IBM Cloud Object Storage vs. Microsoft Azure

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM Cloud Object Storage
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
IBM Cloud Object Storage is an IBM Cloud product in the endpoint backup and IaaS categories. It is commonly used for data archiving and backup, for web and mobile applications, and as scalable, persistent storage for analytics.N/A
Microsoft Azure
Score 8.6 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
IBM Cloud Object StorageMicrosoft Azure
Editions & Modules
Lite Plan
Free
Up to 25 GB/mo. For all terms go to https://www.ibm.com/cloud/object-storage
Standard Plan
There is no minimum fee, pay only for what you use
For pricing and all terms go to https://www.ibm.com/cloud/object-storage
Developer
$29
per month
Standard
$100
per month
Professional Direct
$1000
per month
Basic
Free
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM Cloud Object StorageMicrosoft Azure
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsThe Lite and Standard service plans for Cloud Object Storage include resiliency options, flexible data classes and built-in security. Pricing is based on the choice of location, storage class and resiliency choice.The 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
IBM Cloud Object StorageMicrosoft Azure
Considered Both Products
IBM Cloud Object Storage
Microsoft Azure

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
IBM Cloud Object StorageMicrosoft Azure
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cloud Object Storage
8.4
141 Ratings
3% above category average
Microsoft Azure
8.6
17 Ratings
6% above category average
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime8.0129 Ratings8.716 Ratings
Dynamic scaling8.9131 Ratings9.316 Ratings
Elastic load balancing8.2128 Ratings8.816 Ratings
Monitoring tools8.4131 Ratings8.016 Ratings
Security controls8.7136 Ratings9.016 Ratings
Pre-configured templates00 Ratings7.016 Ratings
Pre-defined machine images00 Ratings8.415 Ratings
Operating system support00 Ratings9.516 Ratings
Automation00 Ratings8.715 Ratings
Best Alternatives
IBM Cloud Object StorageMicrosoft Azure
Small Businesses
Akamai Cloud Computing
Akamai Cloud Computing
Score 9.0 out of 10
Akamai Cloud Computing
Akamai Cloud Computing
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.1 out of 10
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.1 out of 10
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
IBM Cloud Object StorageMicrosoft Azure
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(145 ratings)
8.5
(88 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(2 ratings)
10.0
(15 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(5 ratings)
9.0
(27 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
6.8
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
9.1
(8 ratings)
8.8
(27 ratings)
Online Training
7.3
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
5.5
(4 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM Cloud Object StorageMicrosoft Azure
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM
IBM Cloud Object Storage is well suited for businesses that require scalable and cost-effective data storage solutions. It excels in scenarios involving massive unstructured data, like multimedia content, backups, and archives. However, it may be less appropriate for organizations with minimal storage needs or those requiring high-performance, low-latency access to data, as it's optimized for durability and data integrity rather than real-time data retrieval.
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Microsoft
In terms of cloud computing, Microsoft Azure is the only comprehensive result the company offers. Regardless of how big or small an organization is, it can make use of this system. As a cyber-security professional, this is your best option for data management. A business that wants to minimize capital expenditures can use Microsoft Azure. Many Microsoft services accept it. People with little or no knowledge of cloud computing may find it impossible. It isn’t the solution for companies that don’t want to risk having only one platform and infrastructure vendor.
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Pros
IBM
  • Cloud storage allows you to save data and files in an off-site location that you access either through the public internet or a dedicated private network connection.
  • Cloud storage delivers a cost-effective, scalable alternative to storing files on on-premise hard drives or storage networks.
  • Cloud storage services provide elasticity, which means you can scale capacity as your data volumes increase or dial down capacity if necessary.
  • Business continuity of Storing data offsite supports business continuity in the event that a natural disaster or terrorist attack cuts access to your premises.
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Microsoft
  • Azure simply provides end to end life cycle. Starting from the development to automated deployment, you will find [a] bunch of options. Custom hook-points allow [integration] on-premise resources as well.
  • Excellent documentation around all the services make it really easy for any novice. Overall support by [the] community and Azure Technical team is exceptional.
  • BOT Services, Computer Vision services, ML frameworks provide excellent results as compare to similar services provided by other giants in the same space.
  • Azure data services provide excellent support to ingest data from different sources, ETL, and consumption of data for BI purpose.
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Cons
