and the FinOps activities, which I see is demanding before we can be sure of a good choice. When it's done, it's acceptable, so could it be made easier to do? I don't know, but it is engaging us in some extra work. That's why I say not ten out of ten, but only eight out of ten.
I've started working with Microsoft Azure seven years ago.
I would rate the stability a ten. We've never had any problem.
I would rate the scalability an eight on a scale of one to ten; it's very good.
I have no idea how to rate technical support from Microsoft on a scale of one to ten, as I am never using the Microsoft support myself. We get some internal support which I report to, and they work with Microsoft if needed.
Positive
I have some experience working with these solutions because my company is selling a competitive product to those you have named.
I would rate the initial setup an eight on a scale of one to ten as it's quite easy. Things become more complex when we are trying to understand the cost and do a FinOps analysis, but this is not my job.
I have experience working with Microsoft Azure and AWS solutions, as we have a major partnership with all three hyperscalers.
I am probably not enough of a specialist to discuss which Microsoft Azure features have been most impactful for operations. There are many functionalities and things that are quite easy to use, and I am just moving between the administrative environments of Microsoft Azure, AWS, and Google.
We are deploying every week on public cloud, as all three hyperscalers we are using are in a public cloud environment. We don't have a private one.
This is definitely an enterprise solution. We are not really using Azure DevOps; we are using our own GitLab tools.
Microsoft Azure is just a deployment choice for me. The benefits are not really different if it's deployed on Microsoft Azure or on any other type of public cloud or on-premise. It is very flexible and when we need to expand or add some capacities on demand, it's very convenient.
The company is now called CAST only, following a major marketing revamp.
Overall, I rate Microsoft Azure an 8 out of 10.
Microsoft Azure is mainly used to provide cloud infrastructure and services for hosting applications, storing data, managing virtual machines, networking, backup, and disaster recovery.
Our company migrates its on-premises servers to Microsoft Azure to host business applications, databases, and backups securely in the cloud instead of maintaining physical servers.
The main addition I can make about my use case for Microsoft Azure is to provide scalable cloud infrastructure for application hosting, storage, and reducing on-premises infrastructure dependency.
The best features Microsoft Azure offers are cloud scalability, virtual machines, storage, networking, security, monitoring, and identity management.
Scalability is the most valuable to our organization because Microsoft Azure allows businesses to scale resources up or down based on workload demand. This helps manage traffic spikes without buying permanent hardware. Virtual machines are also valuable as Microsoft Azure provides cloud-based Windows and Linux virtual machines to run applications, servers, and workloads.
Identity and Access Management is important, as the integration with Microsoft Entra ID helps manage user authentication, role-based access, and MFA. For example, employees access business apps securely using single sign-on. Backup and disaster recovery are also important because they provide automated backups and failover options to ensure business continuity.
Microsoft Azure positively impacts my organization by reducing infrastructure dependency, improving availability, and enabling remote access. Teams can access applications globally without on-premises server dependency, and in terms of cost, it is very low-cost.
Cost management in Microsoft Azure can be complex, and beginners may find services difficult to navigate, so improvement is required in this area.
I have been working in this field for one and a half years.
Microsoft Azure is stable.
In terms of scalability, Microsoft Azure is highly scalable with a pay-as-you-go model. For example, I can increase compute resources during festive sales traffic.
For documentation, support, and performance, I can say that the documentation is good and the support is reliable. It offers ticket-based support, so technical assistance is available, enterprise support plans are in place, and community forums are accessible. Performance offers high availability, global data centers, load balancing, and scalable infrastructure for optimized performance.
Microsoft Azure has strong documentation, ticket support, and enterprise support plans. For example, I can raise support requests for VM or networking issues. The support is good.
Previously, we were using AWS and Google Cloud.
We switched from AWS because the features are very good in Microsoft Azure.
We have worked with Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud, so before choosing Microsoft Azure, we evaluated those options.
Microsoft Azure delivers a strong ROI by reducing hardware investment, minimizing maintenance overhead, and improving and supporting business continuity through cloud services. For example, instead of purchasing and managing a physical server, a company can host an application on Microsoft Azure and pay only for consumed resources, reducing infrastructure and operational costs.
