Microsoft Azure Reviews

Compared to other cloud platforms, I find the Azure portal very user-friendly. It's more intuitive and clearer than some, but it depends on your specific needs because Azure offers many services. 

For instance, working with Synapse, a complex technology with diverse processing engines, requires deep knowledge. In our experience with clients, using Databricks, a third-party service, on top of Azure can be helpful.

There's an ongoing development, particularly concerning the Data Fabric offering launched a few months ago.

Data Fabric is an additional offering which is Software as a service "as a service" application, unlike the core Azure platform initially focused on "platform as a service." It sits on top of Azure. 

We thought Azure could be more flexible and cost-effective, but our experience suggests this separation might simplify things for some customers. It's worth exploring as a potential improvement for specific needs.

I have been using it for several years. We have used it, or we have architectures. We consult about Azure. 

We do a lot here in this area because it's also a big topic for us. But it's a more general consulting topic for me. I have some experience with it, but I do not implement it. Internally, we use some Azure services. 

We have all kinds of typically, ranging more towards larger size customers, midsized customers, and a lot in the financial area. 

For example, with a Synapse environment, we might need to switch to Databricks for better scalability. But overall, the platform itself scales very well. Based on my experience, I'd give it an eight out of ten.

Azure is the best in Germany compared to AWS or Google. It has the best German footprint, so the support is better locally.

But globally, it's good, not always the best. Some users have very good experiences with Google's support as well.  

From the consulting perspective, we consult on every technology on the market. For example, Snowflake is a big topic on our side.  

I have a lot of history in SAP. With current or former SAP solutions.  

In our company, we are more Microsoft-based and Microsoft CRM.

The technical part of setting up such a platform is typically the smaller part. And for an experienced consultant, it's okay. It's nothing special. It's more about the processes and organization, which is important to consider here.

So, I would rate my experience with the initial setup an eight out of ten, with ten being easy. 

Typically, in Germany, we see that setting up is very complex; enterprises work well with Azure setups if users are already experienced at different points with Azure. But it's a little bit more easy compared to Google or Amazon. But it depends a little bit on the service and the environment you need.

From a technical perspective, it can set up something in a day or in some hours. That's not a problem. 

The thing is more the organizational level here, what is allowed, who can do it, where the costs are going, and so on. The process is typically much more about the deployment or, depending on whether you have already built a platform and just have to automate the deployment process. 

For example, it works very well, typically, but the initial setup of a platform is more for organizational things, but this is not what I do. 

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

We use Microsoft Azure for task management. 

The product is a cloud solution. 

Microsoft Azure needs to improve its user interface. New developers and teams have difficulty understanding its lifecycle. 

I have been working with the product for 12 years. 

I rate the tool's stability an eight out of ten. 

Microsoft Azure is very scalable, and I rate it a ten out of ten. My company has 15 users. 

Microsoft's tech support is awful. 

I used Jira before Microsoft Azure. 

I rate the product's deployment an eight out of ten. It can be completed in a few hours. 

Our DevOps engineers manage the installation. 

It's a positive experience for every development team to use Microsoft Azure, especially when working with Microsoft products. However, if working with open-source solutions like PHP or Google programming languages, opting for other cloud solutions such as Google Cloud or AWS is recommended. These platforms are considered more suitable for open-source solutions compared to Microsoft Azure. I rate the product an eight out of ten. 

We use it for virtual machines, database services, load balancers, and firewall services.

The platform as a service for MySQL and PostgreSQL have significantly improved our operational efficiency. The performance is very good, and it has improved our business performance a lot.

Azure Security and Compliance features:

Azure offers built-in security called Microsoft Defender. This is a paid version that provides posture management for the servers. If there is any setting that needs to be changed or any problem with any network setting that could lead to a disaster, it shows us on the platform that the posture is not correct, and we fix it accordingly. It provides proactive overall management and monitors the entire infrastructure.

AI initiatives:

AI initiatives have been introduced, but we haven't tested it, so we cannot comment on that.

Everything is in the same control panel, and the management is very easy. If there's a new feature, it takes less time to understand the working procedure on the platform. So, it's user-friendly.

I would like to see improvement in the technical support. Sometimes it takes a long time. Only sometimes, not every time. It gets delayed. The response time should be faster.

I have been using it for six years. 

It is a very stable product. We haven't faced any issues with it, and it's been about five or six years.

I find it scalable. Whenever there is a large requirement to increase resources, we can increase them on the fly and decrease them when it's not necessary. It's very easy, and it takes very little time to scale up deployments.

Sometimes there are some problems that need to be taken care of by the Microsoft technical support team. We raise tickets for these cases, which are not solvable by email support. They call us back and resolve the problem.

Neutral

Previously, we used in-house servers. We moved to Azure. As for other solutions, no. There was no other solution. Everything was in-house. We had physical servers, and then we moved to cloud services.

I did not have any challenges or complexities with the initial setup process.

There's a vast knowledge base available. So, there were no challenges. If there's a new deployment, the tutorial is already there. You just have to follow it.

It took a couple of days to complete the migrations.

