Microsoft Azure File Storage Reviews

We need to store data over there. We process documents through Kofax.

Time is a major benefit, as well as ease of processing. With configuration, it happens quite easily, and we can finish tasks early.

In our organization, we use Azure File Storage for storing Azure virtual desktop (AVD) files. The profiles for these virtual desktops are stored in Azure File Storage.

Because we migrated to the cloud, Azure File Storage provides an excellent option for hosting VDI profiles after using on-premises storage like those from NetApp.

We use it for ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) processes. We get files from different tools related to our micro-processing, copy them into Azure File Storage, and then consume them for parsing and loading.

It's good overall. We just use Azure File Storage as a way to keep files for our ETL process. Other than that, I haven't had any other exposure to it.

I work for a company that is a partner with Microsoft. Therefore, the use cases depend on the client. I've used it for various solutions, including those for banks and financial institutions.

I like that we can copy and download data using Azure. It's not just for file storage; we can also use it for large data sets or to host static web applications.

We use the solution to store the files that are fed to the product by the end user. All the files are stored in Microsoft Azure File Storage.

The security features and the ease of integration are good.

Microsoft Azure File Storage enables seamless integration with enterprise interfaces like ADF to exchange data with external applications via HTTP protocols. This allows business users to easily transfer files or access files generated from other systems in SaaS or PaaS environments. For instance, you can use specific connectors to directly generate data from Salesforce and store it in Azure Storage. Additionally, Azure File Storage provides endpoints and a comprehensive API for managing data access.

Microsoft Azure File Storage allows business users to connect to storage using Azure Active Directory features for authentication and security. This facilitates storing, transferring, and accessing data securely. It's a valuable feature appreciated for its simplicity and ease of use.

As an enterprise solution architect, I have most often used Microsoft Azure File Storage as a file storage solution in projects that have required the migration of organizational data from on-premises to the public cloud. In these cases, the migration is usually a one-time transfer of data to Azure File Storage, where the data then resides going forward.

Essentially, with any content management platforms that we implement for ourselves or our customers, Azure File Storage will almost certainly play a part in the final solution. For example, we are now building a new knowledge management hub as an internal platform for solution architects, and it is based on Azure. 

That said, at my company we tend to take a pretty agnostic view when it comes to products and vendors, and with some of the ITSM or content management solutions that we recommend such as those offered by ServiceNow and AIOps, we will deploy on both AWS and Azure as these are our preferred partners. 

During the course of my work, I have also dealt with other Azure products such as Azure Data Factory, but data warehousing is only one part of what I do, as my role is more aligned to business development and solution architecture. We have a platform focused on data solutions, comprising AI data warehousing, recording, analytics, etc., and this kind of platform would be more likely to be using Azure Data Factory for all of the data lakes across the various public and private cloud providers.

Right now, my role is a bit broader and more generalist, and I would usually have someone well-versed in the Azure cloud actually building the solutions. I am more interested in the economics of Azure solutions, and I have found a lot of customers are asking, "Can you bring in some expertise on cloud economics?" So this is definitely an area of interest and a core focus for me.

The biggest advantage of Azure File Storage vis-à-vis other public cloud storage providers, and why we recommend Azure first and foremost, is that many of our customers have partnerships with Microsoft and so they have access to better cloud economics. Compared to AWS, we have found that (from a customer perspective) Azure is much more competitive.

Another advantage of Azure is the fact that it integrates so well with our customers' existing Active Directory implementation, which really saves a lot of time when integrating on-premises environments with public cloud environments. With Azure, it's a seamless integration.