Azure Arc vs. Microsoft Azure

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Azure Arc
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
Azure Arc is a set of technologies that brings Azure security and cloud-native services to hybrid and multicloud environments. It enables the user to secure and govern infrastructure and apps anywhere, build cloud-native apps faster with familiar tools and services to run them on any Kubernetes platform, and modernize the data estate with Azure data and machine-learning services.N/A
Microsoft Azure
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform and infrastructure for building, deploying, and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters.
$29
per month
Pricing
Azure ArcMicrosoft Azure
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Developer
$29
per month
Standard
$100
per month
Professional Direct
$1000
per month
Basic
Free
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Azure ArcMicrosoft Azure
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsThe free tier lets users have access to a variety of services free for 12 months with limited usage after making an Azure account.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Azure ArcMicrosoft Azure
Features
Azure ArcMicrosoft Azure
Cloud Management
Comparison of Cloud Management features of Product A and Product B
Azure Arc
9.1
2 Ratings
4% above category average
Microsoft Azure
-
Ratings
Cloud Management Security9.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Automation and Orchestration9.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Cost Management9.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Cloud Management Performance Monitoring9.52 Ratings00 Ratings
Governance and Compliance9.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Resource Management9.52 Ratings00 Ratings
Systems Integration9.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Product A and Product B
Azure Arc
-
Ratings
Microsoft Azure
8.4
28 Ratings
2% above category average
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime00 Ratings8.227 Ratings
Dynamic scaling00 Ratings8.626 Ratings
Elastic load balancing00 Ratings8.725 Ratings
Pre-configured templates00 Ratings8.226 Ratings
Monitoring tools00 Ratings8.327 Ratings
Pre-defined machine images00 Ratings8.425 Ratings
Operating system support00 Ratings8.927 Ratings
Security controls00 Ratings8.627 Ratings
Automation00 Ratings8.225 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Azure ArcMicrosoft Azure
Small Businesses
VMware Cloud Director
VMware Cloud Director
Score 8.6 out of 10
DigitalOcean Droplets
DigitalOcean Droplets
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
IBM Turbonomic
IBM Turbonomic
Score 9.0 out of 10
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
VMware Cloud Director
VMware Cloud Director
Score 8.6 out of 10
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Azure ArcMicrosoft Azure
Likelihood to Recommend
9.5
(2 ratings)
8.7
(97 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(17 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(2 ratings)
8.4
(37 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
6.8
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(28 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
Azure ArcMicrosoft Azure
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft
It is best asset management & centralized monitoring across multi cloud environments. It can be used to access those assets, update them when necessary, implement Azure monitor to get insights. We can also onboard thsese assets to Microsoft Defender for Cloud to provide the cloud security. Azure Arc is not suitable for the client device management or use as a MDM.
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Microsoft
Azure is particularly well suited for enterprise environments with existing Microsoft investments, those that require robust compliance features, and organizations that need hybrid cloud capabilities that bridge on-premises and cloud infrastructure. In my opinion, Azure is less appropriate for cost-sensitive startups or small businesses without dedicated cloud expertise and scenarios requiring edge computing use cases with limited connectivity. Azure offers comprehensive solutions for most business needs but can feel like there is a higher learning curve than other cloud-based providers, depending on the product and use case.
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Pros
Microsoft
  • Azure Monitor metrics
  • Event logs aggregation
  • Integration with Windows Admin Center
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Microsoft
  • Microsoft Azure is highly scalable and flexible. You can quickly scale up or down additional resources and computing power.
  • You have no longer upfront investments for hardware. You only pay for the use of your computing power, storage space, or services.
  • The uptime that can be achieved and guaranteed is very important for our company. This includes the rapid maintenance for security updates that are mostly carried out by Microsoft.
  • The wide range of capabilities of services that are possible in Microsoft Azure. You can practically put or create anything in Microsoft Azure.
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Cons
Microsoft
  • Licensing benefits could use some improvement
  • Update management pricing
  • Security optimization and pricing
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Microsoft
  • The cost of resources is difficult to determine, technical documentation is frequently out of date, and documentation and mapping capabilities are lacking.
  • The documentation needs to be improved, and some advanced configuration options require research and experimentation.
  • Microsoft's licensing scheme is too complex for the average user, and Azure SQL syntax is too different from traditional SQL.
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Likelihood to Renew
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Moving to Azure was and still is an organizational strategy and not simply changing vendors. Our product roadmap revolved around Azure as we are in the business of humanitarian relief and Azure and Microsoft play an important part in quickly and efficiently serving all of the world. Migration and investment in Azure should be considered as an overall strategy of an organization and communicated companywide.
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Usability
Microsoft
Azure Arc monitoring is based on a unified procedure which includes the installation and configuration of the Arc agent on any computer/server which is to be onboaded to Arc. The solution is very usable especially when combined with the usage of Windows Admin Center, the HTML5-based unified management console for all our hybrid infrastructure. Many of the best of breed Azure tools and services are available via Azure Arc, when deployed to on-premise servers.
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Microsoft
As Microsoft Azure is [doing a] really good with PaaS. The need of a market is to have [a] combo of PaaS and IaaS. While AWS is making [an] exceptionally well blend of both of them, Azure needs to work more on DevOps and Automation stuff. Apart from that, I would recommend Azure as a great platform for cloud services as scale.
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Reliability and Availability
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
It has proven to be unreliable in our production environment and services become unavailable without proper notification to system administrators
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Support Rating
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
We were running Windows Server and Active Directory, so [Microsoft] Azure was a seamless transition. We ran into a few, if any support issues, however, the availability of Microsoft Azure's support team was more than willing and able to guide us through the process. They even proposed solutions to issues we had not even thought of!
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Implementation Rating
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
As I have mentioned before the issue with my Oracle Mismatch Version issues that have put a delay on moving one of my platforms will justify my 7 rating.
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Alternatives Considered
Microsoft
Azure Arc uses the underlying power of Microsoft Azure, which allows assets across multicloud to be onboarded to Arc platform. It provides monitoring, security, updates in one click in one single platform. It also provides licensing benefits for Windows Server licenses, which offers premium features like Windows server admin center to manage your windows servers more effectively.
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Microsoft
As I continue to evaluate the "big three" cloud providers for our clients, I make the following distinctions, though this gap continues to close. AWS is more granular, and inherently powerful in the configuration options compared to [Microsoft] Azure. It is a "developer" platform for cloud. However, Azure PowerShell is helping close this gap. Google Cloud is the leading containerization platform, largely thanks to it building kubernetes from the ground up. Azure containerization is getting better at having the same storage/deployment options.
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Return on Investment
Microsoft
  • After configuring Azure Arc-enabled services on premise for SQL Server, we saw a drastic decrease in our Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) by 30%
  • After working with Azure Arc monitoring agents installed in our on-prem Windows and Linux users, we documented a 20% increase in overall IT operations efficiency, due to the unified monitoring solution.
  • The Azure Arc-enabled servers security baseline provides procedural guidance and resources for implementing security recommendations and best practices. This has increased operational efficiency and decreased security incidents by 15%.
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Microsoft
  • For about 2 years we didn't have to do anything with our production VMs, the system ran without a hitch, which meant our engineers could focus on features rather than infrastructure.
  • DNS management was very easy in Azure, which made it easy to upgrade our cluster with zero downtime.
  • Azure Web UI was easy to work with and navigate, which meant our senior engineers and DevOps team could work with Azure without formal training.
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ScreenShots