Microsoft's Blob Storage system on Azure is designed to make unstructured data available to customers anywhere through REST-based object storage.
$0.01
per GB/per month
Quantum ActiveScale
Score 7.0 out of 10
N/A
Quantum offers the ActiveScale cloud object storage system, acquired from Western Digital February 2020, designed to provide a highly durable, scale-out economic storage system. ActiveScale is a more recent model replacing the former Amplidata Object Storage product line that was acquired by Western Digital from HGST in 2015.
In Azure, it is the storage to use, and in my view, the Blob Storage offers more, or finer-grained configuration options, than S3. So my recommendation would be to check in detail what is offered. As the Blob Storage is more or less a Microsoft exclusive product, the "interoperability" is more limited than, for example, with S3. The S3 is more widely adopted, and if you cannot exclude a migration scenario from one cloud provider to another, additional effort is needed.
Enterprise grade organizations with B2B clientele would be served well by using this product. It alleviates the need for an on-premise storage solution by offering a cloud-based alternative. Smaller organizations with less data capacity needs would be better served with an in-house solution, unless they come out with more reasonable pricing down the road.
It has been a fantastic solution, and now it is so highly integrated into our business, it would be difficult to imagine continuing to without it. It is part of our customer contracts as well, and it saves us from having to invest in the on-premise alternative to provide the required storage capacity.
Blob storage is fairly simple, with several different options/settings that can be configured. The file explorer has enhanced its usability. Some areas could be improved, such as providing more details or stats on how many times a file has been accessed. It is an obvious choice if you're already using Azure/Entra.
Microsoft has improved its customer service standpoint over the years. The ability to chat with an issue, get a callback, schedule a call or work with an architecture team(for free) is a huge plus. I can get mentorship and guidance on where to go with my environment without pushy sales tactics. This is very refreshing. Typically support can get me to where I need to be on the first contact, which is also nice.
Azure Premium Blob offers better latency than competitors. It works best with the Azure ecosystem, and competitors lack it. Azure Blob even stands out in storage durability, providing up to 16 nines. It can have various use cases that can suit all the organisation's needs. The Azure Blob solution can also be deployed on-premises.
What sets Amplidata apart is the cloud-based storage capability. We’ve realized cost savings due to the fact that we are no longer housing the data on premise, and clients rest assured that they have greater visibility into their data.
Amplidata has enabled us to replace our on-premise data storage for many of our larger clients, thus reducing the cost to deploy and house this ourselves
Clients feel confident in storing their sensitive data with us knowing that they have full management and visibility at their fingertips
The ability to quickly scale allows us to meet the needs of clients of all sizes
