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Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure

Overview

What is Microsoft Azure?

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.

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Recent Reviews

Microsoft Cloud option

9 out of 10
May 31, 2022
Have consulted multiple companies to migrate their DC or different workload like SAP to Azure. Azure provides full digital transformation …
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Azure poor customer service

1 out of 10
February 22, 2022
Microsoft, why don't you understand customer service you send me an email regarding an urgent billing issue, I cant seem to fix it, and …
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Title For MS Azure

9 out of 10
September 29, 2021
One of the best Public cloud platforms available today, we use it for Iaas, Paas as well as SaaS. Easy to learn, good guiding UI. I highly …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 9 features
  • Dynamic scaling (16)
    9.3
    93%
  • Elastic load balancing (16)
    8.8
    88%
  • Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime (16)
    8.8
    88%
  • Pre-configured templates (16)
    7.1
    71%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

View all pricing

Developer

$29

Cloud
per month

Standard

$100

Cloud
per month

Professional Direct

$1000

Cloud
per month

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://azure.microsoft.com/en…

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Starting price (does not include set up fee)

  • $29 per month
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Product Demos

Microsoft Azure Training - [3] Azure Accounts, Subscriptions and Admin Roles (Exam 70-533)

YouTube

Azure Tutorial For Beginners | Microsoft Azure Tutorial For Beginners | Azure Tutorial | Simplilearn

YouTube

Azure Training | Azure Tutorial | Intellipaat

YouTube

Azure Fundamentals complete Training in telugu

YouTube
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Features

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)

IaaS provides the basic building blocks for an IT infrastructure like servers, storage, and networking, in an on-demand model over the Internet

8.6
Avg 8.1
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Product Details

What is Microsoft Azure?

Azure is a comprehensive computing platform, providing cloud infrastructure, products and services, developer tools, and innovations in data and AI. Azure has on-premises, hybrid, multicloud, and edge capabilities that offer the flexibility to innovate anywhere.

Developers can use their favorite languages, open-source frameworks, and tools to code and deploy. Azure includes over 200 physical datacenters arranged into more than 60 regions and upholds our customers' expectations with data residency, compliance, and high availability.

An example of some of the service areas Azure covers:

  • AI + Machine Learning

  • Analytics

  • Blockchain

  • Computing

  • Containers

  • Databases

  • Developer Tools

  • DevOps

  • Identity

  • Integration

  • Internet of Things

  • Management

  • Media

  • Stack

  • Migration

  • Mixed Reality

  • Mobile

  • Networking

  • Security

  • Storage

  • Web

  • Windows Virtual Desktop

Microsoft Azure Integrations

Microsoft Azure Competitors

Microsoft Azure Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

Microsoft Azure starts at $29.

Amazon Web Services and SAP HANA Cloud are common alternatives for Microsoft Azure.

Reviewers rate Operating system support highest, with a score of 9.4.

The most common users of Microsoft Azure are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(972)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 88)
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Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Microsoft Azure IaaS, PaaS, IoT services for some devices and DevOps. In the IaaS we use hybrid cloud integration, for software development we decided to use DevOps in combination with VisualStudio. For some projects we use the Azure App Services with Azure SQL. Some small projects use the IoT services and we are testing around with the AI tools.
  • DevOps is a really powerful tool for software development
  • The PaaS is reliable and fast
  • The IaaS is outstanding, you can use it hybrid
  • The load balancing works well
  • In my opinion, Microsoft Azure's pricing structure is too complex, too many pricing models
  • In my experience, sometimes bad documentation and support
  • In my opinion, the hybrid cloud is too complex
Microsoft Azure is an excellent choice for hosting web applications, whether they are simple websites or complex web services. Azure DevOps services provide a comprehensive platform for DevOps practices, automating application development and deployment pipelines. BUT: I think Microsoft Azure's pricing can be complex, and it may not be the most cost-effective option for organizations with tight budget constraints. For very basic static websites, Microsoft Azure's offerings might be seen as overkill.
November 29, 2022

Why choose Azure?

