Microsoft Azure vs Scality RING comparison

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30,394 views|24,344 comparisons
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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Microsoft Azure and Scality RING based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Oracle and others in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS).
To learn more, read our detailed Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The product has been very stable for us so far.""Microsoft Azure is an optimized solution when we compare it to any other particular cloud solution.""If you have large traffic amounts, Microsoft Azure will continue to provide our customers with the best storage experience.""The technical support has been excellent.""There are a lot of valuable features in Microsoft Azure, such as Kubernetes, pipelines, and development environments.""One of the most valuable features of Microsoft Azure is the compatibility with all of our Windows applications and other Microsoft technologies""It's a flexible solution.""Technical support has been good over the years."

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"Another feature I like is the life cycle management that helps me with data storage efficiency.""I think it's the economic factor. This solution has the lowest cost for storage systems.""The most valuable feature of Scality RING8 is its performance and good interface."

More Scality RING Pros →

Cons
"Microsoft Azure needs to be simplified to make it better understood for users.""The support, the cost, the way they have the tiers, this could all be improved.""I would like it if Microsoft communicated better about upcoming changes before they roll them out. Sometimes when Microsoft implements changes, they don't notify the users promptly enough. I would like to know about new features, especially Office 365.""They are a bit closed on the customization side. If they open the customization then it will be very good.""Improving transparency in billing is crucial for us. Understanding how billing works only becomes clear once we start using the services. A more accurate billing calculator would help us anticipate costs associated with using specific services.""If the price were reduced then it would be an improvement.""Onboarding customers is a challenge. Sometimes our customers don't know how to deal with the cloud environment. Maybe the customers are more comfortable with the old-fashioned on-premise environment.""The solution could improve by providing a better user interface and more organized workflows."

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"Scality RING is not easy to learn for someone new. It is a little bit difficult. There are a lot of components to it, and you also need to understand them to work with it effectively.""When we used this solution in 2015, it was not scalable at all. I don't know if they have improved on that, but at the time, scalability was just horrible.""Scality RING8 could improve by having more features. We have to use two automation tools to meet our needs. We would prefer to use only one."

