Microsoft Azure Block Storage Reviews

Of all the features I have used, it works great. While some require development, you don't need to for all of them. 

There are various types of storage to choose from - blob, table, and queue.

The initial setup is simple.

It has great documentation and community support.

When I installed Azure Explorer on my system, I connected easily, and, for uploading data and uploading any value or any files from there, it was very easy. However, when it's there in Azure Blob, Azure Portal, then uploading, downloading, or viewing the file is a little bit difficult. That's the part they need to improve. Downloading and uploading could be easier.

They could create more readability of files. We can use other solutions in desktop versions and then we can connect those Azure files. However, if anyone is working maybe in Linux or other things, then the Azure Portal is best for them. The readability is easier.

I've been working on the solution for more than 12 months.

The solution is stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

It's like creating normal Windows files. Each time you have to create a file though, you can create it using CLI. However, if it's only a storage file and you can store large amounts, large volumes, of details. Scaling is simple. I have not had any challenge regarding Blob Storage, as I do not have much data actually. I haven't used it on a large scale. That's why I don't find any scalability challenges myself, actually.

While we have Microsoft technical support, I didn't take any Microsoft technical support yet, as their documentation is enough for me. If I get into any problems, I look for solution documentation or community help. That's enough for me.

The initial setup is very simple and straightforward. It's not difficult.

I haven't compared the solution to any other solutions just yet. We only deal with Azure.

I'm an end-user. I'd recommend this solution to others. I would rate it as eight out of ten.

We recently moved to Block Storage for SQL on Azure. It enables our employees to work remotely. We are customers of Microsoft and I'm a technical infrastructure analyst.

This is a very robust and flexible solution.

I'd like them to improve the features of data gathering - sometimes you need to get the data from the block and it's usually very expensive.

I've been using this solution for six months. 

The solution is stable. 

This solution is very scalable. 

Microsoft provides good support. They respond quickly and their technical people are very helpful. 

The initial setup is easy. 

It's important to analyze your requirements because it can sometimes be a problem in terms of price. Pay attention to locking because sometimes the amount of data on the block can lock your business.

I rate the solution 10 out of 10. 

We use Block Storage for virtual stores that we build in our company. We use the blocks to connect one store to another.  The virtual shops we build on Azure have half a million users monthly. 

I have been using Azure Block Storage for five years.

Azure Block Storage is the most stable cloud storage solution we've used.

Azure Block Storage isn't as scalable as AWS.

The response time could be quicker. 

The ease of setup is the primary reason we use Azure Block Storage. The setup takes one or two days, and we had help from Microsoft. We had five people on our team.

We worked directly with Microsoft. We were in their startup partnership at the beginning.

I rate Azure Block Storage seven out of 10. 

We are creating VMs for some of our development testing, and we are using Azure Block Storage in that context. We are not using anything from Azure for production systems. We are just using it for staging and development.

Azure Block Storage is

• easy to deploy
• easy to scale up
• pay-as-you-go. 

So whenever we need something, we use it.

One of the biggest challenges on Azure infrastructure is that sometimes we don't get what we want. Either we have to wait for it or contact support because something is not working for us. Most of the time it works fine. But sometimes, when we want something critical, apart from block storage — we want to increase the capacity of the VM or we want to increase the cores of the VM — we have to wait. We get a response from Microsoft from a North American location. We want to host everything within the UAE. But we are redirected through North America or Europe. That is a challenge with Azure. It's the system availability that is the difficult point.

Also, billing is an issue. We have had a lot of problems when it comes to billing. We started working with minimal resources and we opted for pay-as-you-go mode. Microsoft needs to invest in some resources to improve the billing part. It's not about the money, but the visibility. I see a lot of invoices, but I don't see whether we have paid them or not. And if we have paid, I don't see when it was paid and through which credit card or account we paid. I see invoices, but I don't see the information related to those invoices.

I have been using Azure Block Storage for less than a year.

Availability is sometimes an issue.

Technical support, overall, is good. The response is very good. We don't have any issue with that.

We have our own data center and we use its storage system. But we want to upgrade that because it's not fulfilling our current requirements and we don't see it fulfilling our future requirements either. We have a need to upgrade our system.

Initially, we had some issues but we were not trained. We were used to the legacy environment, so we had challenges. But anyone who has technical knowledge will be able to set it up and understand it, once they start reading about how to set it up and how to use it. 

There are a few challenges, especially when we are setting up block storage or setting up the network. There are complexities of the network environment, such as creating the virtual networks, etc. It's complex.

We started looking at Dell EMC and some other solutions such as QNAP. We are evaluating them.

We have our own team to maintain it. We are still trying to add more resources to the team and trying to find someone who Azure will certify.

I would recommend Azure Block Storage so far, per my current usage, but I would also highly recommend learning how it works and how to configure it properly. Block Storage, in particular, is a bit confusing. People who do not have proper knowledge should not try R&D with it. I would highly recommend getting professional support if you really want to use it. The solution is very good, but the configuration and initial implementation should be done by professionals.

