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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    IBM PowerVM

    Score9.7 out of 10
    N/AIBM PowerVM provides a server virtualization environment.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 PowerVMMicrosoft Azure
    Editions & Modules
    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 PowerVMMicrosoft Azure
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details—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 PowerVMMicrosoft Azure
    Considered Both Products
    IBM
    No answer on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    5 Answers
    92%
    Would buy again
    34 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    5 Answers
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    31 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    5 Answers
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    35 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    89%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    24 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    5 Answers
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    34 Answers
    Features
    IBM PowerVMMicrosoft Azure
    Server Virtualization
    Comparison of Server Virtualization features of IBM PowerVM and Microsoft Azure
    Feature
    IBM PowerVM
    8.2
    6 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Microsoft Azure
    -
    Ratings
    Virtual machine automated provisioning6.24 Ratings00 Ratings
    Management console8.06 Ratings00 Ratings
    Live virtual machine backup7.02 Ratings00 Ratings
    Live virtual machine migration10.05 Ratings00 Ratings
    Hypervisor-level security9.86 Ratings00 Ratings
    Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
    Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of IBM PowerVM and Microsoft Azure
    Feature
    IBM PowerVM
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Azure
    8.4
    27 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime00 Ratings8.126 Ratings
    Dynamic scaling00 Ratings8.725 Ratings
    Elastic load balancing00 Ratings8.624 Ratings
    Pre-configured templates00 Ratings8.225 Ratings
    Monitoring tools00 Ratings8.326 Ratings
    Pre-defined machine images00 Ratings8.424 Ratings
    Operating system support00 Ratings8.926 Ratings
    Security controls00 Ratings8.626 Ratings
    Automation00 Ratings8.224 Ratings
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    IBM PowerVMMicrosoft Azure
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    Score9 out of 10
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    VMware vSOM (discontinued)
    Score10 out of 10
    IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers
    Score8.7 out of 10
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    VMware Workstation Pro
    Score8 out of 10
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    User Ratings
    IBM PowerVMMicrosoft Azure
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.8
    (6 ratings)
    8.7
    (96 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (17 ratings)
    Usability
    9.8
    (2 ratings)
    8.3
    (36 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.8
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (27 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    IBM PowerVMMicrosoft Azure
    Likelihood to Recommend
    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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    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
    • 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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    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
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    Cons
    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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    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
    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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    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.
    Read full review
    Usability
    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
    Read full review
    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
    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
    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
    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
    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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    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
    • 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
    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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