For pricing, I can say that we are paying monthly for virtual machines and storage based on actual usage. The experience is good as Microsoft Azure uses a flexible pay-as-you-go pricing model with service-based licensing. The initial infrastructure setup cost is lower than on-premises, though migration planning can add to the implementation cost.
I would recommend Microsoft Azure for organizations looking for a secure, cloud-based infrastructure solution, especially if they already use Microsoft technologies.
Microsoft Azure is an enterprise-ready cloud platform with a broad service offering, making it a very good platform. I would rate this review a 9 out of 10.

Our use case for Microsoft Azure is that we have an on-premises Active Directory and we are planning to reduce the workload in on-prem and move it to cloud. In this case, Active Directory with Microsoft Azure is suited for us, which is now called Entra, Microsoft Entra. That's one of the primary cases where we are looking to move to Microsoft Azure or Entra.
The best features of Microsoft Azure are the interface and the ease of use of that interface, which is very friendly.
The initial setup for Microsoft Azure is pretty easy to get adapted to. Microsoft Azure has improved a lot compared to maybe two to three years back, so the ease of use is good.
Based on my one year of experience, I see that the conditional access policy should be more understandable to users to create various conditional access policies.
When trying to export reports using the bulk export option, we see certain columns that are available on the screen but are not coming out in the exports. When we check with Microsoft, they tell us it is working as per design, and we have to work through various PowerShell scripts to get those details. One example is when I go to the users tab, I get the 25,000 users in my Entra, which also has the last login date and last login timestamp. However, when I try to export that through a bulk export to a CSV file, that particular column doesn't come. Microsoft told us that this is as per design, and if we need that, it can be a new feature. It was a bit weird for us to know that what we see on the screen is not getting exported to the CSV file. So then we had to write various PowerShell scripts to get that data as well. This is one of the things I feel could be improved a lot with respect to the reporting and export of the data.
My experience with Microsoft Azure is approximately one year.
Microsoft Azure is a stable solution.
Microsoft Azure is scalable.
I rate the technical support from Microsoft a seven on a scale of one to 10, when one is the worst technical support and 10 is the best technical support.
Positive
I have a relationship with Microsoft as a customer.
I have not used the AI capabilities in Microsoft Azure.
I have not used the IoT features in Microsoft Azure.
I am not much into the pricing part of Microsoft Azure; it's other colleagues and the procurement department that takes care of that.
I rate Microsoft Azure eight out of ten.
The typical use cases for Microsoft Azure services include managing tasks which means starting with PBIs managed by Azure DevOps. We're using the code repository there, build pipelines, deployment pipelines, artifacts, and the artifact repository for storing Docker images and libraries. We're also using Azure DevOps for feature organization, using the RPE manager, the developer portal from Microsoft Azure, and Key Vaults for secrets. I think we're using at least 60-70% of everything that Microsoft Azure is delivering.
In this case, I'm talking about the public cloud, but it's secured by OAuth 2.
The advantages of Microsoft Azure compared to direct competitors such as AWS and Google services are numerous. There are too many points for comparing, and I find it hard to say that in Microsoft Azure it is solved in this way and AWS it is solved in a different way. Personally, I prefer AWS much more; from the UI perspective, it's better. But at the end of the day, they have so many features, and I think it's personal taste.
Mostly, whenever I'm working on a bigger project driven by the company, they decide to go with everything from Microsoft, and then you have to use it. You cannot decide on your own. I'm not working in a startup; in a startup, you can decide what you want to use.
Microsoft Azure is stable; there are no crashes, no downtime, and it is always stable.
Microsoft Azure should focus more on improving UI as there is room for improvement.
In future updates, I would like to see features related to AI. I implemented an MCP server, and my task was to bring that MCP server into Copilot Studio for using it as an AI agent. I miss the ability to choose different LLMs; there are currently only a few options such as ChatGPT and something else. For the AI agent or Copilot Studio, I see a lot of room for enhancement because I know other platforms such as NFN for implementing AI agents, and I think they have much more experience than what I saw from Microsoft with this Copilot Studio.