Joe Anand | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Azure is one of the key Cloud providers that has helped with ensuring driving our digitalization. Adopting Azure has helped us scale, operate and manage large applications and platforms by leveraging compute, storage and other functionality provided by Azure
  • Storage of logs that can be accessed globally at will to derive insight that propel IT and Business decisions.
  • Compute power that is scalable and reliable
  • Secure Integration between platforms and applications
  • Free training could ensure higher adoptions to make it the market leader
Move from on premise to Azure has been seamless and we have benefited owing to the ease to transition, cost, functionality and in built security features. The ability to manage and customize ensure that a world of opportunities is available to the end user.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Have consulted multiple companies to migrate their DC or different workload like SAP to Azure. Azure provides full digital transformation opportunities for any customer. Azure provides reduction in TCO, Agility, flexibility, scalability apart from pay as you go for multiple workloads. It provides innovation by providing services like AI, ML, IOT and RPA etc.
  • Application Modernization
  • Digital Transformation with AI, ML etc.
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Availability zones for all the regions
  • More reliability and stability
  • Easy analytics solutions
Microsoft Azure is well suited for the organization which is Microsoft Shop .e.g. using MS365, Teams, .NET, Windows, MS SQL Servers, MS Dynamics, etc. It has good UX and provides multiple cloud services for Application hosting, Application Modernization, AI, ML. Customers can create BIG DATA using Azure Data Services and can get real-time insight into data by having AI services.
Sourov K Chowdhury | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Microsoft Azure is a DevOps and infrastructure-as-a-a-service cloud platform. It has all the features developers need to interact with microservices, and it’s easy to integrate. Because of our business and infrastructure’s adaptability, we’ve implemented new technologies, transferred all IT operations to them, and dismantled our old infrastructure. We used it for containerization, storage, and computing and had significant results. Unlike other cloud providers, Azure has a wide range of locations. I believe that Azure’s simplicity is one of its greatest assets.
  • Azure provides many free tools, such as QuickStart templates and the Azure SDK. It simplifies the process of creating apps for programmers.
  • A large group of people uses the same tools to collaborate and find solutions to problems that they are all facing simultaneously.
  • Setting up a repository for our work and making our code publicly available are made simple by Azure's built-in support for Git.
  • Recovering from DRSync server failures is not always easy. Upon completion of the fail-back, our on-premises servers became unresponsive. After the fail-back, we must restart our servers.
  • 5TB is insufficient for file synchronization per directory. Unfortunately, technical support is not up to standard. Customizing WVD images is still a challenge.
Microsoft Azure is the most scalable. The monitoring features in this solution allow us to configure items in our customer’s environments more efficiently. Azure’s cloud-based solutions are adaptable and are used in almost any language, operating system, or location worldwide. Its multi-factor authentication helps keep your data even more secure. Also, you can sign in to cloud apps on Windows, Macs, Androids, and iOS devices using a single sign-on feature. Some advanced configuration options need to be investigated, experimented and improvements to the documentation. Microsoft’s complex licensing model is unsuitable for most users.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing solution developed by Microsoft. We have migrated our business application to Azure. It has all the services such as storage, networking, computing, etc. It is one of the most renowned and reliable cloud solutions on which we can rely our businesses. It is also equipped with advanced technologies such as NLP, AI, ML, etc. in which you can integrate your applications for further advancements. We have an enterprise application built for health services in which a large user base is accessing the application on their daily uses.
  • Azure has wide range of services such as network, compute, storage, etc.
  • Excellent customer services support.
  • Excellent user training and documentation.
  • Excellent user interface and services.
  • Cost will be challenge for small and mid-sized organizations.
  • Some resources are quite high on prices.
  • Services such as cognitive services requires much internet bandwidth and costs.
Microsoft Azure is a fully managed service by Microsoft. I highly recommended the solution to anybody who is interested to deploy their application to the cloud. The updates are deployed automatically by the company and you do not need to worry about it. If you are using other Microsoft tools such as Power BI, then Azure would be a good choice for you. However, using some cognitive services might be costly for you.
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Microsoft, why don't you understand customer service you send me an email regarding an urgent billing issue, I cant seem to fix it, and it's becoming more urgent as the days go by, I put in a service ticket, and it takes you 7+ days to come back to me are you guys serious about Business, 7days + to come back to mere and accounting issue. Lucky I worked it out by spending 1 hour on the web to find a simple issue that you couldn't answer on your own help menu That's why the bulk of our customers are on AWS and not on Azure Terrible Service !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • Tell people how great they are , when there not
  • Not answer support request in a timely manner
  • Poor customer service
  • Fix your customer service
I have already
Nahian Mahmud Shaikat | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
As it is a cloud based platform which we can use for remote access our database by connecting the Microsoft Azure server by our employees working different places or departments. Although it proving publicly available free facilities but organization can use it for their several business operations like data storing and integrating different API to the local and cloud server.
  • Cloud Computing
  • Integrate different services in one platform
  • Application management
  • Data management
  • Increase the mass accessibility by increasing speed of the server
  • Add more customization button to their dashboard
  • Create access of large number of ports
If you are looking for working with big data with a cloud access then Microsoft Azure is the best option for you. In a free version you will get many features but premium facilities are more lucrative. So this is suitable for both small and large organization. If you are from a place where cloud access is not possible then it is not suitable for you because you must need cloud connectivity.
Nilufa Hossain | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Our company makes use of Microsoft Azure for a wide range of SaaS and PaaS needs. All of our applications are managed and accessed through Azure AD (Azure Active Directory). It seems to be essential to our organizations, honestly. Decentralization gives us the privilege to function even if we were already doing so remotely. This flexibility in business and infrastructure has enabled us to adopt new technologies quickly. We were able to move all IT operations to Azure and eliminate our legacy infrastructure. Keeping up with our core infrastructure isn't necessary. We can improve security and operations while increasing productivity.
  • Over time, Microsoft has established itself as a reliable technology partner, providing useful analysis tools such as compute, bandwidth, and memory usage statistics.
  • I prefer Azure Functions over AWS because it is cheaper and easier to use than AWS for ready-to-go services. It's simple to ship Node.js functions without any additional dependencies.
  • Using Microsoft's tuning techniques, its applications are always improving in terms of both functionality and usability.
  • The UI is intuitive and includes multiple Microsoft tools, and the service integration and implementation for various solutions are excellent.
  • 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.
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.
September 29, 2021