More Scality RING Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Related to pricing and licensing, you have to be careful how you operate with the concept."
  • "Be careful with Azure Cool storage accounts; if you are dealing with high object counts, then it can be more economical to use Hot storage because of the high storage access costs associated with Cool."
  • "Make use of Azure pricing calculator and you will find out that Azure Is still more reasonable that the competition and do your research, when unclear speak with your MS support."
  • "It’s necessary to use third party products or to use good self-management economic tools"
  • "Keep to PaaS to gain the optimal benefits from an OPEX finance and resource perspective."
  • "Several thousand dollars and counting, we haven't needed to upgrade on premises hardware (In fact we eliminated all of the old on-premises hardware and run 100% on Azure) or pay for it's maintenance, power etc."
  • "If you are not aware of costs, pricing, etc., you can end up with a hefty bill. However, I found that the Azure price calculator is a valuable tool to use before starting to deploy VMs in Azure. This tool will give you an overview of the costs you should expect on a monthly, quarterly or yearly basis."
  • "Pricing is very difficult to guesstimate. With so many a la carte options and individual pricing it can be a hassle to understand."
  • More Microsoft Azure Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The cost of Scality RING8 could be less expensive. It is difficult for smaller businesses to afford it."
  • "The initial cost (CAPEX) to set up the infrastructure is expensive due to the specific hardware required."
  • More Scality RING Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Comparison Review
    Anonymous User
    Amazon Web Services, Rackspace OpenStack, Microsoft Windows Azure and Google are the major cloud hosting and storage service providers. Athough Amazon is top of them and is oldest in cloud market, Rackspace, Microsoft and Google are giving tough competition to each other and to Amazon also for alluring IT customers. This article give brief history of these cloud hosting service providers and compares the cloud services provided by them. -- Amazon Web Services -- It's hard to find someone who doesn't agree that Amazon Web Services is the market leader in IaaS cloud computing. The company has one of the widest breadths of cloud services - including compute, storage, networking, databases, load balancers, applications and application development platforms all delivered as a cloud service. Amazon has dropped its prices 21 times since it debuted its cloud six years ago and fairly consistently fills whatever gaps it has in the size of virtual machine instances on its platform - the company recently rolled out new high-memory instances, for example. There are some cautions for Amazon though. Namely, its cloud has experienced three major outages in two years. One analyst, Jillian Mirandi of Technology Business Researcher, has suggested that continued outages could eventually start hindering businesses' willingness to invest in Amazon infrastructure. That sentiment gets to a larger point about AWS though - the service seems to be popular in the startup community, providing the IT… Read more →
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:IBM Public Cloud is IBM’s Platform-as-a-Service. It aims to provide organizations with a secure cloud environment to manage data and applications. One of the features we like is the cloud activity… more »
    Top Answer:One of the best features of SAP Cloud Platform is that it is web-based and you can log in from anywhere in the world. SAP Cloud Platform is suitable for companies of any size; it works well with both… more »
    Top Answer:I would recommend Google Firebase instead of Microsoft Azure, simply for the array of features that it has to offer. In particular, the Firebase library grants you access to a shared data structure… more »
    Top Answer:Another feature I like is the life cycle management that helps me with data storage efficiency.
    Top Answer:It's a very good product, but for large-scale usage, it has limitations. Scality RING's lack of extensive testing and potential hidden limitations. While Scality provides precise architecture… more »
    Top Answer:I work with Scality RING for storage, and we have a concrete strategy to offer it to business customers. Many customers use it for different purposes, but a common use case is for user computer… more »
    Ranking
    Views
    30,394
    Comparisons
    24,344
    Reviews
    27
    Average Words per Review
    547
    Rating
    8.3
    Views
    572
    Comparisons
    561
    Reviews
    2
    Average Words per Review
    353
    Rating
    7.5
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Windows Azure, Azure, MS Azure
    Scality RING, RING8
    Learn More
    Scality
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    Overview

    Windows Azure is Microsoft's cloud platform, where developers can create, deploy, and maintain their apps. This cloud application platform allows developers to concentrate on the actual applications, while it takes care of all the elements behind the apps.

    Windows Azure works across multiple frameworks and languages. It is fully scalable, localized in that it is hosted globally in many datacenters, and has widespread capabilities with elements of application development, deployment, and management.

    Azure is comprised of several different service modules, including Infrastructure; Web; Mobile; Dev & Test; Big Data; Media;Storage, Backup & Recovery; and Identity & Access Management.

    Microsoft Azure works as a:

    1. Platform as a service (PaaS)
    2. Software as a service (SaaS)
    3. Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)

    Microsoft Azure is available:

    • On-premises
    • Hybrid
    • Multi-cloud
    • At the edge

    Compared to its competitors, Microsoft Azure:

    • Has more affordable features
    • Has easier migration for organizations already using other Microsoft tools
    • Has several educational resources available
    • Provides robust support
    • Is ideal for small and large businesses

    Microsoft Azure Features:

    • Scalability
    • Stability
    • Flexibility
    • Azure Site Recovery
    • Active Directory
    • Monitoring features
    • Cloud-based
    • Automated tasks
    • Change capability cadence
    • Showback capabilities
    • Information protection
    • Azure Data Lake
    • Excellent portal
    • Intuitive user interface
    • Remote desktop
    • Fast provisioning
    • Data security
    • Data resiliency
    • Speed of service
    • Integrated delivery pipeline
    • Disaster recovery
    • Robust templates
    • Flexible coding languages
    • Virtual systems testing

    Benefits of Microsoft Azure:

    • Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): Because Microsoft Azure is an IaaS, organizations can deploy as well as manage applications easily and quickly. Azure also provides you with the ability to customize the cloud software to meet your specific business needs.
    • Seamless integration: Microsoft Azure is built to seamlessly integrate with existing IT departments via hybrid databases, secure private connections, and storage solutions.
    • Cost-effective: Because Azure can harmoniously exist in your business environment with your data center, it is a very cost-effective solution.
    • Analytics support: Azure is designed with built-in support that is used to analyze data and provide key insights. Azure offers Cortana Analytics, Stream Analytics, Machine Learning, and SQL services.
    • Unique storage system: Compared to other cloud services, Microsoft Azure has more data centers and delivery points, which helps create an optimal user experience and also helps deliver content faster. In addition, Microsoft Azure makes it possible for organizations to exchange content across several virtual machines.
    • Enhanced flexibility: Azure provides extreme flexibility by allowing you to choose any level of functionality you require. It also supports many of the same technologies IT teams and developers usually depend on, making it easier for them to manage.
    • Easy implementation: Microsoft Azure is easy and quick to deploy. If necessary, you can change web apps to Azure with almost zero downtime.

    Reviews from Real Users:

    "It is a flexible solution that is straightforward to use," says the principal consultant at a computer software company.

    OmarJ., future datacenter consultant: Microsoft Azure Cloud at a tech company, adds that "The user interface is very nice and makes everything easy to use."

    You can build an environment in minutes. It's very good in terms of being an infrastructure as a service, and I found that really fascinating,” says an information technology consultant at a computer software company.

    "I think Azure's level of automation to achieve efficiency or agility is valuable. I also like the change capability cadence, the showback capabilities, and understanding what our costs are," says an enterprise architect at an energy/utilities company.

    Marco C., Ing. at Wolters Kluwer, says "The valuable features of Microsoft Azure are that it is cloud-based and has good storage. The storage is completely managed by Azure. We do not need to do any patching of security because it is handled by Azure which is a benefit. The solution is fully compatible with the Microsoft technology stack and is very scalable."

    "The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure is it has everything together in one place. It is one large tool with lots of small tools that are updated often," says the owner of a media company.



    Scality RING object storage enables enterprises and cloud service providers to run petabyte-scale, data-rich services like web applications, VOD, active archives, compliance archives, and private storage clouds. The RING is software, so you can deploy it on standard x86 servers of your choice, taking advantage of server and media innovation over time. Acting as a single, distributed system, the RING can scale linearly across thousands of servers, multiple sites, and an unlimited number of objects. Data is protected with policy-based replication, erasure coding, and geo-distribution, achieving up to 14 9s of durability and 100% availability.
    Sample Customers
    BMW, Toyota, easyJet, NBC Sports, HarperCollins, Aviva, TalkTalk Business, Avanade, and Telenor.
    Comcast, TimeWarner Cable, EuroSport, Orange, Deluxe, DailtMotion, SFR, RTL, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Telstra
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company22%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Comms Service Provider9%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization35%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company19%
    Financial Services Firm12%
    Manufacturing Company11%
    Government6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business41%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise44%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business14%
    Midsize Enterprise40%
    Large Enterprise46%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise64%
    Buyer's Guide
    Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Oracle and others in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS). Updated: March 2024.
    765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Microsoft Azure is ranked 1st in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) with 298 reviews while Scality RING is ranked 16th in Software Defined Storage (SDS) with 4 reviews. Microsoft Azure is rated 8.4, while Scality RING is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Microsoft Azure writes "Promotes clear, logical structures preventing impractical configurations and offers seamless integration ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Scality RING writes "Offers UTIPI (Unified Tiered Infrastructure Per IOPS) feature in billing but lacks extensive testing ". Microsoft Azure is most compared with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), Google Firebase, Amazon AWS, Pivotal Cloud Foundry and SAP Cloud Platform, whereas Scality RING is most compared with Dell ECS, MinIO, Red Hat Ceph Storage, Qumulo and Cloudian HyperStore.

    We monitor all Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.