Deborah Gamelin - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President at Asset Track for Cloud, LLC
Real User
Top 5
Flexible, easy to manage, and good training material is available
Pros and Cons
  • "In Azure, everything is pretty straightforward. Once you know it, the platform is very easy to use."
  • "It would be helpful if Azure provided more information on the various add-ons to give people an understanding of what they are used for, and how they're applied by other companies or businesses."

What is our primary use case?

We use Azure for a variety of services and we are in the process of configuring everything. We use GoDaddy to host our domain, and then we provision from GoDaddy for services such as email. This is one of the things that I just recently configured.

Right now, we're in the process of setting up the firewall. This provides us with security for the website. Firewalls are something that I have a lot of experience with because, in my previous organization, I dealt with audits and other similar tasks that depend on security.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of Azure is the flexibility to pick and choose what you need, on the spot, and then be able to manage it yourself.

In Azure, everything is pretty straightforward. Once you know it, the platform is very easy to use.

The training material that they have is very good, and it's easy to understand.

What needs improvement?

Most of the problems that we've had are related to the DNS and the SSL certificate. Those two things have been a real pain. Sometimes, it happens because of GoDaddy and sometimes it happens because of Azure. Either we make a change in GoDaddy and the configuration is lost, or our developers make a change to the website and from there it gets lost.

It would be helpful if Azure provided more information on the various add-ons to give people an understanding of what they are used for, and how they're applied by other companies or businesses. One downside is that I find myself signing up and paying for things that I don't really need, and I have to call them to find out exactly what it is that I'm paying for. For example, I recently added the Azure Data Studio and I don't know what I need it for. I see that it can create a connection and run a query but I don't know if I'm going to be using it. That said, I will probably need it in the future.

For how long have I used the solution?

My current organization has been using Microsoft Azure for the past two months. I have extensive past experience with it.

Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Azure
March 2023
Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Azure. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2023.
690,226 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability-wise, it has been fine.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Azure is a scalable platform.

How are customer service and support?

I have not been in contact with technical support myself. In fact, we have not had to reach out to them very often. We generally figure out things on our own but we also have an IT contract with personnel to work to resolve issues when they occur. Technical issues are something that you always want to try to resolve yourself.

Although we haven't had any problems that we couldn't resolve, we know that if we have to call technical support then we're going to be on hold for a while. This is something we don't want and can avoid by having our own IT support contract.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

In my previous job, I worked for large telecom and we used a variety of products. These included AWS, as well as Azure, and we also had our own cloud that we leased to third parties.

I received training and certification on both Azure and AWS. However, I did not have much opportunity to use AWS.

In my current company, we migrated the business from AWS to Azure within the last two months.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup for me was easy because I have experience with Azure, as well as AWS, and a private cloud in my previous organization. I was in the internal network group, and I had all of the operational responsibilities for that area.

We were able to set it up and get it working in a day.

Migrating to Azure from AWS was not a big deal.

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

The price of this solution is one of the things that attracted us to it.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We considered both Azure and AWS for my current company. When we began, the company already had an existing website running with AWS, but I had more experience with Azure. We did extensive research to compare the two and we found that Azure was definitely the way to go.

We were already using several other Microsoft products, which means that our environment is more compatible using Azure.

What other advice do I have?

My advice for anybody who is implementing Azure is to look at the training materials that they have available. They are very easy to understand and I recommend running through the ones that pertain to your use cases. A lot of the time, it will have the additional information that is needed to understand the problem and help you to find the relevant information in other sources. For example, it contained information about GoDaddy that was relevant to our environment.

The biggest thing is that the information is all there and a lot of people don't like to look, but I suggest using the help and the instructional videos before calling somebody else. Everything is available.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Advisory Board Member at Codecon VR
Real User
Top 5
Highly secure, fully integrated, and helpful support
Pros and Cons
  • "The application services are the most valuable in Microsoft Azure. I'm not using them directly but I am using the function and the web applications. I don't need to pay a lot for the maintenance. I do not need to have a DevOps employee."
  • "The documentation can be outdated and is not as clear in Microsoft Azure as it is in AWS or Google."