Title For MS Azure

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
One of the best Public cloud platforms available today, we use it for Iaas, Paas as well as SaaS. Easy to learn, good guiding UI. I highly recommend using the following. Mostly we have used it for containerization, storage, and compute, we got a very good experience after using it
  • PaaS
  • IaaS
  • SaaS
  • Navigation
  • User Interface
  • Ease of Learning
We have used it for some applications as well as a test environment, to try out some of the latest cloud products. I will suggest using it as a platform to test and run a dry check on the applications which are to be deployed on production. It will be a good fit for everything.
September 21, 2021

MS Azure Practical Use!

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
We are using MS Azure for multiple services (PaaS, SaaS) using MS Azure directory services and integrated Azure AD for multiple application access and management. With Azure 2FA feature and integration with OKTA we were able to create a centralized authentication platform for almost all of our enterprise applications. MS Azure networking platform is another feature/platform/service that we heavily rely on creating networks and deploying 2nd Gen firewalls for secure access.
  • Cloud Networking
  • SD WAN access with Azure
  • Cloud Computing | Pools/Farms for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
  • Azure AD for authentication and extending domains
  • Pricing
  • Subscriptions model
  • Phone Support / Technical Support
Cloud networking makes it an ease when you are using Azure AD services or containers to host users VDI, deploying virtual firewalls for security and access management makes life easier.
We are using MS Azure platform to host clients mobile apps, users can access and distribute application from same platform making it really easy to use, maintain and update.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Microsoft Azure is being used to support our entire infrastructure for the organization. It allows us to be a totally decentralized organization that was working from home before the Covid Crisis hit. The use of Azure has allowed us to respond quickly to new business and infrastructure requirements, and implement new technologies seamlessly in our environment.
  • Provisioning
  • Backup
  • Maintenance
  • Virtual Desktop/Environments
  • Storage
  • Documentation
  • Consistency of location of settings
  • Networking Diagrams and settings
Microsoft Azure is an amazing environment to work in. The menus are expansive and thorough, and it includes so many features to allow you to completely replicate your on-premise data center in a virtual environment with always available backups and failover mechanisms across the world. The support services are very helpful and quick to respond, no matter if you are working on bread and butter data servers, or working with the newest and latest innovations in the virtual space such as Azure Lighthouse and Azure Labs.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It's used on several departments to implement digital services or support the implementation of digital services like IoT and Big Data (e.g. predictive analytics)
It addresses customer usability and comfort as well as optimizing device maintenance and service costs.
  • Microsoft has become over time a trusted technology partner
  • Good to work together on solving and finding the fitting technical solution
  • The IOPS of the VM offerings is inferior compared to competition, cause bottlenecks on IOPS intensive loads
Especially for a mid-size company, where cloud knowledge still has to be build up within the company/development department, MS is a good partner to start with.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Azure is used across the whole orga. It's been a strategic decision to hop on cloud services, to be more flexible and modern.
  • PAAS and SAAS services
  • deployment
  • stability
  • usability
  • networking is some times a bit complicated
If you want to modernize your company's infrastructure and applications - very good. As well as if you want to create new applications that help the business to create new products.
In case you do it because it could be cheaper - leave it - most times you first have to spend money to be able to save some money in the future.
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Reseller
I looked to Azure after a slow support response at Google Cloud resulted in tremendous client dissatisfaction. Luckily, I was hesitant to migrate that many resources without more experience. The services I rely on include any number of virtual host setups. Some containerized, various hardware configurations of vm instances, web app platforms (mostly for development on hardware intensive/remote collaborative projects.) But I started out with a single instance with 4vcpu 16GB-Linux and a bucket for image transfer. I'm pretty sure the services are alright, I can't remember because I forgot about the vm bucket (not really forgot, just got busy). But I knew that all had been deallocated at the last sign off so I didn't pay much mind...until the charges started showing up. In all, about $350 with another $200 pending invoice for a VM instance w/ at most 20GB of total data storage active for no more than 17 non-consecutive hours. I submitted a support ticket 4 weeks ago, receiving an email every 9 days to let me know that they have no information. All I know is it was the most expensive trial run I have ever done.