I have been working with Microsoft Azure for a little bit more than two years now.
I have been working for the last 10 years with AWS, Microsoft Azure, and before I worked with my client here in Microsoft Azure, I had some other clients that worked with AWS together.
Microsoft Azure is stable; there are no crashes, no downtime, and it is always stable.
I never used support; however, I'd rate Microsoft Azure support as ten.
Positive
I'm currently working with MuleSoft and SAP. I'm not working in that area at the moment. I worked in that area two years ago, and I stopped that for now because I have multiple clients that are working on microservices with some cloud technologies.
I'm currently focused on Microsoft Azure. At the moment, I work extensively with Microsoft Azure, implementing Spring Boot, microservices, and providing APIs.
I stand as a software developer, software architect, and cloud engineer.
The services from AWS are much more clearly separated. I'm not the best friend of Microsoft Azure.
I'm not using the AI capabilities from Microsoft Azure; at the moment, I utilize ChatGPT.
I cannot provide insights on how Microsoft Azure has positively impacted my organization, as I'm just the person that has to use it. This is a question I would have to ask the organization about what they used before and the outcome now.
I don't have insights into the costs for the organization using Microsoft Azure because they are a really big organization. I have an account to connect there, and I'm allowed to use it, but I don't see any bills, so I have no idea what it costs for them.
Regarding deployment, I usually spend a maximum of two minutes on deployment in my customer's environment. This is an existing deployment pipeline that's configured. The only thing I have to do is change the version number of my service to a new version, and then the deployment pipeline runs automatically. It usually takes two up to three minutes, depending on the service, and then the deployment is done.
On a scale of 1-10, I rate Microsoft Azure a 5 out of 10.
We are managing the reinsurance company, so we are hosting the SAP application on the Microsoft Azure VM. We are taking the HANA DB backup by using Commvault.
In this reinsurance company, there will be huge data usage. Sometimes they will ask us to resize the VM. We can do this in a quicker way. Otherwise, if it is physical hardware, it will take a longer time. This is very user-friendly. We can manage all the customer requirements quickly.
We are having the disaster recovery center for Microsoft Azure's global data center presence. If anything goes wrong, we will bring up our operation from the disaster recovery center. This is a useful feature in Microsoft Azure. Every year, we are doing the disaster recovery test, and we are ensuring proper operation if there is any real disaster. This is very useful.
If Microsoft gives a report, such as a server performance report in a detailed way, which shows what is consuming more CPU, memory, and disk IO, and network utilization during a particular time, it would be helpful to visualize that information.
It is working well for Microsoft Azure integration with other Microsoft products. There are no such problems. If there are any issues, we can easily create a ticket with Microsoft. They are providing the support for us.
At present, we are not using Microsoft Azure AI capabilities because this is an insurance company, so there are many restrictions. We will use it only based on customer approval.
Sometimes there is slowness observed in Microsoft Azure. We noticed a few critical servers went down due to a Microsoft Azure-end hardware issue.
I have been working with Microsoft Azure for more than 10 years.
Sometimes there is slowness observed in Microsoft Azure. We noticed a few critical servers went down due to a Microsoft Azure-end hardware issue.
The technical support from Microsoft is very good. I would give a rating of nine.
Positive
Third-party solutions have not been used in our environment.
The initial setup for Microsoft Azure is simple.
I cannot provide a rating for pricing because I am not handling it and do not have any visibility.
In my opinion, the main competitor for Microsoft Azure is Amazon.
If any projects approach me, I will give the recommendation. Based on my experience, I rate Microsoft Azure a nine out of ten.
I am currently working with Microsoft Azure, along with other products, but my focus is primarily on Microsoft. I mostly work with Microsoft Azure and the entire Power Platform, not only Power Apps, but also other products that are under this umbrella. As an architect, I design solutions on how they should be built, especially with AI integration, and I focus on how we can integrate Power Platform with Microsoft Azure technology.