IBM
  • Unexpected errors are known to occur when downloading/uploading files.
  • Not easy to get started. In order to take full advantage of the platform and its features, additional training and reading documentation is needed.
  • The UI of the platform can get a bit confusing and it's easy to get lost.
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Microsoft
  • In our experience, Azure Kubernetes Survice was difficult to set up, which is why we used Kubernetes on top of VMs.
  • Azure REST API is a bit difficult to use, which made it difficult for us to automate our interactions with Azure.
  • Azure's Web UI does a good job of showing metrics on individual VMs, but it would be great if there was a way to show certain metrics from multiple VMs on one dashboard. For example, hard drive usage on our database VMs.
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Likelihood to Renew
IBM
because it is a robust, safe and flexible product
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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
IBM
For my use cases, it has been a very smooth experience. Even my new colleagues have been able to get on top of things very quickly. This shows how easy it is to work with
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Microsoft
Microsoft Azure's overall usability has been better than expected. Often times vendors promise the world, only to leave you with a run-down town. Not the case with our experience. From an implementation perspective, all went perfect, and from the user-facing experience we have had no technical issues, just some learning curve issues that are more about "why" than "how"
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Reliability and Availability
IBM
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
IBM
I have been working in IT sector for more than 15 years. I have worked with various vendors. IBM's sales team, support team have been really helpful. After we start to use their product, their UX design team also contacted us to get feedback from us. They are really interested about our experience.
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Microsoft
Support is easy with all the knowledge base articles available for free on the web. Plus, if you have a preferred status you can leverage their concierge support to get rapid response. Sometimes they’ll bounce you around a lot to get you to the right person, but they are quite responsive (especially when you are paying for the service). Many of the older Microsoft skills are also transferable from old-school on-prem to Azure-based virtual interfaces.
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Online Training
IBM
I just researching and applying the tools on their platforms to ensure a good learning path, based on my needs. Reading the documentation related with resources, tools. Is too big, but I am trying to know more about it every day. It is a good way to know more about their resources. A new way to attract new customers. At the end of the day, we are all involved in improvement and automation of our tasks and resources for customers and end-users.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
IBM
IBM's professional service for migrating data and implementing new cloud environment was perfect. They started to help us before we begin to bring together all data such as how can it could be best to transfer all data without problems. During the migration they watched all the process closely to prevent any failure. Lastly, after the migration, they gave us trainings on implementation.
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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
IBM
Amazon S3 is a great service to safely back up your data where redundancy is guaranteed, and the cost is fair. In the past I have used Amazon S3 for data that we backup and hope we never need to access, but in the case of a catastrophic or even small slip of the finger with the delete command, we know our data and our client's data is safely backed up by Amazon S3. Amazon S3 service is a good option, but based on the features it provides compared with IBM Cloud Object Storage, it is less suitable. IBM Cloud Object Storage is also integrated with more services, like IBM Cloud SQL and IBM Aspera, which AWS does not provide to transfer files at maximum speed in the world.
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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
IBM
  • This allows us to recommend a platform to our clients that will quickly help them create new, efficient business processes with very little development.
  • This saves clients hours and days of manual analysis of images, allowing the system to do the work when attaching Object Storage to models.
  • There is a learning curve in utilizing the storage and the modeling, but once up and running, it works well during deployment.
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Microsoft
  • Brings down Capex to customers.
  • Some of the built-in security features of DDoS Basic protection that comes with VNET on Azure or even WAF on AGW brings huge advantages to customers.
  • Hybrid benefits for those who have software assurance can save even more costs by moving to Azure.
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ScreenShots

IBM Cloud Object Storage Screenshots

Screenshot of Cloud Object Storage set upScreenshot of storage bucket creationScreenshot of the Access Management interfaceScreenshot of the interface to create, add and management of Storage BucketsScreenshot of data uploadingScreenshot of usage details