Microsoft Azure Reviews

We use the product for Exchange, Microsoft Intune, SharePoint, and OneDrive.

The solution is secure and easy to use. It meets the security guidelines. It is approved by the state and the shareholders. MFA is a good feature. The reporting features are also good. The management and the logging of incidents are good. It’s a good solution for our use cases. I don't have any negative opinions about it.

Sometimes, I need better support. Microsoft must acknowledge support cases for the product. There have been some data leak issues lately. The support team is not responding to my emails. I had a call with an engineer on a weekend, and he told me he would follow up on Monday, but he hasn’t shown up yet.

I have been using the solution for one and a half years.

The tool is 99.99% stable.

The tool is scalable. We have 50 to 100 employees. We're a startup, but we are growing.

Overall, the support team is good.

The tool was easy to install. The maintenance is fairly easy. When I have issues, I contact Microsoft, and the team helps me.

The tool is cheap.

We are not allowed to store data in Azure. Our data is encrypted via third-party software. Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten.

We use Microsoft Azure for the hosting of websites and the management of email and the Outlook platform. We also use the solution for the storage of online files.

The most efficient feature of Microsoft Azure is that we can use it to update a website with a few clicks. Microsoft Azure is integrated with Visual Studio Code, and we can update or publish directly from Visual Studio Code.

I appreciate the GDPR that is in place with Microsoft Azure. The solution also has compliance with other country's local privacy laws. So, the privacy feature of Microsoft products is very easily accessible and available.

The solution's email hosting pricing could be improved. Microsoft Azure gives different options in terms of how you're going to access your email. It would be good if the solution could improve and give cheaper emails that can work in Outlook.

I have been using Microsoft Azure for five years.

Microsoft Azure is a very stable solution, and I've never had any issues with the solution's stability.

I rate the solution ten out of ten for stability.

Around 30 clients are using Microsoft Azure.

I rate the solution ten out of ten for scalability.

I previously used Amazon Web Services. I switched to Microsoft Azure because Amazon Web Services was expensive.

The solution's initial setup is straightforward, especially with the SSL. Getting the SSL certificate is more straightforward with Microsoft Azure than with Amazon Web Services.

We implemented the solution through an in-house team.

The solution can be deployed in five to ten minutes. You have to ensure that your Visual Studio Code is set up with the required tools for Microsoft Azure. From there on, you continue uploading to Microsoft Azure the files that you want to upload. Then, you set up your Azure to identify the domains and to sync Azure with your domain host. These are the steps you have to take. If you follow it step by step, the full process will not take longer than 30 minutes.

The website is straightforward to configure, and also very quick to update. In other words, I can update a website even from my development tool, Visual Studio Code. I use Visual Studio Code in my company to develop websites and also to deploy the websites from Visual Studio Code. So, that makes Azure completely above what I've experienced with Amazon Web Services.

Microsoft Azure is deployed on the cloud in our organization. One to five people with knowledge of Microsoft Azure, Visual Studio Code, and domain hosting are needed for the solution's deployment and maintenance. I would recommend the solution to other users.

Users need to understand what they want to deploy and what cloud services they need to use because there are different trends in each one of these cloud services. Users can go multi-cloud as well.

Microsoft Azure helps save infrastructure, staff, time, and insurance. You'll save a lot on ISO certification. I had a client who wanted a solution that would have required the client to be ISO-certified to manage the privacy or guarantee the privacy and security of data.

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

We use Microsoft Azure for migration purposes.

The portal makes it easier to work with the solution.

The solution's initial setup was a bit complex in the beginning. We had to go through a major learning curve before we got hands-on familiarity with it.

I have been using Microsoft Azure for one year.

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

Microsoft Azure is a scalable solution. Less than 20 users in our organization use Microsoft Azure.

I rate Microsoft Azure an eight out of ten for scalability.

I rate Microsoft Azure a five to six out of ten for the ease of its initial setup.

The solution's deployment time depends purely on the size of the application. On average, the solution's deployment would take us anywhere from two weeks and longer. Depending on our testing, it would take us about a month to design and deploy the solution.

Microsoft Azure is deployed on the cloud.

I would recommend Microsoft Azure to other users, but they should have a strong system integrator or someone working with Microsoft to assist. The strength would lie with the organization deploying the solution; they have to be on par to understand better what is happening.

Overall, I rate Microsoft Azure a seven out of ten.

We use it internally to manage all of our clients, but it also helps us connect with different customers located globally.

It is a very straightforward solution that provides a wide range of services. I highly appreciate its help availability. If there is any issue in operating, it only takes to Google a solution and it can be easily fixed.

I would recommend some enhancement regarding integration features. 

Our company has been utilizing Microsoft Azure for five to six years. 

Microsoft Azure is a very stable solution. 