In Microsoft Azure, we primarily use Microsoft Foundry in combination with AI Search and Blob storage to decrease the amount of work we need to do. The low-code approach in Copilot Studio can be complicated with not-so-accurate answers, but when it comes to Microsoft Azure, we have more metrics and greater flexibility in how to configure our solutions, evaluate the entire solution, and implement changes as needed.
In my business operations, I assess Microsoft Azure's integration with Microsoft products as being highly beneficial since we use either API connections or native connections. In the Power Platform, many products natively integrate with Microsoft Azure, especially Copilot Studio. We can use Foundry agents natively, even though it is still in preview, but it serves well for MVP and POC. With Azure AI Search, we also have connectors, which remove the need to create API or custom connectors. We truly appreciate this native integration because it allows us to differentiate and separate our backend from our frontend, enabling different teams to work simultaneously on these parts.
There is room for improvement in Microsoft Azure. We started using Foundry when it provided the Prompt Flow feature, but now it seems to be deprecated or not improving anymore. What we liked was the continuation of the low-code approach in Microsoft Azure, as it had a nice drag-and-drop interface with minimal Python involvement. Now, we observe that Microsoft is not following this concept anymore. I assume that Prompt Flow could be deprecated, but at Ignite, they introduced Flows, which appear to follow a similar low-code approach, so I intend to investigate more about Flows.
The improvement I see needed is to keep Microsoft Azure accessible for low-code developers to prevent a separation between low-code and pro-code developers. If low-code developers can utilize Microsoft Azure features, it will enhance projects significantly. I expect that Microsoft will heavily investigate and improve the new feature workflow, which I think could replace Prompt Flow because it allows for integrating agents and using various actions.
The ability to create multi-agent solutions with this workflow would be beneficial. If we can achieve deeper integration among different products while maintaining a low-code approach with the workflow, it will be an excellent addition.
I can confidently say that we appreciate how everything remains within the boundaries of the tenant.
I would rate their technical support a ten because we have various support channels available, and as an MVP, I benefit from a direct connection with the product team. For my projects, I receive a significant amount of support from Microsoft, and I am very satisfied with it.
Positive
I am very satisfied with the initial setup. With more than twenty years of experience with Microsoft technology, I can confidently say that we appreciate how everything remains within the boundaries of the tenant. We require some level of security in our projects, but we rely heavily on the capabilities that Microsoft provides. This has allowed us to find numerous possibilities for implementing different solutions for our clients using Microsoft technologies without the need to seek out third-party vendors.
Regarding pricing, it really depends on the product. However, I find the licensing strategy might be a bit over-complicated and not very clear for customers, which can lead to confusion. Especially for AI solutions we build with different tools, we have to be careful to avoid paying for tools multiple times. If the licensing guidance could be simpler and more straightforward, it would be a significant improvement.
I have not yet utilized Microsoft Azure's IoT features. I would rate this product a ten overall.

Power BI has been my experience, and there is no question about that; it comes with an integrated platform now with Fabric coming in, and the level of convenience is extremely high as compared to any other tool, integrating with your data sources and with your current reporting tool.
I have also worked on MicroStrategy and Microsoft Azure, where I used to be a corporate trainer and a certified trainer for MicroStrategy, which was a long time back, but I have worked on pretty much their admin section, Microsoft Azure section, reporting tool, schema building, and the whole suite.
I have worked on DevOps and ADF, and I have looked into those areas; Data Bricks has been used as a data source in a couple of projects.
We have used AI, primarily the Copilot feature, to assist users in asking questions and creating their visualizations on the dashboards; it is not used extensively yet, but it has really helped users get quick answers without raising tickets.
I have been working with Microsoft Azure for more than five years now in Power BI or in other tools.
AI, primarily the Copilot feature, has assisted users in creating visualizations on dashboards, reducing the need to raise tickets.
In the whole Microsoft Azure, I find DevOps to be very useful because Power BI by default does not come with any version controlling mechanism, but integrating that with DevOps allows you to convert the whole Power BI file into a code piece for effective version control, solving many version conflicts I have struggled with in my projects.