  • From what I've seen, resources like VGPU are more accessible than other services.
  • For windows VPNs they are perhaps the most affordable.
  • Sales is present but not pushy.
  • Billing information is scarce to the point of negligence.
  • Cost analysis and per-service cost is misleading, if not outright false.
  • Billing support is in no hurry to answer specific questions, let alone resolve anything. Expect an automated email with links to vaguely similar documentation topics.
Until billing can be resolved, I can think of no scenario in which Azure would be preferable to any competitor. You cant do business by writing vendors blank checks and asking them to fill them out. Yet if you sign up for azure that's what you are doing. There has to be a reasonably intuitable price scheme, it must match what they describe, and if nothing else, support for billing issues should come swifter than the following month's invoice.
Apurv Doshi | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Microsoft Azure for cognitive services like natural language processing, computer vision, and machine learning services for built-in open-[source] frameworks like Tensorflow, MXNet, Keras, etc. It is used based on customers' needs, as we are in the service industry. It helps with scaling, security, and reliability.
  • 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.
  • The reliability of hardware is low as [compared] to AWS. Sometimes processes of allocation, deallocation of resources take quite a long time without having any intimation. If the instances are costly, such delay in stopping incurs extra cost.
  • Overall cost is much higher for ML and BI Services. Basic storage and compute cost is also bit more as compare to AWS.
  • Azure can surely do better with overall DevOps support. Cloud formation needs [a] lot more maturity and features.
The answer depends upon the kind of [use case]. If the use-case is simply around the need of IaaS then Azure is not the right choice. However, if the use-cases are around BOT services, Natural Language Processing, Computer Vision, Machine Learning[,] and Business Analytics then Azure is the first choice. Also[,] kind of eco-system the enterprise [has] on the premise to run their daily operations have the highest bearing to choose for the cloud partner.
Sandesh Singh | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Microsoft Azure is a great platform for a startup to a full-fledged business that wants to deploy their apps and infrastructure to the cloud or just to increase their market presence by going online. We used Microsoft Azure for the VM instances and CI/CD DevOps. We also used Azure to deploy our VPN but had to transfer it to other providers like AWS for pricing and scalability. Using Azure for high bandwidth use case scenario is for me just a waste of money as the data transfer fees are way too high, we got a bill of $3000+ for just the bandwidth, and was still higher than all the Instances and SQL servers cost running combined.
  • Windows Licensing Fees are not present most services.
  • Powered by Microsoft the organization behind Windows.
  • Month to month newsletter about training materials and certifications.
  • Easy Signup process than others just add number, address, identify and done.
  • Bandwidth Alerts and management.
  • Packages for VPN services which use enormous amount of data.
  • Simplified control panel, as it looks so confusing to untrained eyes.
  • Hard to get used to and often need to search for items instead of them being visible.
We used Microsoft Azure for the VM instances and CI/CD DevOps. We also used Azure to deploy our VPN but had to transfer it to other providers like AWS for pricing and scalability. Using Azure for high bandwidth use case scenario is, for me, just a waste of money as the data transfer fees are way too high. Using Azure for VPN is a stupid choice. According to me, there are better platforms like DigitalOcean and AWS for that. The only thing that I can recommend is the use of this platform to save yourself from licensing fees.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our company (200+) recently transitioned over to [Microsoft] Azure to alleviate the "clutter". We were outsourcing various functions, causing confusion and conflict. Having changed over to 1 concise platform containing all of our needs, has cleared the bottleneck we have been fighting for years. It has been a smooth transition as well with minimal to zero impact.
  • Ease of use
  • Easy implementation
  • Smooth functionality
  • More extensive video library instead of written documentation
  • More customized reporting ability