What is our primary use case?

We deploy all of our projects in Microsoft Azure. We are a startup company. We have been since the beginning deploying our code in Azure cloud. We are actively using the full capabilities of two cloud services.

What is most valuable?

The application services are the most valuable in Microsoft Azure. I'm not using them directly but I am using the function and the web applications. I don't need to pay a lot for the maintenance. I do not need to have a DevOps employee. 

I am familiar with Google, and everything I was doing was in Google. I had to control my back proxies and do my own configuration files. With Microsoft Azure, it is all easy.

What needs improvement?

The documentation can be outdated and is not as clear in Microsoft Azure as it is in AWS or Google.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Microsoft Azure for approximately four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable. 

It's easy to monitor, there's no problem with the code in their development. We had some stability issues, it was not the fault of Microsoft Azure, but it was the mistakes of the developers. It was easy to monitor it in Azure.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Microsoft Azure is highly scalable.

On only one web application I created with one service plan I can connect 10  projects. Imagine one machine can run 10 projects at the same time because whatever the project has more requests or demands, it will scale its machines and auto-scale down. This is why it makes it affordable. I can control which project is demanding more computing power or storage power.

We have approximately 50 people using this solution in my organization. It is mainly back and front developers.

We are drastically increasing our usage because last year we were running 13 projects, and now 19 projects. In 2022 we are trying to double our team.

How are customer service and support?

The support could improve. For example, Python is needed for Microsoft Azure,  and the lack of documentation for the community is a problem. If you are a Python developer Microsoft Azure released an update to Python at the end of May 2021. Theoretically, I can use it with Python, but if I have a problem I need to call a Microsoft engineer to solve it. It takes some time. However, I did receive very good support from the Microsoft engineers to make my system production-ready, but language support for Python and other languages is coming late.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have used other solutions, such as Google and AWS.

When comparing these solutions to Microsoft Azure, AWS has better documentation, Google's cognitive services, and predictions give better results, and Microsoft Azure has the best UI. If you want to reach the database of Google, there is no such SQL manager UI. Microsoft Azure UI is easy to use and has great tools.

How was the initial setup?

The deployment's easy and the pipelines are easy from the Azure DevOps, everything is integrated and it has good security. The overall setup is extremely easy.

What about the implementation team?

We have a team in London that is maintaining the solution. We have 450 backend developers at this site and approximately five people are looking after all the maintenance and admin roles. We have database and developers administrators that are giving access to the people for the production maintenance. 

What other advice do I have?

I am very happy with the solution.

Thanks to the training I have received from Microsoft Azure, which cost £60,000, I'm up-skilling all my team for the certification, databases, and machine learning tool. Every month I'm receiving approximately £1,000 from the training credit for the up-skilling.

It is simple to start with Microsoft Azure if you know the application life cycle. You can try so many things without any cost because of the serverless system. You will not be charged for any request at the beginning. For example, you are creating a function application in Azure the first 10,000 requests are free. It is great because you can anyone a developer to test anything.

They're not using very heavy machine learning systems, the system is generally cheap. For example, they are giving a free month trial and a developer can't finish it personally if they do not use a large computing machine.

At the moment they are adding new features faster than I expected. For example, they have Python support but five years ago there wasn't any Python support. They were slow at the beginning but now it updates very quickly. For example, the community services for the low code, no code power platforms, and the power platforms.

I spoke to my developers, machine learning engineer, data engineer, and data scientists and told them please use the auto ML or the community services better. As a London business user site team, we can create all the virtual agents and AI builders with the no code platform for the machine learning models for the power applications. The auto ML is very powerful and you don't need to be an expert in machine learning.

I rate Microsoft Azure a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Azure
March 2023
Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Azure. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2023.
690,226 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Owner at a media company with 1-10 employees
Real User
Multiple tools available, updated often, and performs well
Pros and Cons
  • "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."
  • "There is a need to be better on-premise solutions that are more helpful. However, I don't think that is the goal of Microsoft Azure. They want the solution to be secure cloud solutions with cloud applications. This is their main goal at the moment."

What is our primary use case?

We are using Microsoft Azure mainly for our test environment. Addiotanlly, we use it for our enterprise resource management as we have installed a SaaS solution.

What is most valuable?

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.

What needs improvement?

I have found that if you not working with Microsoft Azure's GUI every day, it's not very user-friendly. It changes very often and fast. They are implementing new functionality. If you're not working with it every day, it always takes you additional time to get acquainted with the GUI. You always have to know all the tools because it's one software solution where you work with different kinds of tools to achieve results by implementing policies and other parameters. It would be better if they had everything in one place so that it is clear what type of operations we are doing, such as DLP. However, that's is how it is with all of the tools of Microsoft Azure at the moment.

There is a need to be better on-premise solutions that are more helpful. However, I don't think that is the goal of Microsoft Azure. They want the solution to be secure cloud solutions with cloud applications. This is their main goal at the moment.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Microsoft Azure for approximately five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The performance of Microsoft Azure depends on whether you have good bandwidth for your data connection, if the connection is strong then the performance is good. If you have a very poor connection, then it's can be a little slow, but has been okay.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have one administrator and one system engineer that are using the solution. They are doing the administration for our solution. We're not a big company, we have 19 employees.

We haven't tried to scale Microsoft Azure. It's not necessary for us to scale it at the moment. We have started out with one issue where we needed it and for very sensible documentation, now we are using it in different kinds of projects. For example, for many types of data classifications.

If it's necessary we will increase usage. Otherwise, we will keep the same amount of usage.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support of Microsoft Azure was helpful. They were very good because they spoke the same language as we did. We both spoke German. It worked very well, we have no complaints.

How was the initial setup?

Some of the aspects of the implementation of the solution are very easy if you know which tool you have to use. It's not too complicated if you know which tool you will be using but to find the right tool to do the necessary functions sometimes takes some time. I'm not doing the setup every day. I have one engineer that it is his job. But nevertheless, I also want to do the setup to know how it's working.

I am not sure how long the implementation took for our DLP project, once we started the implementation we started to use other tools and eventually returned to the main project.

What about the implementation team?

We did the implementation internally.

We have one engineer that is administrating and supporting Microsoft Azure.

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

With every cloud solution, you have to know what you need and the cost can be fine. The price can be a little bit high depending on how you manage your costs, but overall it's still a bit cheaper than an on-premise solution but with the advantage of flexibility. You're always up to date with the software, you only need to use it. You no longer have to be concerned with the on-premise physical security. We do not need to create a data center, it's more convenient for us.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Some of our customers are looking for on-premise solutions other than Microsoft Azure which is cloud-based. We help them find the solutions they need.

What other advice do I have?

My advice to others thinking about using this solution is to try it out. There are features which are very good and some other features where you should watch out but that's for every solution, you have pros and cons. When you're a small company, try everything out that is offered by Microsoft because they're one of the best. Microsoft is still the market leader in a lot of fields. I would suggest using Microsoft tools if they fit the relevant use case. If the solution does not fit the use case, or you need more security or other aspects, then you can look around for other tools. additionally, on the marketplace, Microsoft provides enough other tools you could use.

I rate Microsoft Azure an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Owner at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Real User
Helpful online community, plenty of documentation, and simple setup
Pros and Cons
  • "Microsoft Azure has hundred of services that they offer on the platform."
  • "There are times when using a service in Microsoft Azure can be confusing because you have four or five options that do similar operations. It would be helpful if there was a clear decision tree around those features. Microsoft does provide a lot of decision trees around a lot of their services, but it's not for everything."

What is our primary use case?

We use Microsoft Azure for many different services. For example, we use the Azure Boards for work and issue tracking. The Azure Repos is a place we store code, it is similar to a Git repository for us. Microsoft Azure has pipelines for the deployment of your applications across environments. There are different cloud services for different use cases in Microsoft Azure that I interact with on a daily basis.

How has it helped my organization?

Microsoft Azure has benefited our organization mostly because we moved all our infrastructure to the cloud. That has helped with cost optimization. We don't have to worry about operational maintenance for things such as patching or updates for any of the servers because everything is handled by the cloud itself. We are always using the latest version.

What is most valuable?

Microsoft Azure has hundred of services that they offer on the platform.

The Microsoft Azure platform in itself is very good. The documentation that is available I find very handy and the community behind it is helpful. If you have any problems or anything, you can easily reach Microsoft's community, and then there would be someone who would be willing to help. That's a very good plus point for Microsoft Azure.

What needs improvement?

There are times when using a service in Microsoft Azure can be confusing because you have four or five options that do similar operations. It would be helpful if there was a clear decision tree around those features. Microsoft does provide a lot of decision trees around a lot of their services, but it's not for everything.

This would be helpful for the users because sometimes it gets confusing what to use, what not to use. Then you start with something, and then after two months, you think you should have used something else. There are approximately 200 services and I have found this issue with approximately 10 of them.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Microsoft Azure for approximately seven years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Microsoft Azure is stable, I did not encounter any issues or anything in the platform. The uptime is very good. 

When you design your solution, you can make sure that everything is accounted for in your design, such as all the options are there. Microsoft Azure in itself is rarely down. If there is a complete blackout it can happen, but normally no. It's very reliable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability of Microsoft Azure is unlimited. You never have to be concerned with scalability. You only have to pay for it and then the scaling is available for you.

I have approximately 50 to 100 people using this solution in my organization. I use the solution on a daily basis.

How are customer service and support?

I have not needed to contact the technical to Microsoft in my current experience. In the past, I have contacted Microsoft once or twice, but the process is straightforward. You raise a ticket, and then Microsoft's people reach out to you.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of Microsoft Azure is very straightforward. You don't have to do any setup. You only have to sign up on the Microsoft Portal, and then you can start using it.

What about the implementation team?

I did the implementation of Microsoft Azure myself.

There is not any maintenance required for this solution. If we build any solution on top of Microsoft Azure, then that's something that we have to take care of and maintain. The Microsoft Azure platform in itself does not need any maintenance from us.

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

Microsoft Azure is not expensive. You pay for what you use. If you are using it everything could be expensive.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We choose Microsoft Azure after doing the proper comparisons and proof of concepts. We did a complete pros and cons list for our vendor selection process.

What other advice do I have?

I would highly recommend Microsoft Azure to others.

I would advise others that one of the most important points to make is to make sure that the security and governance of the platform have been thought of before you start building everything around it. Make sure you build your security framework and the governance framework around the platform that suits your company. Every company is different. Everyone will have different security and governance rules.

I rate Microsoft Azure a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Devops at a computer software company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Top 5
Good hub integration with lots of new features and easy to integrate
Pros and Cons
  • "I know there have been a lot of improvements and a lot of new services lately. I'm really not aware of all of them."
  • "I haven't checked the console for some time, however, compared to the AWS console, the interaction console of the web part, the web services, it's not so easy."

What is our primary use case?

I was testing the integration capabilities. I deployed a simple solution with a front and back end with an SQL database. For the server-less solution, it was just to interact with the database. That's what kind of the load that I was testing. The use case was to integrate with the directory, authenticate, and then consume some of the services there.

What is most valuable?

One of the services that I found to be great is the connector. For example, the other day, I was creating an application for internal research. With that connector, it was really easy to integrate some services to interact with the connectors. The credential allows you to authenticate with the active directory. Then, with that authentication, you can have the assurance that the people who are consuming the application are the right ones.

