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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Azure Virtual Machines

    Score8.1 out of 10
    N/AVirtual 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 PowerVM

    Score9.6 out of 10
    N/AIBM PowerVM provides a server virtualization environment.N/A
    Pricing
    Azure Virtual MachinesIBM PowerVM
    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
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Azure Virtual MachinesIBM PowerVM
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Azure Virtual MachinesIBM PowerVM
    Considered Both Products
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    IBM
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    96%
    Would buy again
    25 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    5 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    92%
    Delivers good value for the price
    22 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    5 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    25 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    5 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    95%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    21 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    25 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    5 Answers
    Features
    Azure Virtual MachinesIBM PowerVM
    Server Virtualization
    Comparison of Server Virtualization features of Azure Virtual Machines and IBM PowerVM
    Feature
    Azure Virtual Machines
    7.6
    25 Ratings
    6% below category average
    IBM PowerVM
    8.2
    6 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Virtual machine automated provisioning9.025 Ratings6.24 Ratings
    Management console4.523 Ratings8.06 Ratings
    Live virtual machine backup6.521 Ratings7.02 Ratings
    Live virtual machine migration9.017 Ratings10.05 Ratings
    Hypervisor-level security9.017 Ratings9.86 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Azure Virtual MachinesIBM PowerVM
    Small Businesses
    Proxmox VE
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Proxmox VE
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    VMware vSOM (discontinued)
    Score10 out of 10
    VMware vSOM (discontinued)
    Score10 out of 10
    Enterprises
    IBM PowerVM
    Score9.6 out of 10
    VMware Workstation Pro
    Score8 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Azure Virtual MachinesIBM PowerVM
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.4
    (25 ratings)
    9.8
    (6 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    9.8
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    6.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Azure Virtual MachinesIBM PowerVM
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    IBM
    IBM PowerVM only is available on IBM POWER machines. It makes live much easier, compared to bare metal machines (OPAL) or machines with KVM. Personally I would not like to manage systems that don't have IBM PowerVM. The current line-up always includes IBM PowerVM (firmware built-in).
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    IBM
    • IBM PowerVM is used for virtualization on IBM Power series hardware to utilize the hardware resources more efficiently like micro partitioning for CPU, NPIV for fibre port...etc
    • IBM PowerVM provides the feature of live partitioning mobility (LPM), which allows moving the running virtual machine from one hardware to another hardware without any disruption on a virtual machine.
    • IBM Power VM provides the feature of Integrated virtual manager (IVM), which helps to manage the single IBM Power hardware. There is no need to purchase a separate hardware management console to manage the Power hardware. This works well for small organizations having small environments.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    IBM
    • The ability to run Windows. Hardware architecture does not allow this, but it is a limiting factor.
    • More performance monitoring and management could be built in.
    • Sometimes is marketed and packaged in some rather unusual ways
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    Microsoft
    definitely it will be renewed. considering the ROI and uptime.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    IBM
    The product works. It provides the proven environment to support IBM's primary operating systems that run on the IBM Power processing systems. This by extension includes the IBM various storage products that work within that environment. It has proven to be seamless as the environment has grown and as various new products and version updates have been added. As with most IBM products, the support is excellent.
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    Microsoft
    No VM console, weak management interface, changing CPU/memory is not straightforward. On the positive side, basic RDP functionality is good to have. As long as things are working, the ability to host Windows VMs is appreciated.
    Read full review
    IBM
    I give it a solid ten. For what it is built for it delivers exactly what we need: predictable, controlled and reliable infrastructure. Even though it does have a learning curve, its not too steep to get to grips with and the reward and usability of the system is great. There is fine grained resource control ensuring optimal use of resources. Workload isolation and dynamic lpar reconfiguration ensures consistent and dependable results. Day to day management is handled with ease and confidence. If coupled with an automation solution, it becomes a highly usable platform at scale, allowing teams to standardize workloads
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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.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    IBM
    Our company utilizes VMware and PowerVM. VMware is very user friendly from an IT support view and makes supporting Windows OS easier. PowerVM is moving in that direction. PowerVM is better in that you can prioritize workloads across different VMs and be granular in your reservation of cores and virtual CPUs. PowerVM allows you to modify VM characteristics while the VM is up and running
    Incentivized
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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
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    • We are able to run several LPARs on one frame, which means we do not need to buy as many physical servers. That saves on floor space, power, and heating and cooling of the data center, among other things.
    • Using LPM allows us to do maintenance on a frame without impacting the LPARs, giving us greater uptime.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots