Azure Virtual Machines vs. IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Azure Virtual Machines
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Virtual Machines (VMs) are available on Microsoft Azure, providing what is built as a low-cost, per-second compute service, available via Windows or Linux.
$0
Per Hour
IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions
Score 7.8 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions is designed to make cloud adoption easier, allowing the user to optimize the value of existing on-premises infrastructure, while leveraging the same tools, technologies and skills in the cloud. The solution provides rapid scalability, deployment in 35+ global data centers and access to disaster recovery, backup, security and compliance solutions from an array of ecosystem partners. To address varying workload needs, IBM Cloud…
$0
IBM Cloud Object Storage Cross-Regional Smart Tier 1 GB (hourly)
Pricing
Azure Virtual MachinesIBM Cloud for VMware Solutions
Editions & Modules
3 Year Reserved - Burstable VMs - B1S
$0.0038
Per Hour
Spot - General Purpose - Av2
$0.005
Per Hour
1 Year Reserved - Burstable VMs - B1S
$0.0059
Per Hour
Pay as You Go - Burstable VMs - B1S
$0.0075
Per Hour
Spot - Compute Optimized - Fsv2
$0.0104
Per Hour
Spot - General Purpose - Dv3
$0.0125
Per Hour
Spot - Memory Optimized - Ev3
$0.016
Per Hour
3 Year Reserved - Compute Optimized - Fsv2
$0.0307
Per Hour
3 Year Reserved - General Purpose - Dv3
$0.0369
Per Hour
3 Year Reserved - Memory Optimized - Ev3
$0.0481
Per Hour
1 Year Reserved - Compute Optimized - Fsv2
$0.05
Per Hour
1 Year Reserved - General Purpose - Dv3
$0.0548
Per Hour
1 Year Reserved - Memory Optimized - Ev3
$0.0753
Per Hour
Pay as You Go - Compute Optimized - Fsv2
$0.0846
Per Hour
Pay as You Go - General Purpose - Dv3
$0.096
Per Hour
Pay as You Go - Memory Optimized - Ev3
$0.126
Per Hour
Add-on
$0
IBM Cloud Object Storage Cross-Regional Smart Tier 1 GB (hourly)
On-demand
$0
0.25 IOPs 1 GB
Reserved (monthly or 730 hours)
$0
0.25 IOPs 1 GB (Per gigabyte of storage (hourly))
Add-on
$0
IBM Cloud Block Storage 1 GB (hourly)
On-demand
$0.01
Per vCPU (hourly)
On-demand
$0.09
Per gigabyte of network and bandwidth egress (monthly)
Reserved (monthly or 730 hours)
$0.09
Per gigabyte of network and bandwidth egress (monthly)
Reserved (monthly or 730 hours)
$12.80
Microsoft license (monthly) per 1 vCPU²
Add-on
$13
Veeam backup license
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Azure Virtual MachinesIBM Cloud for VMware Solutions
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Azure Virtual MachinesIBM Cloud for VMware Solutions
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Azure Virtual MachinesIBM Cloud for VMware Solutions
Server Virtualization
Comparison of Server Virtualization features of Product A and Product B
Azure Virtual Machines
8.6
23 Ratings
3% above category average
IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions
8.0
24 Ratings
4% below category average
Virtual machine automated provisioning9.023 Ratings6.224 Ratings
Management console8.021 Ratings8.324 Ratings
Live virtual machine backup9.019 Ratings9.023 Ratings
Live virtual machine migration8.516 Ratings8.322 Ratings
Hypervisor-level security8.516 Ratings8.324 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Azure Virtual MachinesIBM Cloud for VMware Solutions
Small Businesses
Proxmox VE
Proxmox VE
Score 9.3 out of 10
Proxmox VE
Proxmox VE
Score 9.3 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Azure Virtual MachinesIBM Cloud for VMware Solutions
Likelihood to Recommend
8.1
(23 ratings)
8.2
(24 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(3 ratings)
Support Rating
7.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(5 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Azure Virtual MachinesIBM Cloud for VMware Solutions
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft
If you want to host a dedicated Windows server on the cloud, and especially if you want to integrate it with your on premises Active Directory, Azure Virtual Machines should be your first choice. Obviously running Linux on Azure works very well too, but given Azure's pricing is not the cheapest, there are other providers out there that have a better cost-benefit ratio for Linux. That said, hosting Windows on Azure can be affordable (especially when compared to other providers) if you plan your licensing, topology, and application architecture correctly.