I know there have been a lot of improvements and a lot of new services lately. I'm really not aware of all of them.

One thing which is great is that they give users hub integration. That's a strong aspect, which would be good for many people and clients and developers so that they have that integration right away.

What needs improvement?

I haven't checked the console for some time, however, compared to the AWS console, the interaction console of the web part, the web services, it's not so easy. That will be a good area to improve, which is to make the console for interaction with services a little easier.

Another point to improve could maybe be the pricing model or maybe the interaction with information. When you look for information in AWS, it's more straightforward and clear. It's hard to find that information on Azure.

For how long have I used the solution?

I used the solution for maybe one month at the beginning of maybe March of this year. I was doing some tests with Microsoft Azure. I was deploying some services.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is fine. However, it may be another thing to improve. I haven't look looked at it in some time, however, I remember at the beginning, I tried to research for the price, for rates, and things. I didn't find it easy to locate, which made it hard to gauge the cost of scaling. 

From my side, I don't plan to increase usage. Right now, I'm working for other clients, and with the solutions of the clients. For research purposes, I will do maybe one or two instances, just for testing. It's not a big deal.

How are customer service and support?

While I've never needed technical assistance, my understanding is that it's pretty good.

How was the initial setup?

It was not very difficult to set up the solution. In the beginning, it's a bit difficult to just find the services and things like that. They need a kind of list or something, something more visible. That would help. 

Our implementation was not too big. It took maybe two days. Another deployment we did took maybe three. I'm not really a complete expert. It might have taken a bit longer for me due to my lack of experience.

What about the implementation team?

I did not use consultants or resellers for deployment. I did it myself. There wasn't too much pressure. I was doing the deployment more for research purposes. 

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

The price of the solution is unclear. it's hard to find the costs. 

What other advice do I have?

The company I am working for is a Microsoft partner.

I'd advise potential new users to try to get as much information as possible about licensing and about the products that they are going to use. That will be good to have a very clear understanding of. Beyond that, it's not a problem to get started and go.

I'd rate the product at 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: 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
Top 10
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
Principal Cloud Architect at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 5
This has become a critical solution for us with its broad diversity of services
Pros and Cons
  • "Reliable with ease of provisional services."
  • "More expensive than other solutions without justification."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case is mostly for deploying services where we do not have the local infrastructure like hardware, or where it's not necessary for us to have the knowledge about how to set up a certain service. We just want to use it without concerns regarding running the service, backup, availability, etc. That's the reason we pay Microsoft the money for its Azure services, so we can just go ahead and use the product. Some of the services they've rendered have become business critical for the company, so we're using the solution on a daily basis. 

What is most valuable?

I like the reliability of the solution and the ease of provisional services which can be a click and go. I also like the broad diversity of services that are being offered.

What needs improvement?

I find that in many cases it's more expensive than AWS, and for no good reason. The pricing itself is also quite difficult to comprehend, it's not easy to know the total cost and not worth checking the calculator because the outcome is going to be totally different anyhow. I also find it difficult that they are specific to x86 and x64 machines, I haven't found any ARM-based virtual machine images that I could run in my IP test lab, which would be a great boost for productivity because I could run the internal pipeline in the cloud and would not have to divert to locally installed devices. 

If they want to be serious with IT devices then they should find a way of deploying ARM-based devices to Azure, to get more freedom of choice with virtual machines and services. It would be hardware virtual machine image offerings to other platforms, not only PC-based or x86-based. It would make my life much easier. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for four and a half years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

There are some glitches but it's a pretty solid solution. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's a scalable solution. 

How are customer service and support?

Overall, I'm quite satisfied with the technical support. There were different expectations about what I had understood from the description of the support offered and what the architects of Microsoft meant to deploy. Some of the documentation for Azure is sketchy enough to leave room for questions and that had to be sorted out with support, which is not a fault that the support guys should have to concern themselves with. If the documentation is not clear and the cloud device goes, then there's clearly room for improvement.

How was the initial setup?

The start was far easier than we expected it to be, but the complexity caught up with us half a year later also. It got more complex as we went along. We carried out the deployment ourselves. I'm a very experienced administrator, I know a lot about concepts of data centers. I know how they work, I know how to set them up. This is just another data center, it's just that it's not mine.

What other advice do I have?

We found it difficult to train our regular Windows admins to dive into Azure things, so it's important to get the right people or the project is doomed. There are too many people who don't really want to get to grips with the cloud. I would also suggest not starting from a fully regulated basis. We have our deployment fully integrated with Azure Active Directory, which can be quite a hindrance when it comes to just playing around with things. It's essential to give people developer accounts where they can just play around, break things, work through them, like a little lab. 

I would rate this solution an 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
Head Of Information Technology at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Real User
A cloud computing service that makes remote working a seamless experience
Pros and Cons
  • "I like a lot of features. For example, the Windows virtual solution has helped in such a way that our client-based application was converted into a web-based version through the use of the Windows Virtual Desktop."
  • "With Microsoft, our only concern is exchange rates because we're paying in dollars. It's very expensive for us because of the exchange rates. It would help if they partnered with someone locally so we can pay in our local currency."

What is our primary use case?

We have some services that are customer-facing that was put on a public cloud. We also have some of the applications that we use in-house, and we put that in our private environment.

Currently, because we have migrated our infrastructure to the cloud, we boosted some of our core applications in the Windows virtual environment. We also make use of it for our call center solution.

What is most valuable?

I like a lot of features. For example, the Windows virtual solution has helped in such a way that our client-based application was converted into a web-based version through the use of the Windows Virtual Desktop. It makes life very easy for our users when working remotely from anywhere. Because of Azure, the work from home policy makes our work feel seamless. We make use of SharePoint, and collaboration has been very smooth and wonderful. We also make use of Microsoft Teams. It's been wonderful. It's been very awesome.

What needs improvement?

With Microsoft, our only concern is exchange rates because we're paying in dollars. It's very expensive for us because of the exchange rates. It would help if they partnered with someone locally so we can pay in our local currency. That's the only major area that we wanted them to look into. At least for exchange rate purposes, they should try to do something.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have just migrated our infrastructure. I have been using Microsoft Azure for a couple of months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I can guarantee that it's 100% reliable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's very easy, and we don't regret this step at all. It's very scalable, and sometimes if we don't need the VM that we set up, we can quickly decommission it. Then if you wanted it back up again, we could bring it up quickly. It's very scalable. We have an average of 50 users at the moment.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is very good. I like that they have local partners and local support in our own country and not someone in another geographical region. When we wanted to do the setup with the Microsoft partner, we had some issues, and we reported it to them. They were very responsive. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is very straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

The implementation was straightforward because Microsoft had some partners here. To be a good Microsoft partner, you would have done a lot of training with all this stuff, making our deployment and migrations very seamless.

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

We're paying in dollars, and it's very expensive for us because of the exchange rates. We have all kinds of agreements with the partner, and we'll be paying quarterly. But it depends on how you want to pay. It depends on the option that's flexible for you.

What other advice do I have?

We would recommend this solution to potential users. I would advise them to analyze the infrastructure and what they want to achieve. After that, they should be able to get across to a good partner. 

That will help them a lot because they would need a good supportive partner. Migration can be very miserable, so they should consider a good partner. They should also have their own internal strategy on what they want to achieve. This will help the partners help them. 

We wanted to do a whole lot of things that cost us even more. But because we were able to get a reliable partner, they were able to guide us very well, and we were able to get some significant cost savings.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Microsoft Azure a ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid 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
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Microsoft Azure Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: March 2023
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Microsoft Azure Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.