Maintenance happens at the machine level, not the platform level. There's no maintenance requirement at the platform level.

The initial deployment consisted of about twenty-five virtual machines and five to six services.

We did it in-house.

It has impacted cost savings or business productivity overall. We can easily scale up and scale down the services as per the requirement. 

During some months, the requirement is high. During that time, we scale up the service and scale it down when not necessary. So, it saves a lot of cost for us. The resource cost is not fixed here, and we can scale up and scale down as per the requirement. When we scale it down, the cost gets reduced by a lot.

The pricing is fine. Whenever you deploy a new service or virtual machine, they provide a calculator service that can upfront calculate the tentative cost for the service or resource, monthly or annually. On top of that, the third party through which we have taken the services adds some more discounts.

The recommendation would be to first go through the tutorials, or you have to know the requirement first. As for that, you need to go through the tutorials provided by Microsoft, and then you are good to go.

Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten because there's always room for improvement.

I integrate our technologies into Azure. I just deploy, do some tests and POC for Azure. A recent project leveraged Azure's analytics services, it was related to Security Hub and Azure B1.

I support customers with their Azure implementations to better understand Azure architecture and how to integrate our technologies.

I like the ease of implementation and development and how quickly everything is ready.

Azure's security and compliance tools are not enough, and that's why other technologies like Fortinet would be much more recommended than the native ones.

Security, for sure, is an area of improvement. 

I have been working with it for three years now. 

I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten. Our customers are medium and enterprise businesses. 

I would rate my experience with the initial setup a ten out of ten, where one is difficult, and ten is easy.

It's cloud-based, both public and private.

The deployment can take a few days. I deploy it in the customer's premises, in their private or public cloud account.

I would rate the pricing a six out of ten,  where one is cheap, and ten is expensive. It's in line with other public cloud providers.

I would recommend it because it's easy to implement. But it always depends on the customer's needs. If their specific needs match with going towards the public cloud, then Azure would be one of my main recommendations.

Overall, I would rate it a nine out of ten. 

Our use cases for Microsoft Azure are financial-related.

Microsoft Azure covers all aspects, and having a single pane of glass becomes easier.

Microsoft Azure's design language is a little too basic. I would prefer Jira over Azure Boards. While Azure Boards offer quite a lot of customization possibilities, they also have their own limitations.

I have been using Microsoft Azure for more than a year.

Microsoft Azure is a stable solution.

I rate the solution a nine out of ten for stability.

Microsoft Azure is quite a scalable solution. More than 5,000 users are using the solution in our organization.

I rate the solution’s scalability an eight to nine out of ten.

I have previously worked with AWS and Jira.

We didn’t face any challenges with the solution’s initial setup.

The solution's deployment time takes less than hours. We continuously keep doing it. We have releases every week, and our pipeline keeps running. We update the product every week.

One or two engineers are involved in the solution's maintenance. Microsoft Azure has positively affected our operational expenses and revenue growth, which is why we switched from Amazon to Microsoft Azure.

I would recommend Microsoft Azure to other users. I can use Azure Boards to do brainstorming. Microsoft Azure covers all aspects, and having a single pane of glass becomes easier.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight to nine out of ten.

We utilize various Azure services such as Azure SQL, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Data Factory, Azure Storage, and Azure Key Vault to build our data platform.

One of the features that I really like about Azure is its comprehensive environment for implementing a data platform. The solution provides multiple well integrated services which happen to work together seamlessly and provides flexibility and scale ability for use cases all around the industry.

There are some minor aspects which require improvement but they are very technical for an explanation. For example, the cost calculation for the services can be an unclear aspect which makes it difficult to estimate the expenses incurred accurately. Therefore, it will be beneficial to have it more transparent and apply your user-friendly cost estimation process to help users plan their budgets in a more efficient manner.

I have been using Microsoft Azure for the past 5 to 6 years.

I would rate it 9 out of 10 since it is stable but can get better.

I would rate the scalability 8 out of 10. The number of users on a platform is high but we do not have active engagement from all the users all the time. We have over 100 users but not all of them interact with the platform regularly. Keeping it aside, our main focus still remains on building data platforms which cater to different needs.

I have mixed feelings about Microsoft's technical support. While they do try to assist most of the time, I believe there's room for improvement. 

Neutral

As a data engineer, I mainly use these services rather than being involved in their implementation.

I would recommend Azure since it offers a variety of features and services which work together. This is quite rare in other platforms because they are not scalable. These features have helped us to promote our growth without any major challenges. The wide range of services make it a valuable option for implementing a data platform. However it is really difficult to quantify its value numerically. Different companies can Paradise different factors such as scalability, cost, or support which makes it different for each company.

It is important to keep in mind that there are also challenges such as the complex nature of estimating costs and no realistic expectations of savings due to the presence of hidden costs. Azure is an efficient solution but it requires improvement in terms of stability, support and pricing.