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IBM
I think IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions would be a good fit for a medium to a large company looking to outsource their current in-house VMware products. The IBM solution would allow them to outsource their current infrastructure so that the company could then concentrate on their core business, whatever that may be. A smaller company with a smaller VMware footprint would probably not be a good fit here. It's a pretty complex process to get things started, so it might not be worth it for a smaller company.
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Pros
Microsoft
  • When demand is high, we scale the service out, eg During a Football Match.
  • When a football match is over and the throughput of data from OPTA drops we save by the service scaling back in.
  • Our App Service Plans along with the Clean C# code are lightening fast giving a good customer experience.
  • When producing the TV Guide information and a program overruns its scheduled time, a client can instantly be updated to the new programming schedule as our change is instant and its in the right place for all the clients to download and adjust their television guides appropriately to send out to the public giving a 24x7 uptime service that is precise and accurate and resilient to outages due to failover zones around the world.
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IBM
  • Adaptable valuing relying upon size and scale.
  • The presentation is first rate. Our on-prem climate was continually experiencing slack and general languor. With IBM running everything, it's much smoother.
  • Start another group as little as one ESXi worker or scale a current bunch.
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Cons
Microsoft
  • Pricing can be a concern if you are truly agnostic to which cloud you are building your particular solution in.
  • The UI, as is the case with any cloud provider, is crowded.
  • As with any cloud provider, it can be difficult to tune in exactly the right amount of servers for your needs...you might find yourself under/overprovisioning.
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IBM
  • Support is horrible and or non-existent
  • Documentation is out of date and incorrect for the most part
  • IBM employees and salespeople are not aware of features or offerings
  • Does not integrate the Zerto, only Veeam and has limited options for data migration
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Usability
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
IBM
It is easy to use and setting it up is simple. The only con is that the pricing is a little bit high as well as documentation is a little low; so we had to do some personal learning to be able to fully utilize the product, or hop on the phone with someone.
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Support Rating
Microsoft
I give the overall support for Azure Virtual Machines a 7 because I think while the overall support do a great job there are still areas that it could improve on such as efficiency and speed. So while I only give it a 7 and it has some issues it is still better than the overall support at Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling.
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IBM
Overall, just a great experience here. No one in my opinion gets a perfect 10/10 rating (no one is ever perfect), so 9/10 is probably as good as it gets! From initial planning to post implementation support, the IBM Cloud and professional services has been there for my group as much as we have needed them. Great job!
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Implementation Rating
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
IBM
IBM professional services helped us plan and implement the project with great success. They guided the project from planning, scoping, pre-implementation, testing, roll-out, then production and post-production support. We were very impressed with their knowledge of VMware and really appreciated their desire to make our project a success. I would highly recommend them!
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Alternatives Considered
Microsoft
Azure Virtual Machines offer unparalleled flexibility in provisioning, managing and upgrading the VM instances, both manually and programmatically. AVM offer very granular billing options and enables high costs optimisations (while still being costly). The other competitors I mentioned are very good at offering dead-cheap VMs. But if you need anything beyond that, especially for big computing, you need Azure Virtual Machines.
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IBM
IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions stacks up against them, we fully agree there are so many features in IBM cloud for VMware Solutions that make it unique and different. The system provides us hypervisor security level and the system even has live backup and storage capacity of data. This system provides us with accuracy that helps us to reduce errors and vulnerability.
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Return on Investment
Microsoft
  • It's so easy to spin up new instances, that it becomes also to easy to have to many of them to manage. Many teams end up with a couple of hundreds of VMs after a short while, making the whole thing very hard to maneuver
  • Azure VMs are the next step for us to rely on Onprem servers, and leaving the management of the infrastructure to the professionals
  • The ease of use, is also important when our main focus is to deliver new applications and integrations fast, and not having to worry about infrastructure. We sell bottles, not CPUs
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IBM
  • It has a positive impact on the cost required to maintain our vSphere environment by allowing us to get rid of our vsphere hardware and not worry about maintenance either.
  • There have been very few negatives, but one would definitely be the open-ended cost associated with cloud products in general.
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ScreenShots

IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions Screenshots

Screenshot of VMware vCenter Server on IBM Cloud product informationScreenshot of IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions automated and on-demand services information, and How to OrderScreenshot of IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions Dedicated, Order ScreenScreenshot of IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions Shared, Order Screen