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HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen10 Server with MS Azure Stack Node

Mfg # Q8N42A CDW # 5613920 | UNSPSC 43201835

Quick tech specs

  • Supports Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processor
  • Runtime Firmware Verification
  • Industry Standard Technology
  • With MS Azure Stack Node
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Know your gear

The HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen10 Rack Server delivers security, performance and expandability in a compact chassis. This rack server supports Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors. It comes with an MS Azure stack node.

 

This item was discontinued on October 06, 2022

Enhance your purchase

HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen10 Server with MS Azure Stack Node is rated 4.20 out of 5 by 34.
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Stable and feature-rich, straightforward to set up, and the technical support is good What is our primary use case? We use Azure Stack for our of our customer applications. How has it helped my organization? We used to maintain our infrastructure and everything was on-premises. Azure Stack has helped us with moving to the cloud. What is most valuable? This is one of the top cloud providers and we pretty much use all of the features. The integration seems to be good. What needs improvement? Having more options and customization would be an improvement. For how long have I used the solution? We have been using Azure Stack for the past couple of years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? We have not really had any problems with bugs or glitches. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? The scalability is good. How are customer service and technical support? We have been in contact with technical support and the support they provide is pretty good. I would rate them a ten out of ten. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? Prior to using this cloud platform, everything we had was on-premises. How was the initial setup? I think that the initial setup is okay. What other advice do I have? This is definitely a product that I recommend. It has every feature that we need and overall, it's pretty good. I would rate this solution a nine out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? Private Cloud If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use? Microsoft Azure Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2020-11-03T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Hard to manage and not user-friendly but relatively stable What is our primary use case? Not sure How has it helped my organization? move to cloud - improved by no need to maintain hardware What is most valuable? We've had a lot of issues with the solution as of late. We aren't very happy with it right now. The stability is okay. You can scale the solution if you need to. What needs improvement? We started to get issues in May of this year. We didn't know that the one side of Azure was not fully migrated. There's two Azure on-premise solutions in our organization. I needed to migrate everything that wasn't migrated over quickly. I needed someone who was knowledgable to assist to get it done. Therefore, I asked Windows and was looking into our budget. We told them to go ahead and do it, and that we had two thus far, one for memory, one for CPU, and that's all. I only wanted two point areas. I wanted my Azure to point to only one, however, now it's set up to point to two point areas, which is not what we want. The solution is not user friendly. I'd prefer to move over to AWS, which is much easier in this sense. The product could improve its manageability. For how long have I used the solution? I've been using the solution for a while, however, we started having issues with the solution in May of 2020. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The stability is okay, however, there are a few glitches here and there. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? The scalability is okay. However, AWS is easier to scale. With AWS, you don't have to update your CPU and RAM. Everything's done for you. How are customer service and technical support? In terms of technical support, it's very bad. We don't have a guy who is good at helping us, in our company, so we have to rely on the Shanghai team. The one person who supports us is in Shanghai. We are relying on Shanghai technical support to help to create dashboards or whatever we need. Moving forward, we need a good technical guy in-house to help us. I cannot rely on Shanghai every time. Shanghai also seems to have two teams, however, I don't understand why. There's no direct number to the right people you have to reach, and the customer team we find to be quite bad. We're not overly satisfied with the level of service we've been provided so far. How was the initial setup? The initial setup wasn't as easy as AWS, which has a much simpler deployment. We ran into issues in terms of migration. Not everything was fully migrated, originally, and that caused us a lot of problems. It's still not quite set up how I would like it to be. Which other solutions did I evaluate? I've looked into AWS, which is more user friendly, and is a solution I would prefer to move over to. Not only is it always easier for us too manage by another provision, it's a lot faster. Azure is slower. What other advice do I have? Honestly, if I were to compare the two, I'd say that AWS is much better. It's so much easier to deal with and easier to understand. It's also easier to deploy and has a shorter learning curve overall. On top of that, AWS provides 20% of the traffic to the site. You don't need to update your processor for CPU and RAM. They do all of that for free. There's just way more up-sides to AWS than Azure, unfortunately. Azure is just average. I'd rate it five out of ten. As an end-user, I find it far too difficult to manage, and it's not really worth the effort, especially when there are other solutions that make it so much easier. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2020-09-22T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from A great way to extend Azure services to the environment of your choice What is our primary use case? We're getting more serious with Office 365 now. We start from the mailbox, the mail server exchange, and then we also have SharePoint. We have migrated all the local network drives, shared drives, home drives, to Office 365 SharePoint. We have been making use of the document library for sharing, and this year, we've started to use more of Microsoft Teams as a kind of collaboration, for online meetings within the organization and also to communicate with our students. Microsoft Teams is not the only software that we use, we also use Zoom for class meetings, and then Microsoft Teams for team meetings, really. As an education provider, we have many students — over a thousand students actually; they are also the users of this domain. We also have 250 permanent and casual staff, it's quite a big number. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using this solution for almost two years. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? At this stage, we are quite pleased with Office 365 Azure. To me, Azure offers a pathway for dealing with the active directory, and for storing all our Office 365 information assets. How are customer service and technical support? Technical support is quick and responsive. I find that whenever I encounter an error (sometimes it's really the system errors or something that I didn't know how to do), the customer support is quite helpful. We get good support from Microsoft in terms of Office 365. Take today, for example, we have a worldwide issue (maybe just Australia), and our Office 365 cloud authentication components were down for almost an hour. Thankfully, customer support helped us rectify that problem very quickly. What about the implementation team? A consultant helped us with the implementation back in 2018. What other advice do I have? I would only recommend this solution to smaller organizations like ours because I cannot really speculate what big issues that the bigger organizations will face. For a small or medium-sized college, it's quite good — I can't see any negative sides. In particular, our staff and students don't really use our computers. That means they are bringing their own devices and using their own computers. Because of Office 365, they don't need to come here (to campus) and they don't need to connect to any kind of VPN in order to access their emails or order their course materials or even the information that we provide on the internet, for that matter. Everything is on the cloud. On a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of ten — strictly because I have nothing to compare it to. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? Public Cloud Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2020-09-30T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Easy to set up, easy to scale, and customer support is good What is most valuable? It's not as complex compared to Amazon or AWS products. Azure Stack is easier to use within the cloud. It would be better to have more services and functionality when it comes to database software and computing. I would also like to see more computing features. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using Azure Stack for four to six months. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It's pretty stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? It's easy to scale. How are customer service and technical support? Customer support is good and was handled responsibly. How was the initial setup? The setup isn't complex and is faster than AWS. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? Commercially, Azure Stack is cheaper than AWS. What other advice do I have? I would give Azure Stack an eight out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? Public Cloud If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use? Microsoft Azure Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2020-11-19T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Offers good hybrid connectivity, but it's pricier than some other solutions What is most valuable? Azure Stack is like a hybrid model with a CI/CD pipeline. The IaaS and PaaS model works well with a hybrid type of connectivity. What needs improvement? Our only issue with Azure Stack so far is that the networking is very closed. You need to have the extended LAN to connect the internal LAN to the Azure Stack. Any connection we have needs site-to-site VPN connectivity instead of an internal connection, so Azure Stack has room for improvement in the networking area. For how long have I used the solution? We've been using Azure Stack for more than two years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? Azure Stack is stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Azure Stack is scalable, and it has governance features also. How are customer service and support? We have third-party technical support. Sometimes it's good, and sometimes it's extended. How was the initial setup? Setting up Azure Stack is easy. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? The price of Azure Stack is higher relative to other solutions. What other advice do I have? I rate Azure Stack seven out of 10. Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:partner
Date published: 2022-01-12T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Great for lift and shift but needs more integration How has it helped my organization? When we engage Azure Stack, it's very easy to lift and shift. That's why we've been successful because we can be clear and fast in understanding workflows from the customer. What is most valuable? The most valuable feature is the clear and user-friendly interface. What needs improvement? Azure Stack could be improved with more integration, governance tools, monitor tools, and lift and shift tools. We also have problems with the capacity usage. In the next release, Azure should include a tool to manage the journey during the lift and shift process and identify where integration is needed. For how long have I used the solution? I've been using Azure Stack for four to five years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? Azure Stack is stable. How was the initial setup? The setup and integration are straightforward. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? The premium version is too costly. What other advice do I have? For those thinking about implementing Azure Stack, it's important to understand the customer's workflow and whether you're talking about IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS. I would rate Azure Stack as five out of ten. Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2022-05-12T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Stable, scalable and easy to install and deploy What is our primary use case? The solution is geared towards customers with large Microsoft footprints, in which it is very advanced. There is tight integration in respect of Microsoft workloads and extremely intelligent performance. Customers can use it to run SQL Server, Active Directory, VDI, Windows Server and other workloads. Many users use it for their dynamics, although I am not aware of a lot of deployments with SAP HANA. One who has a 60 or 70 percent footprint in the data center with Microsoft can save a lot. What is most valuable? Azure Stack is a really good product when it comes to the functionality and the Azure Stack offer. Its most attractive feature is the licensing. The virtualization is in-built and free and it offers almost all the functionalities someone looks for from the Azure platform. Now that the solution is transitioning to a hybrid cloud approach, the licensing is not determined by the number of instances and this can result in huge savings. A subscription model customer will not need to do much up front purchasing. He can obtain all the up to date features offered on public cloud and grow at the rate he feels is best, with the attendant savings. What needs improvement? I would like to see better network integration. While they are working on security, several things can be brought in on the networking side, such as extending to networks stretching in between data centers. These are absent at the moment. It would be good to have a single control plane for the networking. For how long have I used the solution? I have around two years of experience with Azure Stack. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The solution is certainly stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? The solution is definitely scalable. How was the initial setup? Installation is straightforward and not very involved. It can even be automated. The deployment was straightforward and really nice. While creating a system and configuring a cluster is possible, it would be really beneficial to do this in the reverse, since the cluster can be pushed in using the hardware management ID. What about the implementation team? While deployment is straightforward, it would require a good skill set with Microsoft technologies and a certain amount of networking knowledge to handle any trouble which may arise. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? The licensing is one of the solution's most attractive features. Subscription model customers need not make large expenditures on upfront purchasing. A customer must purchase the software needed for Microsoft support, if he wishes to have this. This would incur a monthly fee. But, the upcoming Azure Stack HCl, which is hybrid cloud, does not involve an upfront purchase, only a subscription-based fee. What other advice do I have? I work with Lenovo as a consultant, which means I handle deployment for others. We have a handlful of customers, most of whom are using Microsoft products, but some of whom use Windows. Many go with the Azure Stack solution. I would recommend the solution to others. I rate Azure Stack as an eight out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? Hybrid Cloud Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2021-09-06T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Support is fast but they aren't knowledgeable enough What is our primary use case? Currently, we are just using it to plan for our proof of concept and internal testing, not for production. For how long have I used the solution? I've been using Azure Stack for more than a year. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It's not stable as IBM solutions. It fully supports all the .NET solutions, but our main applications are based in Java. So in those cases, we've had some minor problems with Azure, but Microsoft always says that it can handle this stuff. How are customer service and support? Microsoft's support isn't as good as IBM's. They are fast, but they aren't knowledgeable enough. How was the initial setup? Setting up Azure Stack isn't as straightforward as IBM's Cloud Pack for Apps. IBM's solution uses OpenShift implementation, so it's fully automated, whereas the Microsoft solution has some hardware issues, so we had to some manual configurations. The total time for deployment was around one week, I guess. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? I believe our license is yearly. What other advice do I have? I would rate Azure six out of 10. I don't have a lot of opinions on it yet, but when we start using it in production, then I'll have a better idea. Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2021-10-24T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It's good for transitioning from an on-premise or hybrid setup to the cloud What is our primary use case? We use Azure Stack primarily for hosting customer applications .NET applications. We use mainly App Service, Blob Storage, and Cognitive Services. We develop applications on the Microsoft platform, infrastructure, and servers. Our servers are Windows, and we use the .NET framework and C# programming language. Everything is easier in Azure. What is most valuable? Azure Stack integrates well with Microsoft. It's also good for transitioning from an on-premise or hybrid setup to the cloud. It's seamless. What needs improvement? Microsoft is changing the Azure Stack interface all the time, so it's sometimes hard to find the functionality or the service you're looking for. A feature was in one place and now it has moved somewhere else. It's because the product is quickly evolving, so they're changing constantly. I understand, but it's difficult to find things when we don't use Azure every day. It's not a big issue. For how long have I used the solution? We've been using Azure Stack for seven or eight years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? Azure Stack is highly stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? We have had a good experience with scalability. Azure Stack's replication is well-written. It's flexible. For example, you can scale it differently on workdays and weekends to reduce operating costs. We automatically reduce the sizing of the solution. We stop some services like VMs on the weekends if we can. Scaling up and stopping resources is automated based on a set schedule. This is useful. How are customer service and support? Microsoft support is very good. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? We switched from AWS to Azure. The main issues were costs and some bad experiences with temporary disks. This was a long time ago, so I cannot say if AWS is currently better or worse than Azure. How was the initial setup? Azure Stack is also in the cloud, so it's easy. We also use the Internet Information Server. If you use the node server, it's going to be local and based on the technology you're using. We can choose between one or the other. For example, we use Mongo Atlas service on Azure and on-premises. Both use the MongoDB Atlas service. It is architecture bound, so you have the choice of going through Azure or the on-premise solution because both have advantages. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? Azure is relatively expensive, but on the other hand, you get excellent support, stability, and security, so I think it's worth it. What other advice do I have? I rate Azure Stack nine out of 10. It is a great tool if the technology you use is a Microsoft-based stack because Azure is Microsoft's cloud provider. Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2022-02-26T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Setup is easy but scaling from one plan to another is challenging What is our primary use case? Our company uses the solution to host and run an application in the cloud. We have 25,000 customers who use our application. What is most valuable? The solution pairs well with other MS services and saves us a lot of money. What needs improvement? Overall support needs improvement because they are not agile across services. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using the solution for three years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The solution is stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? The word scalability is a misnomer. It is generally said that the cloud has unlimited scalability but that is where we face challenges. When we try to scale the system from one plan to another, our DevOps engineer reports that the system is failing. We have reached out to Microsoft but they have been unable to solve our specific issue so scalability is challenging. How are customer service and support? We had issues scaling from one plan to another and reached out to support. Technical support is not agile across services and has been unable to solve our issue. Support is rated a five out of ten. How would you rate customer service and support? Neutral How was the initial setup? The setup is easy with no challenges but upgrades are complex. We have experienced challenges when upgrading components from one plan to another plan. Setup does not have these challenges. What about the implementation team? We implemented the solution in-house. We slowly started utilizing services but total deployment did not take much time. Ongoing maintenance is not a challenge. What was our ROI? So far, we have not measured ROI. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? The solution saves us money but is more costly than other products such as AWS. We have been paying 10 crores for our Azure services. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We are thinking of moving from Azure to AWS because there are issues scaling the suite of products, support is not optimum, and the solution is more costly than AWS products. What other advice do I have? Before choosing the solution or AWS, it is important to reach out to relevant engagement or sales teams to get product clarity. I rate the solution a seven out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? Private Cloud If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use? Microsoft Azure Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-11-06T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Globally scalable, highly stable, savings on existing licenses What is our primary use case? Our primary use cases are computing, data platform along with migrating event-driven architecture. We use a lot of data bricks and data components. From the integration to data, and from the application deployment perspective to the platform as a service. How has it helped my organization? Azure Stack enhanced the productivity from the developers to testers to infrastructure engineers in the following way: * Developers and the QA team focused on delivering business values rather than thinking about the build and deployment * The infrastructure team focused more on automating the infra-build pipelines for different environments in no time * Azure Pipelines automated 80% of manual efforts on both the Development and Infra front. What is most valuable? We have found the Kubernetes version is one of the key components which we are using heavily. What needs improvement? I would like to see the AI side come to one hundred percent in the near future. I would love to see a more reliable SAP improved. For how long have I used the solution? I have been working with Azure Stack for the past seven years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? Azure Stack is highly stable across the globe from my experience. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Azure Stack is extremely scalable across the globe. How are customer service and support? One of the best parts of technical support is they are really on top of all the issues. Once an incident has been raised, their team will call our technical engineers and start supporting them immediately. This is one of the major reasons why I have used Azure Stack. Azure Cloud is becoming so popular because in the end, businesses need assurance and they are always on top of it. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? We were using an on-premise solution, but you know that an on-premise solution is not scalable with a cloud-based environment. How was the initial setup? The initial setup is pretty straightforward. It is a lean, shallow learning curve. They can quickly grasp it and can start working on deployment. The deployment was pretty smooth because we set up the CI/CD pipeline and Azure pipeline, which automatically builds the solution. It does the unit test and performance test, and if everything goes well, it is scheduling the deployments for production quickly. What about the implementation team? We have both in-house and third-party teams, depending on the requirements and complexity of the deployment. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? The licensing is pay-as-you-go, and Azure also provides a bring-your-own-license. I believe that is a good option if anyone is looking at it and they already have a license. They can get the infrastructure and the provision in a very short time and it will save the existing licenses. Different applications will have different licensing needs. It depends on which tool you use. You will then need to secure that license. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We evaluated AWS and Google. It depends on the company and what the best fit is for the organization. If companies have similar requirements, they can follow us, or if they have a different requirement, I believe that Google or AWS might fit their needs as well. What other advice do I have? I think that anybody who wants to move on to Azure Stack, needs to assess their requirements, and what business needs they have. I would rate Azure Stack an eight out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? Public Cloud If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use? Microsoft Azure Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-10-12T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Easy to set up with stable migrations and great features What is our primary use case? We have a client using Azure Exchange for their organization, including emails and Outlook. This is the most recent use case. And another client has a lot of cloud migrations at the moment. Some are from the Azure Stack to the Oracle Cloud, and others from the Alibaba Cloud to the Azure Stack. There are different projects ongoing at the moment, which are mostly targeted over the migration of the cloud to and from Azure and onwards. How has it helped my organization? The benefit for any company using Azure Stack or any of the cloud, even AWS, is that everything is managed by the service provider - in this case, Microsoft. Azure, normally it's not an on-prem; it's the Microsoft cloud mostly based in California or in the Middle East, depending on the different geolocations of the cloud. Microsoft has one data center in the Middle East, and most of the time, most of the local services for the Azure Stack are hosted from this location. Otherwise, it's mostly coming from Europe. What is most valuable? There are lots of great features. The Office 365 migration from old accounts to new accounts is great. It is helpful for organizations, actually. If a user wants to upgrade Office 365 from any of the packages, there is no disruption happening during migration, and the data is kept safe. There's no loss of data. Previously, data loss was always a concern. Basically, the most beneficial feature I found in Azure is that any migration ensures data is always safe and secure. It's easy to set up. What needs improvement? Improvement is already happening based on the strategy of Microsoft. Normally, in many countries, especially in the Middle East, there are government regulations for information technology itself. If government organizations want to host the cloud, they cannot take it from Microsoft directly; they must go through the local internet service providers, ISPs, or cloud solution providers locally. They should have a local data center in the Middle East, and the data should not move out of the Middle East. This is one of the restrictions we face. Having said that, Microsoft is working with the governments in the Middle East. At the end of the day, it's all about the composition between the cloud service provider giants, including Microsoft. There is a growing market for Alibaba Cloud in the Middle East. It's growing more popular compared to Azure. The reason is that the governments are more focused on Chinese technology rather than Microsoft in certain areas. For how long have I used the solution? I've used the solution for the past five years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The solution is extremely stable. It's extremely stable unless and until someone from the operations team messes with it. In a heavy-load cloud environment, I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. Microsoft data centers are tier-four data centers. Tier four is a certification from the Uptime Institute, which makes sure that the data center standards are being met in regard to the end customer service availability. Tier four has the highest rating, which is the 99.49% of service availability. This means that if anything goes wrong at the data center in the Microsoft infrastructure, they have a failover backup so that the customer wouldn't even feel that the service is down and there would be not any interruption for the end customer. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? The solution is extremely scalable. The cloud is based on the concept of scalability. If the cloud is not scalable, there's no need even to call it a cloud. I'd rate the solution nine out of ten in terms of scalability. On one of our deployments, the number of users is between 300 and 500. Our deployments vary in size. That includes the Azure Exchange only. There are other parts running on the Azure Stack. The solution is suitable for all sizes of businesses. If they are looking for a solution that is flexible and scalable, this is a good option. It would be good, for example, for a logistics company where the Stack is mission-critical. If something goes down, switching operations happen in milliseconds or microseconds, maybe. Therefore, even if the virtual machine is down, the end user, the logistics service, will not be interrupted. How are customer service and support? Technical support is good. Normally, whatever the Azure Stack case is, we open up a ticket. It's a system in Microsoft. The call agent will open a ticket for specific troubleshooting, and it'll remain open until the issue is resolved. They have an SLA for that specific reason. The technical support rating on the consumer level with Microsoft is very generic, as per my experience. Normally they keep on looping stuff instead of resolving the issues. For the business customer, it's different since it's a business; it's a matter of money. In that regard, their service is quite good, actually. However, on the consumer side, when I worked with Outlook or Azure, there was an Azure resource for which the issue came up. I checked with my operations team and they said the issue was from Microsoft and we had to open a ticket with them. I opened a ticket, and it took one or two days, and it kept on looping, and eventually, we solved the problem by ourselves. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? There's a cloud called Virtual Stream, which was acquired by Dell EMC. Dell EMC was our partner. We had a Virtual Stream Cloud for mobile that we were providing to our business customers in the different big companies. In the end, we sold the cloud. It was a bit complex compared to other cloud technologies. That said, it was quite reliable, actually. How was the initial setup? The initial setup depends on the situation. Typically, it is simple. Suppose you're buying and provisioning Azure Cloud sources from the Microsoft website and have the online payment through Mastercard. In that case, you can build up your own customized cloud through the Microsoft website, and they will provision your cloud for you, and it'll be ready within a few minutes or hours, depending on the requirement. In some cases, it depends on the customer's solution and what our customer is looking for. Sometimes, there are some compatibility feature sets from other service providers that have to be deployed in the Azure Cloud, and how much time Azure Cloud would take to complete its provisioning. It is simple if you need one virtual machine or block storage from Azure, and you need to have the Windows operating system and the RAM or memory you require. It's one click away and done within a few seconds. However, if you are building up a solution for some product that requires, for example, 300 virtual machines and there are a lot of resources that involve some third-party SaaS, this might take some time. Overall, it is straightforward, and I'd rate the implementation process eight out of ten. With cloud service providers, many things are automated, and everything is happening virtually. That relieves a lot of the complexity. Anyone who understands cloud technology should have very many issues. We have ten to 15 people who can handle deployment and maintenance tasks. What about the implementation team? We have a team that deploys the solution. Sometimes I'm enrolled with the team, sometimes, the team handles things alone. It's an operation team for the customer, and we usually provide them with managed services for their cloud, where we do all the technical operations on the cloud by ourselves. We implement it according to the client's authorization. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? The licensing model is different in different regions. For the Middle East, it's different than it is for China, for example. Once you go to the Azure website and you want to have the Azure Stack resources provisioned, they let you look at the different regions, and the pricing for different resources, for the block storage, computing, virtual machines, memory, et cetera. All the pricing scenario is in US dollars since they're selling it internationally. While it's different in different regions, it's quite affordable compared to other products. Similar competitors, like Alibaba and Amazon, have a similar pricing strategy. They also offer regional-based pricing once you are assuring the cloud resources on their platforms. It's flexible pricing for Azure. That said, in most cases, I see that Azure is a bit high compared to Alibaba or Amazon. Most small and medium-sized customers are budget-conscious. If they want to have Azure, they might think, "Okay, it's better to move to Amazon, or to Alibaba, or to some other cloud since the price difference is quite high when looking at Azure Stack." What other advice do I have? We have a partnership with Microsoft. We are likely using the latest version of the solution. Typically, we get scheduled updates from the cloud. As far as my experience is concerned, Azure is a very flexible and very stable solution. If you want quality and stability, you should move to the Azure Stack. Of course, everything depends on the customer's requirements and what exactly he is looking for in the Azure Stack. Not all customers will use the full Azure Stack. Most likely, they will have third-party applications based on their current infrastructure, which they will want to deploy in the Azure ... Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2022-12-24T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Great integration with other MS products and constant new feature rollouts What is our primary use case? Our company uses the solution for normal production and visibility of our systems. We have 400 users and are at proof of concept while we complete governance. What is most valuable? The solution integrates and runs well with other Microsoft tools. The whole package works very well together for identity management, defending endpoints or servers, and the CM. Documentation for enrollment is very good. What needs improvement? The solution could be less expensive. So many new features are added at a fast pace that it is sometimes hard to keep up with all the solution offers. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using Microsoft-based solutions for 23 years. The solution has been added to the mix along the way. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The solution is stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? The solution is scalable. We do not have scalability experience because we are in the process of finalizing the cloud adoption framework and giving the green light for production. We have to finalize the governance and other things before we will allow production. While we wait, we are using the solution for proof of concept things. How are customer service and support? Technical support has worked very well. From our experiences, technical support is rated a ten out of ten. How would you rate customer service and support? Positive How was the initial setup? If you want to do setup right, then it requires time and is complex. The risks are high if you deploy too quickly. What about the implementation team? We are partnered with consultants for implementation to ensure proper governance and frameworks. We will have an agreement with a partner to provide support and maintain at least a part of the solution with our in-house team. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? Pricing could be improved so I rate it an eight out of ten. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We use Microsoft products but did conduct a lightweight comparison. Because we rely very heavily on Microsoft on-premises, we immediately saw the benefits of using the solution instead of AWS or Google. The solution is developing very fast so new features are always being added. It is almost hard to keep up with everything the solution offers. What other advice do I have? The solution has been working very well for our company. For financial institutions, I recommend its use along with Microsoft Identity. I rate the solution a nine out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? Public Cloud If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use? Microsoft Azure Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-12-18T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Reliable, secure, and stable as a platform What is our primary use case? We're using the latest version. It's deployed on the cloud, mainly as a Kubernetes container. What is most valuable? It's more reliable, secure, and easy to deploy. It's much more stable as a platform. What needs improvement? There's Azure SQL Database on the cloud for small loads, but now they're moving to Synapse, which has a combination of the storage plus the analytics. For how long have I used the solution? I've been using this solution for more than six years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It's stable. We haven't had any significant down times, because now you have redundancy across networks. We have not come across any situation where any disruptions have occurred, at least on the cloud connectivity. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? It's absolutely scalable. We haven't had any challenges with scalability. How are customer service and support? We had some issues, and we directly raised a defect bug to them so they could sort it out. I haven't heard teams complaining about that. I don't see any challenge right now because the stack is much stabler, easier, and we haven't needed to reach out. How would you rate customer service and support? Positive Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? Both AWS and Azure are the best in the world right now. It all depends on what our customers need, so we use both. How was the initial setup? One or two people are needed to maintain this solution. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? I would rate the pricing 4 out of 5. It could be lower. What other advice do I have? I would rate this solution 9 out of 10. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? Private Cloud If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use? Microsoft Azure Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.Partner
Date published: 2022-07-03T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Stable, scalable, and simple implementation What is our primary use case? I am using Azure Stack to build a lot of different solutions. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using Azure Stack for approximately nine years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? Azure Stack is very stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? The scalability of Azure Stack is good. I have approximately 200 users using this solution in my company. How are customer service and support? I rate the support from Azure Stack a five out of five. How would you rate customer service and support? Positive Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? I did not use other similar solutions in this category. How was the initial setup? The initial setup of Azure Stack is very simple. It takes approximately 48 hours to build a complete platform. What about the implementation team? The implementation of Azure Stack was done in-house. We have five people for the maintenance of the solution. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? The licensing model of Azure Stack is complicated. The solution is expensive. What other advice do I have? I would recommend this solution to others. I rate Azure Stack an eight out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? Public Cloud Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-08-11T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from User-friendly, easy accessibility of resources, and good support What is our primary use case? We are using it in our company and the customer's company as well. So, it works on both sides. For certain development environments, we need to build our internal environment, and we need it for that. Similarly, we need to build the production environment for the customer, and we use it for that. What is most valuable? The beauty of Azure is that most of the features are easily accessible. It is user-friendly. Almost all resources in Azure are very easily accessible. For example, you can access a virtual machine, and you can scale it up. You can go ahead with different infrastructure-as-a-service in Azure for the platform or for the cloud. Different levels of development could be done using it. What needs improvement? It should be improved in terms of integrations. It could be integrated more with external tools. We have Azure Purview for governance, but that is for data governance. For code governance, we have to use SonarQube or WhiteSource for vulnerabilities and license management. We would like to have a native code compliance tool. For how long have I used the solution? I have been working with this solution for three years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It is absolutely stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? It is scalable. The resources in Azure are scalable for a smooth transaction. How are customer service and support? Their technical support is very good. They are always easily available when we need them. How would you rate customer service and support? Positive Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? I have been working with different automation tools such as Jenkins. Jenkins is a good tool to start with. Being a DevOps person, I had to go with Azure ADO and Azure DevOps, which basically gives you the view of how DevOps actually works. How was the initial setup? It is easy to set up. It takes you minutes to set it up. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? Azure has a subscription version. It has a pay-as-you-go subscription with a subscription ID. So, you have your particular subscription with an enterprise agreement. There is a dev-type subscription for development and testing. The pricing seems pretty reasonable. The pricing could be per resource. For example, you have Databricks, Data Factory, Scaled DB, and Cosmos. You have everything in Azure. They have an Azure pricing calculator that you can use to check the price of every resource. It gives you a proper cost estimation. You can compare the cost and then go for the best resource for your project. What other advice do I have? I would definitely advise others to implement it as an infrastructure service only because you get to learn more. You get to explore the code more and know different steps. You can automate more and better. You can get automation done on top of what is already there, which could lead to another invention. I would rate it an eight out of ten. Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2022-05-01T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Computing resource used for ten years or orchestration of all Azure functionality What is most valuable? Azure Data Factory is a great solution for orchestration. What needs improvement? From a security perspective, there are certain things which could be improved. We have that option of enabling the datacenter which sits on the Azure site. The solution is difficult to manage if this particular feature is disabled. For how long have I used the solution? I've been working with Azure Stack for nine to 10 years for me. What do I think about the stability of the solution? This is a stable solution. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? This is a scalable solution. How was the initial setup? The initial setup is straightforward if you are familiar with some of the architecture. The complexity may increase if you have a large amount of data that needs to be migrated. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? Azure is reasonably priced compared to Google Cloud, AWS, or some other cloud giants. What other advice do I have? You need to focus on what your end goal to achieve and build the system in a way that makes it easy to maintain from a software, perspective, and platform perspective. I would rate this solution a seven out of ten. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-06-11T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Stable, easy to use, and the support is responsive What is most valuable? Azure is less complex and easier to use than AWS. What needs improvement? I would like to have access to more services and more functionality. In the future, I would like to see more machine learning features. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using Azure Stack for approximately six months. What do I think about the stability of the solution? This solution is definitely stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? You can scale easily. How are customer service and technical support? The support is good and they are very responsive. How was the initial setup? It is not too complex to set up Azure Stack. It was faster to deploy than the AWS solution that we tried. What other advice do I have? I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? Public Cloud If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use? Microsoft Azure Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2020-12-13T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Stable, easy-to-use and good technical support What is our primary use case? We use Azure Stack to deliver Microsoft's Azure services from our organization's data center. What is most valuable? Azure Stack is a good product because it's flexible and easy to work with. What needs improvement? It depends on the type of user, as some users prefer an easy tool and environment for management. Other users prefer a detailed setting of the environment and console. I can tell you what would be better from the point of view of different users. It is one of the programs we are finding a proper solution for to know if a user finds it easy using only pictures and the possibility of what they can do in this environment. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using Azure Stack for the past year and a half. What do I think about the stability of the solution? In our small testing environment, we had no problem with stability. However, we already created special technologies, so it's an evaluation of all the environments that we'll bring to do the final project because they have something created on their own technology and now it is a question if they will change it or not. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Azure Stack should be open to different technologies for more virtualization environments to accept it. With that, it would be acceptable to have different interfaces from other technologies, as they are already included in some environments. How are customer service and technical support? We had the possibility of communicating with a Microsoft technician, and their support was satisfactory. How was the initial setup? I cannot answer this question because I joined the project when they had installed Azure Stack on computers used for the projects. What other advice do I have? I would recommend Azure Stack because it is one of the best technologies in this environment and the programs are easy to use. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? Private Cloud Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-04-11T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from User friendly, not code intensive, and secure What is our primary use case? Last year I used the solution to develop phone applications. We did some work with AAD which is the Azure Active Directory. We used the solution to its full potential. What is most valuable? The solution is easy to use, especially for individuals who are not familiar with coding and has security built-in. What needs improvement? The user interface could be more user friendly. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using the solution for more than six years. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? We have a team of five that use the solution in our organization and they do all the development for us. How are customer service and technical support? The support for the solution is very helpful. They are responsive and return with resolutions quickly. How was the initial setup? The installation is easy, there are only a few clicks. What about the implementation team? I did the installation myself. What other advice do I have? I would recommend the solution to others. I rate Azure Stack a nine out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? Public Cloud Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-04-13T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from A highly scalable solution that can be used for migration, application modernization, and cloud-native modernization What is most valuable? We use Azure Stack for migration, application modernization, and cloud-native modernization. What needs improvement? Azure Stack's pricing could be improved. For how long have I used the solution? I have been working with Azure Stack for around four to five years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? I rate Azure Stack a nine out of ten for stability. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Azure Stack is a very scalable solution. I rate Azure Stack ten out of ten for scalability. How was the initial setup? Azure Stack’s initial setup is easy. What other advice do I have? Azure Stack is deployed on-cloud in our organization. I would recommend Azure Stack to other users. Overall, I rate Azure Stack a nine and a half out of ten. Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2023-10-04T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Seamless hybrid cloud solution for peak performance with strong scalability and stability capabilities What is our primary use case? Our businesses have diverse scopes, leading to a wide range of requirements that we use this solution for. These encompass everything from the initial onboarding process in an on-premises environment to aspects like security, analytics, and integration. What is most valuable? The two most crucial aspects of it revolve around connectivity and security. In terms of connectivity, it's vital to ensure seamless external connections, bridging on-premises and cloud environments through features such as site-to-site VPNs and Access Routes. On the other hand, we're prioritizing security, especially with the use of Azure Firewall, including its premium features, as well as SQM. What needs improvement? If I were to mention an area that could be enhanced, it might be technical support, as there have been observations that the response time is not as fast as some of its competitors like Google. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using it for a couple of years now. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It provides excellent stability. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? This solution is highly scalable, with both direct and indirect users numbering over fifty thousand within my business. How are customer service and support? Our experience with their customer support has been excellent. We have an enterprise contract with negotiated terms that include valuable support from subject matter experts and architects. However, there is room for improvement in terms of response times, which we believe could be enhanced. I would rate it eight out of ten. How would you rate customer service and support? Positive Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? We use both Azure and AWS simultaneously in various areas, allowing us to offer a choice to different business units seeking cloud implementation. Both platforms work effectively, and the choice between them depends on the specific needs of the business or project. I don't see inherent advantages or disadvantages between them as they both provide similar capabilities for businesses to carry out their work. If a business is looking for streamlined processes, Azure might be the better choice, while AWS excels in highly technical enablement. How was the initial setup? The initial setup is straightforward and simplified, particularly when following the available documentation. What about the implementation team? The deployment time varies depending on the specific scenarios and features within Azure that we plan to use. Setting up services and connectivity features like extra routes, side-to-side VPNs, and VPN gateways can be time-consuming. Once these components are in place, the core infrastructure within Azure is well-designed, and enabling a particular feature typically takes no more than approximately two weeks. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? Azure stands out for its flexibility with pay-as-you-go options. What other advice do I have? My primary advice would be that if your organization or a client decides to embark on an Azure journey, it's essential to start by going through the Microsoft Learn portal. This resource will provide you with a strong foundation and a head start in understanding and using it effectively. Overall, I would rate it eight out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? Hybrid Cloud If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use? Microsoft Azure Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2023-10-13T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from A comprehensive solution that is worth its money, but certain elements are difficult to deploy What is our primary use case? We are looking to implement asset management of marks and enrollment. What is most valuable? The product is fine. It comes with everything. It is probably the best solution out there. What needs improvement? Certain elements are difficult to deploy. For how long have I used the solution? My organization has been using the solution for a number of years. How was the initial setup? The deployment is probably not easy. Certain elements are easy to deploy, but certain elements aren’t. The ease of deployment depends on the maturity of the technical teams. If they're quite mature and experienced, then it's not too much of an issue. If there is a knowledge or skill gap, then, obviously, it'll be quite an issue. However, if it is a large organization, engaging with Microsoft is probably fine since it can fill in all the gaps for the organization. What about the implementation team? We have a dedicated Microsoft team always working within our organization. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? The product is expensive, but it is fine for the value that the solution produces. What other advice do I have? I work for the government in a department related to leasing infrastructure. We are using the latest version of the product. Intune has recently opened a lot of functionality very similar to Jamf. There's quite a big gap between what Jamf offers and what Intune offers. People planning to use the product should engage with Microsoft quite early on and see what products would benefit them rather than trying to figure it out themselves. It would be good if Intune would offer features aligning with enrollment and asset discovery. Jamf provides these features. Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2023-07-26T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from The solution has a great dashboard, but the services available are limited What is our primary use case? We are providing solutions based on Azure Stack to customers. It has the same interface as Microsoft Azure in a local context. What is most valuable? The admin dashboard is the main feature of the solution. Different services are running on it. What needs improvement? Azure Stack doesn't have all the services available in Microsoft Azure. It would be useful if Azure Stack could be developed to be like Microsoft Azure with all the services. Although Microsoft manages it, not all of Microsoft Azure’s services are available on Azure Stack. When we try to build a solution on Azure Stack, there are some limitations with the services available, most of which are available on Microsoft Azure. Adding more services to Azure Stack will be beneficial for customers. The product doesn’t have a DR solution available locally. The product does not support a local DR either. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using the solution for three years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? I rate the product’s stability an eight out of ten. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten. How are customer service and support? We are getting support through a local partner. How would you rate customer service and support? Neutral How was the initial setup? I rate the ease of initial setup a four out of ten. What about the implementation team? The deployment process took a few weeks. We needed two to three people to deploy the solution. It's an engineered system that comes with everything loaded. Microsoft’s team handles configurations. We only had to handle the equipment and manage it locally. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? Pricing depends on the solutions which we build on. IaaS’s pricing is high. Other services might be competitive. What other advice do I have? I am using the latest version of the product. Azure Stack is an on-premise solution that gives cloud services to customers. We give it as a cloud service to customers. Although it is a fully managed solution from Microsoft, it has limitations. Overall, I rate the product a six out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2023-07-26T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Highly secure and reliable solution What is our primary use case? So we have offered Azure Stack to one of the biggest telco companies here in the Philippines. We have two sites there, and so far, their business has been growing good. They want to deploy more sites here in the Philippines using Azure Stack. What is most valuable? The most valuable features are related to managing Kubernetes cluster nodes. What needs improvement? When it comes to room for improvement, there should be more focus on the user interface, specifically for the management console. In the future release, I would like to see better UI. For how long have I used the solution? I have actually been with HPE for five years now, and we have been a partner of Microsoft Azure's teams even before I joined. So I would say five years. We always use the latest version. The latest is HCI version 21H2. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It is very stable. I would rate it a nine out of ten. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? I would rate the scalability a nine out of ten. Our clients are enterprise businesses. And I think they've been using it for about four years now. How are customer service and support? Sometimes there have been software issues, but customers still need assistance from us, the hardware vendor. So I think the ticketing and issue logging need to be more available. How would you rate customer service and support? Positive How was the initial setup? I would rate the initial setup a seven, where one is difficult, and ten is easy. The deployment took around two to three months. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? If we compare it in the market to other vendors, I think it would be around four out of ten, where one is low, and ten is high. There is additional fees required for support. Which other solutions did I evaluate? I have conducted cost analysis and simulations using AWS, Azure Stack, and Google Cloud. So I've performed several cost analyses based on customer requirements. But I haven't had extensive hands-on experience with those public clouds. What other advice do I have? Overall, I would rate the product a nine out of ten because Azure Stack is very reliable. It's highly available and provides the requirements needed by the customers' applications. It's also very secure. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? Hybrid Cloud Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:partner | Hardware vendor
Date published: 2023-05-16T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Ability to store and process large amounts of data What is our primary use case? We use the analytics side of Azure Stack extensively. I use Azure Stack for advanced analytics, AI machine learning, and business intelligence to report and interpret data. We also use the solution to store our data repositories from a data lake perspective. What is most valuable? The most valuable feature of Azure Stack is its ability to store and process large amounts of data. The analytics side of Azure Stack is pretty influential to our business. What needs improvement? Azure Stack is an expensive product that should be made more cost-effective. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using Azure Stack for five years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? I rate Azure Stack a ten out of ten for stability. Azure Stack is very stable. We just had one glitch in five years, and the glitch was for a couple of hours. So, Azure Stack's stability is very good. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? I rate Azure Stack a ten out of ten for scalability. Azure Stack is very scalable. Around 100 IT users are using Azure Stack in my company. Finance engineers are using it for reporting. From a finance perspective, Azure Stack is extensively used by cost accountants. How was the initial setup? Fortunately, we used a partner to set up Azure Stack instead of doing it ourselves. It was relatively simple for them to set up the solution. If we had done it ourselves, it would be pretty complex. The partners who set up Azure Stack for us have done it for a number of organizations. It was pretty quick, and it took a matter of weeks to set it up. What was our ROI? Azure Stack definitely gave us a return on investment in my previous organization. My previous organization was a mining organization, and the value we got from the system was improved utilization of fleets. We could monitor and improve fleet utilization, which had a monetary return but was never quantified. We managed monthly to increase the utilization closer to a significant eighty percent from about forty or fifty percent. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? Azure Stack has an annual licensing fee, which is very expensive. We pay service costs to the integrator or the partner to support and maintain Azure Stack. What other advice do I have? We have a Microsoft Edge device to transfer data between the cloud and on-premise. However, the backing for Azure Stack is purely cloud-based. The deployment of Azure Stack was done through an integrator. The first step in deploying Azure Stack was to set up the Azure platform in the back end, to put down temporary Edge devices, and then later on, the actual dedicated Edge devices were shipped from Microsoft. Fortunately, the deployment and maintenance of Azure Sack are done by an integration partner. They maintain it, and we pay them a service level agreement. I don't know what they've got operating in the back end, but a relatively small team of no more than five people keeps it running. Regarding Azure Stack, I would ask users to be very mindful of what services they consume. It is like a buffet. So the more services you subscribe to, the higher the cost. So, the cost can escalate quite rapidly. There's a lot of convenience, but it comes at a cost. Overall, I rate Azure Stack an eight out of ten. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2023-05-09T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Good scalability and a business-friendly solution What is our primary use case? We use the solution for its virtual machine features. What needs improvement? The visibility of the solution's SDN feature and transmission policy needs improvement. For how long have I used the solution? We have been using the solution for five years. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? I rate the solution's scalability as a ten. How are customer service and support? Whenever we raise a ticket, it gets addressed immediately by the solution's technical support team. How would you rate customer service and support? Positive How was the initial setup? The solution doesn't need configuration as it is prebuilt on hyper-converged infrastructure. Its deployment takes two to four months to complete. The process involves installing the hardware and network requirements. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? It is not a cost-friendly solution. I rate it a seven for pricing. What other advice do I have? I advise others to appoint premise engineers to manage day to day activity of the solution. I rate it a ten as it is business-friendly and has all the features prebuilt. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:partner