It offers good scalability. 

Our experience with their customer service is satisfactory. We find it valuable that numerous essential information are readily accessible. 

Positive

The initial setup was seamless and very fast. It took a few hours to complete the whole process. 

The deployment process was efficient and fast. Due to the complexity and extensive range of services and configuration options, it took a significant number of IT professionals to execute the task. 

Microsoft Azure provides a reliable cloud platform and comprehensive services so it would be a great choice for first-time users. I am rating it eight out of ten. 

We use Microsoft Azure for database service and advanced analytics.

We have a process where we collect a large amount of data from different sources. By using a database, we can analyze and present it in business intelligence (BI). Oh, here's another example. Some months ago, we started using Power BI embedded, which helped optimize the number of licenses for our company. Additionally, with this development, we improved the centralization of tables. 

I believe the personalization model and the cost optimization are the most valuable features. With the model, you pay for what you use. For instance, in this development, we utilized Power BI embedded and deployed the entire web page using Azure resources. By leveraging Azure, we can easily control and adjust the platform as needed, resulting in cost optimization.

For additional features, I believe our team is interested in exploring SmartOps on Azure.

We are also exploring the power platform and have a keen interest in leveraging premium features. It would be beneficial if Microsoft could enhance the free version to allow for more exploration and development. That's my only suggestion regarding Azure.

I have been using this solution for over a year. 

I would rate it a five out of ten.

I would rate the scalability of Azure an eight out of ten. 

We had some issues with Microsoft's support team. In a project where we had to scale with Azure, it involved multiple people and sessions, and it took several weeks to resolve the issue. It was very difficult to get a resolution.

Negative

The initial setup was easy. It's a good platform for deployment.

There is a return on investment. It's worth considering.

I'm currently comparing it with AWS, and we don't have full knowledge of all the features and their inclusion in the price. AWS seems to have a slight advantage in terms of price. So, Microsoft Azure is slightly expensive.

I would recommend the suite. In our company, we use the Microsoft suite, which includes Outlook, SharePoint, and OneDrive. I believe that Microsoft offers a very good product.

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

Microsoft Azure is our principal could environment.

We use Microsoft Azure for Hosting Apps, Sites, and Blogs.

Advantages of Azure over On-Premises: Improved Performance and Cost Benefits.

It is easy to deploy.

The technical support is good.

The price is good.

I would like to see Internet content filtering included.

I have been working with Microsoft Azure for two years.

I am working with the latest version.

I would rate the stability a ten out of ten.

I would rate the scalability a nine out of ten.

I have plans to increase my usage in the future.

Technical support is good.

I would rate them a ten out of ten.

The initial setup is straightforward.

It is easy to deploy.

We have seen a return on investment.

The pricing is reasonable.

I Conducted Evaluations of Google Cloud (GCP), Oracle Cloud (OCP), and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

We opted for Azure based on familiarity and expertise as a Microsoft-driven organization.

It's a good product and the correct choice.

I would rate Microsoft Azure a nine out of ten.

We are using Microsoft Azure for many purposes in our project. We have a cloud-based SQL Server and we are bringing data to Azure DB through the Area feature. We are using SQL Server as a database, and from there we are using the data for analysis. We are doing forecasting using all the data. 

The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure is the Area feature. Additionally, the SQL Server DB as a serverless pool is useful, storage-wide external tables are helpful, and PolyBase is very good at reading external data. The capacity of Synapse to analyze in analytics is very good and it supports a range of data.

I have been using Microsoft Azure for approximately one year.

The scalability could improve.

We have many teams that are using this solution in different projects.

I rate the scalability of Microsoft Azure a four out of five.

We did not contact the support from Microsoft Azure often.

I rate the support from Microsoft Azure a four out of five.

Positive

I did not use another solution prior to Microsoft Azure.

The deployment of Microsoft Azure is easy because it is cloud-based.

We have one person that can deploy Microsoft Azure when they have proper access rights. If the project is small it can be seamless. For example, I'm handling a 10 to 12 person team, and for deployment, one person that has all access writes can deploy Microsoft Azure seamlessly.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse an eight out of ten.

I am a technology consultant and pre-sales cloud solution architect.

These are the features I have found most valuable with Azure. For any particular cloud world, when we talk about the cloud computing model, it is all about agility, availability, how you are trying to scale up your environment, how you're providing high availability, your disaster recovery mechanism, and what is the service availability matrix that you're following? We then talk about the workloads which are being supported on the Microsoft platform. Then we come to the commercial side of those workloads. For example, if we are trying to migrate the Windows workload, then Microsoft Azure offers a lot of benefits for Windows and SQL licenses. We can include that in the picture while we are trying to draw a comparison between different providers. Because AWS does not provide that DAM facility, though there is something that they provide, but you need to put it on the installs, not on RDS. Make it easy to install.