For the version control integration, we maintain branches in DevOps, managing our reports in their own branches and merging them into the main branch, which prevents losing changes and managing efforts because I have struggled with version control before.
Regarding the pricing licensing model in Power BI, many features have been pushed into Fabric; earlier features we enjoyed at Pro level are now bundled into Fabric, which pushes the prices higher and makes Pro capacity feel obsolete. Microsoft Azure is something we use as an additional suite that aids Power BI.
It is straightforward and not very complicated; it is not much different than Jira or other tools, and the added advantage is that these platforms are consolidated in Fabric, eliminating different licenses and small configuration roadblocks. Data security is very important for us due to the sensitive data we handle, as any leakage can cause devastation, so Microsoft Azure's compliance coverage is crucial for our organization's regulatory needs.
The pricing licensing model in Power BI has pushed many features into Fabric; earlier features we enjoyed at Pro level are now bundled into Fabric, which pushes the prices higher and makes Pro capacity feel obsolete.
To give a rating of ten out of ten, the speed of technical support needs to improve because the time cycle from raising a ticket to resolution can stretch up to a month or two, which is very long; otherwise, I do not have much negativity about the product quality.
I have been working on Power BI for nine years, but I have worked on MicroStrategy also for about three years approximately, so I have been dealing with Microsoft for even longer.
I would rate the technical support as seven or eight; while we eventually get the resolution we seek, the timelines are often long and require patience for quick answers.
Positive
I am dealing with the whole Microsoft suite. MicroStrategy is a different tool from a different company.
I was involved in the implementation of Microsoft Azure.
I have not utilized Microsoft Azure's IoT features. That we have not explored too much, so that is still kind of new to me. I cannot see any other areas for improvement right now; whatever we need is being satisfied with what we currently have. I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
We are currently working with Microsoft Azure services.
We use Microsoft Azure extensively in our solutions, as well as our customer solutions. We do cloud deployments which require deployment of Microsoft Azure.
Microsoft Azure is vast; we talk about the solutions on top of Microsoft Azure, and the infrastructure can include VMs, data environments, and whatever you deploy, which might take multiple people in terms of the knowledge base.
We use Microsoft Azure mostly for advanced data analytics to enhance business processes in our specific industry.
The favorite Microsoft Azure service or the most critical in workload management depends on the kind of solutions we run for our customer.
The commonly used feature that makes Microsoft Azure stand out from other services is the service or SaaS application within Microsoft Azure that we use the most, which is ADF.
Microsoft Azure's scalability feature obviously supports business growth by scaling with the growth of the business, which is great, and it also scales with your requirements and aligns with your data strategies. In the customer's environment, Microsoft Azure influences cost savings and business efficiency by allowing you to run pay-as-you-go models that enable you to scale up and down, meaning your costs reflect your operational usage.
Most of the challenges we encounter when integrating Microsoft Azure with existing IT infrastructure are related to the lack of documentation when they release new products on the Microsoft side.
I think it is difficult to say if there is any room for improvement in this product; however, I think it is one of the better products out there, but we use it in combination with other technology solutions as well, such as data pipelines.
I cannot say what features or functionality I would like to see added in future updates; probably more custom integrations or something from a data source point of view.
There is still room for improvement in terms of pricing.
We have been using Microsoft Azure for about 8-9 years, if not more, since around 2005.
I rate the stability of the platform an eight.
When rating how scalable Microsoft Azure is from 1 to 10, I would say it is scalable, and I would rate it a nine.
Microsoft Azure is not just one product; it is a platform with multiple products within Microsoft Azure, and I would say it is scalable and would rate it a nine.
Regarding technical support from Microsoft, I find they are responsive and helpful, depending on which support package you're on.
I would rate technical support an eight.
Positive
The number of people involved in this procedure from our side depends on the type of solution we're deploying. It can be anyone from 1-2 to 3 engineers usually involved.
We have people in the company that are Microsoft certified.
The time it usually takes to deploy depends on the solution and the customer; what we usually do is create CI/CD pipelines for infrastructure and solution deployments as part of the solution.
Our organization is a system integrator and a consultancy solution provider.