We use Microsoft Azure to host our applications. It is for the software development department. We also use it to host our internally developed application, ERP, and manufacturing execution applications for our clients. We use the data center in Singapore, as we are based in Malaysia, and our clients access it from the region encompassing Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

We create tenants for each of our clients where we deploy our applications. Clients or users access these applications from their respective tenants. We also train our clients to monitor the resources their tenants consume. This empowers them to adjust resources according to their needs, enabling them to manage these tasks independently.

During the pandemic, some clients faced issues because they were hosting their applications on-premises. The transition to remote work took some time for them. There was no impact on their operations for clients already on Microsoft Azure Cloud.

Clients continued to support Azure because, before the pandemic, they were hesitant about moving entirely to the cloud. They wanted a hybrid of both cloud and on-premises solutions. However, after the pandemic, many eventually migrated fully to the cloud.

We focus on applications hosted on Azure and use the Power Platform. We leverage Azure to set up tenants and dynamics within the platform.

The solution should be more intuitive and provide better support. We often do not receive frequent updates or comprehensive support, even as partners. Additionally, we are exploring the AI functionality within Azure. We are looking to collaborate with Microsoft to activate AI features in Azure to fulfill AI-related tasks requested by our clients.

I have been using Microsoft Azure for more than five years.

The product is stable. We have not encountered any security threats or issues during our five years of using Azure.

I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.

One advantage of using Azure is that clients can start with a low-cost entry in terms of hardware and scale as their business and user base grows. They don't need to allocate a large budget for infrastructure upfront. Additionally, it offers progressive scalability.

Around 200 users are using this solution.

I rate the solution's scalability a nine out of ten.

Customer support is very responsive. They are unable to resolve our issues. When we encounter technical problems and seek assistance, they can help us on a surface level. Many times, you may have to investigate and troubleshoot.

Neutral

I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten, where one is expensive and ten is cheap.

We've been leveraging Microsoft products on the Microsoft platform for the past 20 years. We are dedicated to Microsoft products and platforms.

We no longer need someone to take care of the physical servers on our end. Many server administrations have been drastically reduced.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

My company is a platinum partner of Microsoft, owing to which we resell the platform and licenses to our customers. My company also uses the product within the organization.

From the perspective of a user who has a partnership relationship with Microsoft, I would want Microsoft Azure to provide some credits that can be used to test and validate Microsoft’s different solutions since it is an area where the product lacks.

I have been using Microsoft Azure for four to five years. My company has a partnership with Microsoft.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

It is a scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

My company caters to the needs of enterprise-sized companies who need Microsoft Azure.

I rate the product's initial setup phase an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is difficult, and ten is easy.

The solution is deployed on the cloud.

The time required for the product's deployment depends on the complexity and size of the infrastructure.

I rate the product price a seven or eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price, and ten is high price.

The pricing of the licenses attached to the solution depends on the requirements of the users.

The projects or workload that have been migrated to Microsoft Azure in my company is an area that is managed by a different team since I work as an accounts manager. My job role is just to get the business for our company. Once I get the business for my company, I submit the details to the technical or delivery team, which takes care of the business part.

The feature of the product that has been most impactful for our company's operations stems from the fact that everything is on a single dashboard. In general, everything is on a single dashboard or a single page where users can monitor and manage everything related to the product.

The product's scalability benefited our company's business needs since we can upgrade it or scale up to meet our needs.

The knowledge related to the integration capabilities of Microsoft Azure with the existing products in my company's infrastructure lies with the technical team in my organization.

I rate the overall tool an eight out of ten.

My organization's entire infrastructure is cloud-based, so everything we have happens in Azure.

The product makes it easy to spin up new environments and develop new technologies.

The product’s flexibility is its best feature. We are not tied to particular machines. We can upgrade servers, downgrade servers, add storage, and take storage away with a flick of a switch. Microsoft constantly adds new features.

I have been using the solution for five years. I am using the latest version.

I rate the product’s stability a ten out of ten.

I rate the product’s scalability a ten out of ten.

We were using a private cloud before.

I rate the ease of setup an eight or nine out of ten. The deployment took about three months.

We used a service provider for the deployment of the solution. They handled most of it. Four in-house people were involved in the deployment.

I rate the pricing a five or six out of ten.

I really like the solution. Overall, I rate the tool a ten out of ten.

I use Microsoft Azure to prepare a design document for the security implementation concerning Azure.

Compared to earlier technology, Microsoft Azure is very easy and robust and has features like scaling. Microsoft Azure provides good performance and support.

The solution’s stability could be improved.

I have been using Microsoft Azure for eight years.

Microsoft Azure is a very stable solution.

I rate Microsoft Azure a nine out of ten for stability.

Microsoft Azure is a scalable solution.

The solution's technical support is good. The technical support team dedicates time to us, and we don't face any challenges with them.

The solution’s initial setup is clear and easy.

Microsoft Azure is a cost-effective solution where you use it as per your requirement and pay for it.

Microsoft Azure is a cloud-based solution.

I would recommend Microsoft Azure to other users. The solution's availability is vast. Centers in India have regulatory requirements to keep the data within India, and Microsoft Azure helps us mitigate those regulatory requirements. The solution's support is very good, and it helps meet the business requirements.

Overall, I rate Microsoft Azure an eight out of ten.