  • Longer "included" vendor support
[Microsoft] Azure is terrific for today's world of security, security, and more security. Implementing users over to SSO has been a seamless task, whereas I've seen it go completely sideways in other agencies. Account maintenance has been a "breeze". In the past, we had to scurry to modify accounts, and access, and whatnot, but with [Microsoft] Azure, it's all centrally located and updates are instant. It's definitely a "pro-Microsoft" product, which is fine, but you kind of lose sight that there are other cloud options.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
At our organisation we are using Microsoft Azure for hosting the website and storage purposes. We are using Compute engine for running the website. We love to use it because of up time. There is near to zero downtime in that service and it provides good analytical support so we can get the compute, memory and bandwidth usage.
  • Almost zero downtime of services
  • Good analysis support like compute, bandwidth and memory usage
  • Cost efficient as compared to AWS and best for ready to go services
  • Cost management can be improved
  • Team management experience can be improved
  • Pricing calculator is good but it can be improved
It is good for starters and basic site hosting services because for starters cost and continuity both matter. Advanced users can go for AWS or GCP because if you want to do everything as per your choice then you can get confused in Microsoft Azure services. We used it for the Wordpress site hosting and it was running great.
Paola Lucía Campos | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We have been using Microsoft Azure to automate the process. And to work in the cloud Azure is one of the most secure and support cloud. We use to save data for out clients, to manage processes, we can integrate with other programs and it is intuitive to use. Microsoft gives us all that we could ask for in a technological company.
  • Integrate with programs.
  • Automate process.
  • Super secure cloud.
  • Learn how to use it.
  • So many options that we could miss one.
Microsoft Azure is one of the most complete solutions that Microsoft has. And it is super safe to provide to any type of business, whether large or small. If you work with cybersecurity, Microsoft Azure is the best for handling data. Azure is a platform that requires knowledge, not just anyone can handle it. A scenario where it might not be possible is for any type of person who does not have technical knowledge of the cloud.
Sean Patterson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use [Microsoft] Azure internally for some applications as well as help clients implement Azure solutions of various sizes and configurations within their organization. We also use [Microsoft] Azure as a "test environment" to try out some of the latest cloud / IoT products as a means of better informing future clients on what will work best for them.
  • Dashboard
  • Configuration
  • Analytics
  • Granularity of Configuration
  • IoT Offerings
  • Containerization
[Microsoft] Azure provides a great "get up and running" environment particularly when you need to map multiple resources together, such as database, web app, storage, and analytics. The "Application Insights" feature is particularly strong because it allows you to do a "one click" install of an agent that can track performance and transactions all the way down to the database level. The [Microsoft] Azure dashboard allows you to easily find resources you need and access the current resources you have. Setting up new resources also uses a well managed "wizard" like structure to make it easy.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We provisioned/synchronized users and managed user lifecycle in Azure to help organizations utilize Microsoft’s cloud portfolio of applications and services.
  • Cloud directory service, enabling single-sign-on and application integration with a directory source
  • Integrating user identities without providing access to the company’s internal Directory Service from outside of the network/security perimeter.
  • Easy management from anywhere via internet access and a browser.
  • Not a fan of MS’s implementation of SAML via ADFS. A few inconsistencies in comparison to other industry-standard implementations.
  • Documentation: We had tons of trouble at first, resolving issues with Federating identities and using across platforms with MS Office and other platforms. MS was aware, but information across their different cloud teams wasn’t well-shared at the time and made for long hours troubleshooting and resolving issues.
Fantastic for cloud directory-enablement of applications, and segregating authentication and access from a company’s internal network. Management from web UI is easier for some people who aren’t accustomed to AD on-premise management tools. Not a fan of externally-hosted IDP (such as the recent SolarWinds attack and the SAML access to other resources that occurred), and prefer to keep signing/encryption certificates/keys and other sensitive assertion data in-house.