The second thing about Azure is that if we talk about Gartner, IDC and Forrester, although AWS is leading the chart in the leader's quadrant, when we look at the recent growth and what companies are acquiring and how much business they are pulling in year to year, there is a greater spike in the Microsoft Azure growth as compared to AWS.

I have worked as a cloud solution architect in India and Microsoft Azure works on data centers. They have three different geographical locations where they put the data centers. So as per the ISO 27001 BSI compliance for DR, disaster recovery mechanism, you need to make sure that the primary and secondary data centers are separated by a geographical zone - which Microsoft Azure adheres to. That definitely makes it a good choice for the client who wants the data to be in India and to also follow the BSI compliance.

Other factors include the Azure Site Recovery. The ASR one-stop DR solution provides RPO and RTO. It also gives you failover and failback scenarios. AWS did not have that kind of platform earlier. They had DM, DMS and SMS for small scale and medium scale app and database migration, but they didn't have a one-stop DR solution. They recently acquired cloud in their platform. Microsoft Azure also recently acquired cloud. They have built that particular platform into their Azure Migrate, which is their cloud feasibilities function provider. If we need to do a feasibility assessment or dependency mapping, we can use that particular tool or the Azure Migrate. It's a very good tool. I use that tool for multiple things.

I am trying to draw a comparison between the two leading cloud providers.

When we try to do backup scenarios, Azure Site Recovery is supported with all kinds of platforms. But it is not capable when you are trying to do recovery of a database or a recovery of an application server which are already on HA, high availability. HA would mean that you have only done the clustering. If there was clustering there, then definitely the ASR does not support it. But if you don't have HA, if you don't have the clustering done, then definitely ASR would be supported in that particular scenario. You can also do big database migrations with the Azure Site Recovery if there is a single database. Otherwise, you can use native database solutions to migrate them to cloud. For example, SQL Enterprises uses the Always On, where you introduce a new machine into the clustering. Then you try to put that as a secondary, and then you migrate.

Otherwise, if you have SQL Standard, then you can use a log sheet mechanism, which can be used to migrate the data. For SAP HANA, you can use HSR, HANA Service Replication, and for Oracle you can use the Data Guard, the negative solutions supported, but definitely Azure is doing that, as well. When we talk about a typical DR scenario, the cost that you are giving within Microsoft Azure would be storage, then the Azure Site Recovery cost, and then the network readiness. Microsoft Azure is an optimized solution when we compare it to any other particular cloud solution.

In terms of what could be improved with Azure, I would like to see something like what Google has created with their cross-platform solution, Anthos. I would like to see some features like Anthos has. Secondly, there are multiple DevOps solutions and tools available in Microsoft Azure, but most of the time they are either in the build mode, meaning you don't get complete support for them because they are either making changes, or changing the names of the particular services. Sometimes, services vanish from the portal. We are not able to see that. I think they actually change the names of the services.

For example, they had advanced data analytics in Office 365. They actually removed it and they now include all those features in Windows Defender. 

One more thing that I would like to say is that AWS works on availability zones. You have multiple availability zones in a particular region, which means that in that particular region you have more than one data center. If any of their single data centers fail, they can do a failover to the next immediate data center, which is in the same region. But in the case of Azure, if the data center fails for one particular region, they need to do a failover to different region altogether, which is separated by a geographical distance. That will be a kind of DR scenario.

Microsoft should focus on the higher availability of data centers where they can have more than one data center in a single region. I think they have implemented that kind of solution in the USA. They are going to do it soon in Europe and other countries as well, but it still is an upcoming feature. It's not completely built. They need to build that. 

The second thing which I feel regarding Microsoft Azure in India, is that they have less case studies when we talk about SAP on Azure as compared to SAP on AWS. There are fewer numbers of case studies on the portal. You can't find any. Whereas when you go into the India section for AWS, you will find plenty in terms of SAP and cloud.

Case studies are not there. If you have case studies, good case studies of large banks or any kind of government sectors, those case studies would definitely help to build customer trust on that particular platform.

There is one more thing which I would like to talk about in terms of costing. When you talk about AWS, they have three different types of costing models - partial upfront, no upfront, and all upfront. Azure has two models, all up front and no upfront. But also in these costing models, AWS has multiple other payment modes in terms of one-year or three-year. Azure does not have that. It lacks that particular costing mechanism, which it needs so there are more costing models. There is a lack of pricing flexibility, and I would like to see more costing models and licensing.

The third thing I would like to say, is that Azure was pretty bad in terms of the recent service off-time for Microsoft Azure and AWS. They didn't complete 99.99% of service they provide to the customers as compared to AWS. AWS data centers have also gone out recently, I think, four or five service interruptions, but definitely Azure should be keeping that in mind. I think with the help of clustering data centers in a single region, they can achieve that.

