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IBM Cloud File Storage vs. Lumen Edge Private Cloud vs. Microsoft Azure

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    IBM Cloud File Storage

    Score8.7 out of 10
    N/AIBM Cloud provides a File Storage service allows the user to deploy and customize flash-backed NFS-based file storage from 25 GB to 12,000 GB capacity with up to 48,000 IOPS.N/A

    Lumen Edge Private Cloud

    Score7 out of 10
    N/ALumen® Edge Private Cloud helps manage digital workloads and cloud ecosystems at scale. It is used to increase workload performance while accelerating innovation by optimizing latency‑sensitive apps with scalable private cloud computing and storage.N/A

    Microsoft Azure

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft 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 File StorageLumen Edge Private CloudMicrosoft Azure
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    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
    IBM Cloud File StorageLumen Edge Private CloudMicrosoft Azure
    Free Trial
    NoNoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo 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
    IBM Cloud File StorageLumen Edge Private CloudMicrosoft Azure
    Considered Multiple Products
    IBM
    Chose IBM Cloud File Storage
    In my opinion, IBM has produced excellent products that have been instrumental in the development of our business. We rely heavily on data to power the programs in our organization. Because our systems can be accessed from various apps without experiencing any downtime, …
    Incentivized
    Lumen Technologies
    No answer on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    93%
    Would buy again
    37 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    92%
    Would buy again
    34 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    38 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    31 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    90%
    Happy with the feature set
    36 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    35 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    88%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    29 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    89%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    24 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    91%
    Implementation went as expected
    32 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    34 Answers
    Features
    IBM Cloud File StorageLumen Edge Private CloudMicrosoft Azure
    Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
    Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of IBM Cloud File Storage and Lumen Edge Private Cloud and Microsoft Azure
    Feature
    IBM Cloud File Storage
    8.5
    39 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Lumen Edge Private Cloud
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Azure
    8.4
    27 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime9.737 Ratings00 Ratings8.126 Ratings
    Dynamic scaling8.836 Ratings00 Ratings8.725 Ratings
    Elastic load balancing8.135 Ratings00 Ratings8.624 Ratings
    Pre-configured templates7.631 Ratings00 Ratings8.225 Ratings
    Monitoring tools8.037 Ratings00 Ratings8.326 Ratings
    Pre-defined machine images8.133 Ratings00 Ratings8.424 Ratings
    Operating system support9.636 Ratings00 Ratings8.926 Ratings
    Security controls9.437 Ratings00 Ratings8.626 Ratings
    Automation7.030 Ratings00 Ratings8.224 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    IBM Cloud File StorageLumen Edge Private CloudMicrosoft Azure
    Small Businesses
    IBM Cloud Object Storage
    Score9 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    IBM Cloud Object Storage
    Score9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers
    Score8.7 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    SAP on IBM Cloud
    Score9 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    SAP on IBM Cloud
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    IBM Cloud File StorageLumen Edge Private CloudMicrosoft Azure
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.8
    (40 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.7
    (96 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (17 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.3
    (36 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.8
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    10.0
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (27 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    IBM Cloud File StorageLumen Edge Private CloudMicrosoft Azure
    Likelihood to Recommend
    IBM
    well suited: Enterprise File Sharing and Collaboration: Scenario: our organization has teams working on projects across different geographical locations, and they need a centralized and easily accessible file storage solution. IBM Cloud File Storage can facilitate seamless file sharing and collaboration among team members. less appropriate Highly Transactional Databases: Scenario: Your organization has highly transactional and I/O-intensive database workloads that require low-latency access to data. In such cases, block storage or specialized database services might be more appropriate than file storage.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Lumen Technologies
    CenturyLink Private Cloud is well suited for companies that are smaller and wouldn't have to undergo scaling for a longer time. Apart from that, it does well in almost all categories. It wouldn't actually be useful for bigger companies since the UI is a bit laggy sometimes and usually, it's not advisable for big companies.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Read full review
    Pros
    IBM
    • Simple file system sharing
    • Lots of storage space (up to 12 TB)
    • Choice of performance (up to 10 IOPS/GB)
    • Simple interface to order more storage
    • Quick interface to allow more servers to share the file store
    • Security - only allows access from specified server(s)
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Lumen Technologies
    • robust framework
    • amazing customer support in case you're facing maintenance issues
    • collaborative ability is off the charts
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    IBM
    • We have sometimes experienced some outages and hope IBM will fix this soon.
    • Initial trainings are required for the teams to work and do the setup.
    • Support documentation from IBM needs improvement with [the] inclusion of more detailed steps and video tutorials for [a] better understanding of the engineers.
    • The billing process is very complex and you may have to incur additional overhead. Need a simpler approach and clarity on this aspect.
    • Support response from the IBM team is very slow and lacks information.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Lumen Technologies
    • UI can be really improved, since it sometimes lags a lot
    • Very few know about the product, so they should advertise a bit more
    • There maybe scaling issues since it's a relatively smaller company compared to its competitors
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    IBM
    IBM Cloud File Storage is a valuable tool in the arsenal of any small business. It's flexibility combined with its ease of use ensure that there is low operational overhead, combined with a solid return on investment. It's role based access control features combined with sharing capabilities make it a significant win for any business.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Lumen Technologies
    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
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Lumen Technologies
    No answers on this topic
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Lumen Technologies
    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
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    IBM
    The IBM team provides effective support for all the cloud operations. They tracks operations and database functionalities closely to enhance reliable operations and remove inefficiencies that affect work processes. The support team has prepared video tutorials and manuals that guides our members on how to work with the database systems effectively.
    Read full review
    Lumen Technologies
    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!
    Incentivized
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    Implementation Rating
    IBM
    The IBM Professional services provided the re4quired infrastructure for getting the best out of this tool. It offered excellent guidelines that enhanced efficient integrations. The organization was pleased with the setup process that was completed quickly than expected. The application has been operation effectively after deployment. We have continued to get support from the IBM support team when there are challenges.
    Read full review
    Lumen Technologies
    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.
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    IBM
    IBM Cloud File Storage, unlike other similar products, offers excellent Cloud data security and its overall data management quality on IBM Cloud File Storage is incredible and its data integration support is perfect because it allows big data migration across many Cloud platforms for effective data analytics generation and data visualization tools are great.
    Incentivized
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    Lumen Technologies
    It doesn't stack up that well against them, since these are big companies and have huge infrastructures and they provide smooth scaling features. However CenturyLink Private Cloud is a little concise and not many people know about it, so I feel like they should advertise more and try to improve their customer outreach.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    IBM
    • Compared with company datacenter require less maintenance time with an incomparable high availability and business continuity features
    • The possibility to move snapshots on other data centers let this solution super scalable worldwide
    • The price for gb let us pay what we need without a pre commissioned storage buy
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Lumen Technologies
    • We reduced our cloud hosting costs a lot after switching to CenturyLink Private Cloud
    • Maintenance is very easy since there is documentation available for every part
    • It had some issues with the UI but we can neglect those considering the pricing options they provide.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots