Item: Microsoft Azure
Rating: 9
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Microsoft Azure

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Microsoft Azure in multiple ways. We run all our own application/software development and application related services in Microsoft Azure. This includes app services, function apps, databases, blob storages etc. We also use Microsoft Azure for reporting, analytics and data warehousing. OpenAI services are utilized as well for our AI needs.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Comprehensive set of services
Integrated to other Microsoft ecosystem like M365 and Power apps
Constantly evolving

Cons

Pricing and billing is not easy to understand
Used services may become obsolete/legacy all the sudden and this creates maintenance work for us to keep up
There can be redundant looking services and it is not always easy to see which service to use for example for storing data.

Return on Investment

It is quick to enable new services and go to market with those. For example we were able to integrate our applications to OpenAI services in weeks.
Using micro services we do not need to use time on maintaining the infrastructure and operating systems by ourselves and we save time.
Negative impact happens when already used services come obsolete and we need to spend work time to figure out how to migrate/upgrade to the new supported services.

Usability

The documentation overall is very good and there is almost always articles explaining how to use the services. Most administration tasks can be done simply through the Microsoft Azure Portal. Additionally there is a powerful set of ways to automate administration or use PowerShell to manage all the services through command line or scripts.

Alternatives Considered

Amazon Web Services

Mostly due to the ecosystem. I don't think there is anything in AWS that we would be missing out when using Microsoft Azure. We use Microsoft products on on-premise servers and also M365 / Office services that are well supported in Microsoft Azure. The pricing between AWS and Microsoft Azure is not much different. Microsoft Azure has also been developing a lot and it has stayed at the top of the tech waves.

Key Insights

Do you think Microsoft Azure delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Microsoft Azure's feature set?

Yes

Did Microsoft Azure live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Microsoft Azure go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Microsoft Azure again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

Running hybrid cloud solutions together with on-premise infrastructure is easy and supported. There typically is a service for most IT needs available. Works well together with Microsoft ecosystem - especially M365 environment or on-premise Microsoft products.
The pricing is sometimes quite high or you quicly run into situations where you would need to upgrade to more expensive paid plans. Thus, it is not suitable if you have many budget constraints.

Microsoft Azure Feature Ratings

Comments

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