We haven't used a lot of AI on the Microsoft Azure platform.
I would definitely recommend Microsoft Azure as a platform to other businesses because of its cost effectiveness, scalability, the range of products, and ease of use.
Microsoft Azure does not require any maintenance or intervention on the infrastructure side.
Considering the pros and cons of Microsoft Azure, I would rate it an eight out of ten.
We have probably about between 10 and 20 big companies as customers for Microsoft Azure. When I say big companies, I mean there is one or two of them that are big, and then the rest are small-medium enterprises.
In our specific industry, we utilize Microsoft Azure to enhance business processes by implementing cloud services, and we use this for Active Directory. We use it for Office and have requirements to move services to Office 365, incorporating security measures and multi-factor authentication.
Microsoft Azure is used across multiple departments, and practically every device is involved in its usage.
We utilize Microsoft Azure to enhance business processes through cloud implementation, Active Directory, and Office services. We have requirements for Office 365 services, security measures, and multi-factor authentication.
The scalability of Microsoft Azure is very good for growing and adapting to company requirements. For us and our technology neighbors, there is increasing concentration on cloud environments. In the near future, we might not need hybrid solutions, leading to a transformation from hybrid to cloud.
When we use Microsoft Azure, it provides enhanced security from our perspective, though I am not certain about the financial return on investment or benefits for our users as I do not have that information.
I would prefer to see improvements such as more advanced AI features, lower pricing, and better technical support. We cannot progress without artificial intelligence because technology is moving in that direction, and we should adapt to be in line with those developments. These features for automation might provide a more effective way to operate.
We are considering some projects integrating AI and machine learning into Microsoft Azure, but until now, we have not implemented any. Depending on future projects, we should integrate and evaluate AI and machine learning capabilities since we do not currently utilize those features.
We have been using Microsoft Azure for approximately three to four years.
We did not face any challenges or issues when deploying Microsoft Azure during our planning phase.
We encountered no challenges when integrating Microsoft Azure into our existing IT infrastructure. It was a smooth transition without significant issues because we conducted thorough studies, checks, and testing with our team.
I would rate the stability of Microsoft Azure in our region as excellent, giving it a perfect score.
The scalability of Microsoft Azure is excellent for growth and adaptation, depending on company requirements. For us and our technology neighbors, there is increasing focus on cloud environments. In the near future, we might not need hybrid solutions, leading to a transformation from hybrid to cloud.
I would rate the overall scalability of Microsoft Azure as excellent.
I rate technical support as excellent because we have not experienced many problems when calling for assistance.
Positive
We are an end-user of Microsoft. IPKO is part of Telecom Slovenia, so our mother company might have additional arrangements with Microsoft, but currently, IPKO is solely a user.
The deployment configuration part took approximately one hour to complete.
I participated in the deployment and configuration of Microsoft Azure as part of the cyber security team at IPKO. I am Microsoft certified, having been a Microsoft Certified Engineer since 2005. We have a dedicated team working on Azure, and the implementation was conducted through our colleagues at that time. In total, three people took part in the deployment.
When we use Microsoft Azure, it provides enhanced security from our perspective, though I am not certain about the financial return on investment or benefits for our users as I do not have that information.
Regarding the pricing for Microsoft Azure services, I would rate our satisfaction as very good.
I am not certain if there are additional expenses beyond the licensing fee, but there might be some.
Microsoft Azure is used across multiple departments, and practically every device is involved in its usage.
I have not been heavily involved with Microsoft Azure in the last year, but we have a dedicated team in my company who primarily works with it. I need to receive feedback from my colleagues about new features, though we mainly use it for authentication and multi-factor purposes.
Based on my personal experience, I would recommend Microsoft Azure to other businesses and users because it is reliable, secure, and provides an easy transition process.
Microsoft Azure requires minimal maintenance as it is mostly automated, and we have not experienced any significant issues from hybrid elements. While some companies in America or elsewhere might have faced challenges, here in Europe, we have not encountered such problems.
My final overall rating for Microsoft Azure is excellent, giving it a perfect score.