I develop the solution for customers, so the use case varies.

The ability to synchronize data in a distributed environment is very useful. It makes it easier to work with different geographic and availability zones.  

The solution could have better archival policies and localization of data.

I have been using this solution for about three or four years.

The stability and reliability of the product are very good.

Scalability is there, I never see an issue with the scalability of the solution.

We sometimes have issues during data migration or face a bug, which requires us to contact the support team. I would mark them four out of ten.

Neutral

I would say the setup is simple. 

I also work with AWS, so that was a consideration. 

Azure Block Storage has very good integration with the Microsoft suite, which helps a lot when creating a digital workspace. That's why I like this product.I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We are using Microsoft Azure Block Storage to accumulate and store all unstructured data, that is, different files such as Excel, Word, PowerPoint, or any other streaming or video files. Whenever there is any unstructured data, you can use the Microsoft Azure Block Storage to deal with it.

It has easy versioning. The versioning is amenable to any changes. 

It also has great security. It can only be accessed through an API, and only the requested users can access it. It is optimized for data lakes and comprehensive data management.

We need to do versioning each and every time, that is, check-in and check-out. If a person forgets to do that, then there could be an issue in the replacement of that particular object in the storage. It will be great if it can be automatically managed.

I have been using this solution for the last two to three years. 

There are absolutely no issues. They're really great at stability. 

It has great scalability.

It is quite straightforward. You can set it up even when you don't know much about it. You log into Azure.com, which is free for one year, and take a virtual machine and storage and then run your own website through Microsoft Azure Block Storage. You can store your image files, videos, and other document files from there. It is very easy. Oracle Cloud and AWS also provide the same ease of use, not only Azure.

In terms of pricing, Azure is quite cheaper than AWS. However, I have recently read that Oracle Cloud Generation 2 storage is quite cheaper than Azure. I haven't used it yet. 

We need to look at a customer's requirements, and, based on that, we can suggest the storage. You can save at least 20% with Azure as compared to AWS, which is quite costly.

I have worked on similar solutions from Oracle and Amazon. Feature-wise, they all provide the same features. However, I found Azure more convenient to work on than other solutions. It is very easy to use for data analytics purposes as well as for storing the archive data or long-term use data, that is, non-relational and unstructured data.

I would rate Microsoft Azure Block Storage a ten out of ten. It is really good.

Our customers basically use this program for virtual data center extension, as a hybrid extension of their local or on-prem or private data center. It offers them an automated way of running new workloads or creating new workloads with governance on it.

The reason why people choose this solution is that it has a good infrastructure. It also offers an easy way to provide workloads. We mainly use this solution for the development, testing, and production of our data and infrastructure in a standardized way. I also like the fact that the deployment is fast.

I would like to see an improvement in the networking and cost transparency part. What I mean by this, is that we provide certain workflows for our customers and we usually calculate what is local, but even then it's not really upfront. We must know what the usage will be in DMs. So the price is different, and that is where provisioning and cost transparency comes in. We must know what it will cost in the OPEX work that we do. We do have some cost analysis, overdose cloud, but still, it's not always the right amount that's reflected for our customers for each application or each analysis that they want to do. The invoice type is therefore different for each client.

The company I work for has been using Microsoft Azure Block Storage for two to three years and I've been using it for almost a year now.

Most customers are happy with the stability. Some bigger customers, however, have experienced problems with the stability of the Azure cloud. 

One can easily scale with this program so I am satisfied with the scalability. 

I haven't used customer service before.

Our setup is rather complex. It is easier for our customers - they simply get the tenants in our products and within the tenants, we just plug in all the drivers on-prem and then he gets a complete insight of the overall workload. 

I am, however, not involved in the installation. Another difficult thing is to create a good architecture that's strong on networking and that will enable customers to deploy or provide all those different environments in an easy way. So the thinking is critical, and architecture is very important, which is kind of complex. 

Deployment takes between two to five days, depending on the customer and the speed on the cloud.

We have a power desk with three people who are responsible for support and maintenance, customer queries, etc. 

The solution is affordable and we only pay for what we use. There are additional costs for backup and disaster management and we use separate products as service providers.

I personally feel that this is a good program. My advice to others is that they should determine beforehand what they want to use it for. The biggest lesson I've learned so far is that, if you go to the backup part, you have to be careful about how you do the backups and what the retention times are. 

I would like to see improved file sharing and better security in the next release. 

On a scale from one to ten, I will rate this program an eight. 

We are currently using it for POC. It is not yet live. The data storage is pulling the data.

We have the latest version of this solution.

It is easy to integrate with applications.

It should be easier to deploy.

I have been using this solution for one year.

It is stable.

It is scalable. Currently, we have three or four users.

Their support is fine.

Its installation is okay. It takes around one hour.

It was done by me. Sometimes, it is also done by a third party.

I would recommend this solution. I would rate Microsoft Azure Block Storage a seven out of ten.