Valeri Karpov | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Azure is Microsoft's equivalent to Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, Oracle Cloud, IBM Cloud, etc. From a technical perspective, these providers are largely interchangeable in my experience. We primarily used Azure Compute, which let us spin up VMs in the cloud, to host our production and development Kubernetes clusters. We also used Azure VMs to host our production database - MongoDB.
  • Azure Functions is the easiest serverless service to work with in my experience. Easy to ship Node.js functions without bundling dependencies.
  • Proactive and responsive support. We've worked with most other cloud providers - Amazon, Google, Oracle. Amazon Web Services' customer support is a black hole and their documentation is worthless. Google and Oracle are better, but Azure's support is responsive and their docs are pretty good.
  • Azure's Web UI is pretty easy to work with
  • 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.
Cloud providers are largely interchangeable. [Microsoft] Azure has a few distinguishing features: good customer support, solid web UI, and Azure Functions is excellent. If you aren't closely tied to any one cloud provider, Azure is a great choice. It doesn't have quite as many products as AWS, but the products Azure does have are generally as good or better than their AWS equivalents.
João Almeida | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Microsoft Azure is being used across the entire organization at this time. It is being customized for use with individual departments. We use it at my non-profit and I also operate it at a large, regional, mid-western electric and gas utility.

[Microsoft] Azure has allowed us to quickly and reliably connect to information across our network in a seamless fashion. We are able to share links and data very quickly. It also allows us the advantage to use PowerBI to access data from many different departments because they are all in one place.
  • The product is constantly evolving both in terms of features and user-friendliness.
  • Microsoft effectively tunes for their own applications
  • Microsoft Azure functions can run be hosted and run inside of Kubernetes. This allows solutions based on Azure functions cloud agnostic.
  • Could be easier to setup redundancy
  • Feels as if there are too many options, bells, and whistles you could add.
  • Microsoft Azure functions does not have a "Configure Services" method. Programming Azure functions has a slightly different programming model than does a "normal" API application. I would prefer that the startup process be identical.
Microsoft Azure is a cost-effective solution for organizations who want to spend their capital expenditure optimally. It is also a one-stop solution for acquiring multiple services from Microsoft. However, Microsoft Azure is not for organizations who are not willing to take the risk of having one vendor as both infrastructure and platform provider.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The whole organization uses Microsoft Azure for various reasons. The main reason is to run our product in the service fabric environment. The other reasons include creating virtual machines, classic cloud service, and SQL databases. Microsoft Azure helps us to avoid having physical servers [in] the environment which are high in maintenance.
  • To run the application in Cloud services and host in web servers.
  • To create virtual machine on the need basis and destroy after its use.
  • To create secure database in cloud to have easy access.
  • Identifying the cost of the resources is not straight forward.
  • Configuring firewalls and restricting access to the virtual machine is time consuming.
  • Need to improve the documentation to help creating the resources easily.
It depends on the need. To our needs it has really suited well, we are partnered with Microsoft and our product mainly uses Microsoft technology so we easily have picked up Microsoft Azure as our option. Apart from our primary need, we are effectively utilizing other Microsoft Azure features as well to improve resource usage and control the cost of the resources.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our company used Azure for the launch of the process automation platform. We later added a number of complementary services i.e. authentication, storage, telemetry, monitoring, Azure SQL and PowerBI. While this virtual platform was supported by a small team, it supported the whole organization. Our Azure stack was used as a virtual infrastructure in the IaaS and SaaS capacities.
  • Advanced support and telemetry capabilities
  • Intuitive UI integrated with multiple tools from Microsoft (i.e. Visual Studio, PowerShell)
  • Fantastic scalability and performance
  • Great integration capabilities across all services
  • Rapid implementations speed for multiple solution types
  • Fast pace of tech advancements means that technical documentation is often outdated
  • Some advanced configuration options require research and experimentation
  • Azure SQL syntax is a too far of a departure from the classic SQL
  • Infrastructure documentation and mapping capabilities are lacking
  • Microsoft's licensing model is too complex for a regular user to figure out
Suited for most if not all scenarios. Some folks who are locked into AWS or GCP are probably locked into these ecosystems for some other reasons. Azure can handle all technical scenarios.
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