I do not want to take any credit away from Azure or AWS, but definitely Anthos is a big plus point for DCP. Azure should also build that kind of platform. Secondly, they can work on creating more data centers to build the regional availability,  which AWS already has across geography. The third thing they can work on is their costing models and the RI models - make them a bit more flexible for the client.

I have been working on Azure for the past seven years.

Regarding stability, Azure is doing well in terms of IES portfolio. They need to progress on the implementation of more data centers in a single region, which would increase their service level agreement by a little. They definitely need to work on their DevOps services. AWS' DevOps services are pretty good. If you go into ratings, the leading raters or the leading magazines, Forrester or Gartner or IDC, rate AWS services much higher compared to Azure. So, they need to increase on their service.

The third thing on the stability factor is that they publish more cases on the core infrastructure migration, the mission critical applications like SAP migration or Apple migrations. Putting the case studies on the portal would alleviate the doubt that Azure is stable. Azure is stable, but the case studies have to be there to support that.

When we talk about scale and scale out mechanisms, this works pretty seamlessly in Azure. For example, if I need to use the spot instances that AWS has (spot instances are those instances which are actually created at times when you need a high memory or a high CPU for some time) you can configure a spot instance and the spot instance occurs, and it does the load checkpoint. Azure does the same thing with scaling out. However, one thing regarding RI is that AWS does not support that, but when I am in a particular RI, for example my family is the DS series, I am in DS3 or DS4, if I want to scale up, I can scale up with the same RI, but if I need to scale down, I cannot scale down unless I remove that RI and create a new one. I cannot scale into a different family altogether.

Cross-family scaling is not there. Cross-family scaling would help because sometimes being on cloud machines which are in RI, those machines have been used for one year and are currently a very small application host or they are hosting applications or IA services, etc... Now, that particular application has been, or is getting decommissioned, and the company wants to leave the same RI machines for a different application altogether for which they want that particular application to perform on a higher computer issue. For that particular thing I need to cancel that RI and with the remaining my budget, and with the call deduction that Microsoft does, I need to purchase a new RI. If the cross-family RI is there, then it is definitely smoother, and the priority won't be there. So, it will not be an economic blow for the company.

When you open a normal case, Azure has a response matrix. They don't have a resolution matrix - at what particular time that will be resolved. The maximum resolution matrix is not there. But when we talk about the premium support, then Azure has a response matrix and a resolution matrix, and they also have the escalation matrix.

When I was working in Progressive Infotech, we had the advanced support subscription with Microsoft Azure Support. We were given multiple hours of advanced support. We were also provided with other things. I felt then that when you're opening a support ticket, and the support ticket priority is less or if the ticket that you opened is not in the premium bracket, the resolution will be late and the support matrix won't follow the time. They have a response. I think the response matrix is there for basic support and for advanced support. Premium support has the resolution matrix, as well. But the support center needs to have a service level agreement, which has the response matrix, the resolution matrix, and escalation matrix. That will build more trust from the partners in the OEM. AWS actually does not have that, but their response and resolution are pretty good because all the cases that you open in AWS are paid.

Azure materials are pretty good compared to AWS, or any other platform materials. Azure has multiple platforms, and MS Learn is where you can learn about the platforms and the services. Then you have Docs.Microsoft.com, which you can use as a troubleshoot document or understanding of how to implement that solution. With the help of Microsoft Azure, the Microsoft platform, you have multiple types of cases which you can open in the Microsoft Portal. The premium cases are there. Then you have support cases, as well. Azure is pretty good there. Their support matrix is pretty good. The materials are there, the support matrix is there. So, that is pretty good.

Microsoft Azure has multiple levels that an organization can take. Once they had the silver, bronze and the gold partnerships, and in terms of the productivity there is the Office 365 suite or the Azure suite, and they have specialty certifications, as well. You have the premium certifications. If you are also providing support to the client, then as a manager you can join Microsoft as an expert MSP. I think there are 50 or 55 in the country. It started at 15, and it grew to 55. Because many companies who are putting out tenders or an RFP or RFQ, mention in the PQ criteria that the partner should be MSP certified.

It would definitely help. It would act as a USP for you because there are multiple companies in India, more than hundreds and hundreds of companies in India and outside India. The customer would know the first company which is an expert MSP and the Microsoft partners would also give the lead to those export MSPs. Currently, you can also elevate the level by being on a fast track team, which is a one-stop team for Microsoft implementation and support for the Office 365 platform. The fast track team can be a very good asset because you can get a faster certification and then you сan be on the fast track board. You can actually make money when you do a successful implementation or support for a particular client. So the value is there.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give Microsoft Azure an eight.