Date published: 2023-05-11T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from A reasonably priced product helpful with everything related to data and analytics What is our primary use case? Our company's customers consume the products installed from Azure Stack, so that is the usage of Azure Stack for our company. Speaking about Azure Stack from a financial perspective, if I have to talk about ERR, it is approximately 4,000 USD per month. What is most valuable? The most valuable features of the solution are related to anything and everything in data and analytics, including data management and Azure ML. What needs improvement? I think the monitoring and operational part, including more administration, must be simplified to simplify user adoption. The challenge in Azure Stack begins at an individual level when you try to monitor every service from Azure Stack that gets consumed. The more the configuration capacity is available in Azure Stack, the more configurable it becomes while becoming easier at a user level and administrator level, thereby helping to optimize the consumption cost. With the road map of Azure Stack, I have, everything looks great. Looking at the way Azure Stack has matured in the market, I feel that the roadmap of Azure Stack is planned pretty well by Azure's product managers. For how long have I used the solution? I have experience with Azure Stack for three to four years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Considering the administration part and scope for improvement, I rate the solution's scalability an eight out of ten since it needs improvement at a user level and administration level regarding its consumption. The administrator does have all the rights, but then there should be some level of configuration needed if you go at an application level or at a service level where a user is using native capabilities of Azure should have an option for the administrator to extend it to the end user also. There are around 15 users of Azure Stack in my company. How are customer service and support? I do contact the solution's technical support when the need for it arises. The solution's technical support is great since, in our company, we get answers to most of our questions, and most of our queries get resolved with the help of the documentation itself. At least at our company's end, based on the services we are working on, we are less likely to depend on the solution's technical support. How was the initial setup? The initial setup of Azure Stack is simple. The solution is deployed on the cloud. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? Azure Stack is a medium-priced product, so it is not overpriced, but the prices may be higher for certain services. Which other solutions did I evaluate? Based on the secondary data or information we got in our company based on the initial evaluation we did, I think the way the instances are spread and made available across the globe makes Azure Stack a relatively easier product compared to its competitors. Azure Stack becomes easier to adopt with the new GDPR and the country-level data privacy or security rules implemented. What other advice do I have? I recommend Azure Stack to those planning to use it. Most of our company's customers who use Azure Stack are happy. I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2023-09-07T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Stable and has excellent technical support What is our primary use case? Our company provides local cloud services with multiple platforms and Azure Stack is one of our platforms. What is most valuable? The most valuable thing about Azure Stack Hub is that it provides the same control panel for managing cloud services and provides the same experience we have with global Azure, for the supported services. What needs improvement? Azure Stack Hub could use some improvement when it comes to seamless support for disaster recovery scenarios or high availability regarding multi-regions (not including global Azure). With Azure Stack Hub, your expansion is limited. If you need to expand your infrastructure, you can't just expand the computing power or the storage capacity. You have to expand both since it is a hyper-converged solution. There are third-party solutions that would allow you to expand storage via iSCSI, but it involves setting configs on third-party systems too. The next release should have improved scalability in terms of having multiple stamps as part of the same region or having the capability to replicate workloads to multiple regions of Azure Stack Hub. For how long have I used the solution? We are a Microsoft CSP and have been using Azure Stack Hub for three years. Our company uses it and our customers use it as well. What do I think about the stability of the solution? We had some issues with Azure's stability but overall I would say that the solution is stable. I give it an eight out of ten. You need to have a stable infrastructure. In case of severe data center issues that affect the platform stability, Microsoft and hardware vendor support have very competent teams and will help you bring the cluster online. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Azure Stack scalability is limited by rack. You can scale and add more capacity within the same rack, but it is limited to 16 nodes. Or add more regions (racks). Scalability is very limited by constraints. I give it a seven out of ten. How are customer service and support? The technical support is excellent but could use a little improvement when it comes to response time. How would you rate customer service and support? Positive How was the initial setup? The initial deployment is done by Microsoft's partners/hardware vendors. It was quite straightforward for us because we just had to provide our tenant credentials, and network resources and start using the platform after it was deployed. It took about a week to deploy it and it was done by a systems engineer. What about the implementation team? Deployment was done by a vendor team. I would rate it a nine out of ten. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? Azure itself is not very pricey since the most expensive parts are hardware and hardware support. We use a consumption-based model and it does not have a fixed time, we just pay for how long we use it. The cost of it depends on the workload. The starting price is $6 per vCPU for a Linux VM monthly, or $34 per vCPU per month for Windows machines. What other advice do I have? My advice to new users would be to consider the business objectives, if you have a Microsoft environment, want to consolidate on a cloud platform, and have sovereign requirements. Apart from that, you need to focus on the value it brings to the operations, rather than the cost of the platform. It's a value approach. If you look at the convenience and speed of implementation, it adds value to the business. Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? Hybrid Cloud If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use? Microsoft Azure Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2023-09-11T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Availability of native tools within Azure, easy to install but room for improvement in security What is our primary use case? We use Microsoft 365 for email, PowerPoint, Word, and Dynamics 365 for financial needs. What is most valuable? I appreciate that all the tools are available natively within Azure. It's all set up nicely. It's all minor. What needs improvement? There is room for improvement in terms of security. The security tooling could be better. It could be easy to drive. The alerts could be a lot quicker in delivery because it's coming out of Azure Stack, it's coming out of their tools. It it could could be a lot better. It could could be a lot more straightforward. Okay. Additionally, having clear pricing in the marketplace would be beneficial. In this marketplace, everything comes with a price tag. If something isn't initially priced, you can try it for free, but we'll let you know the cost after the trial period. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using this solution for a couple of years. I worked with it in my previous position and now in my current one. So, it has been around five years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It is a stable solution. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? For our use cases, the solution is scalable. There are around 300 end users in our company. We mostly work with medium-sized businesses. How are customer service and support? We don't have direct technical support with them; we go through our partners. How was the initial setup? The initial setup is easy. It is in the clear. We have a multi-tenant environment. I can set it up in a few hours, but configuring everything may take a few days. What about the implementation team? We have a service provider that handles the deployment and maintenance of the solution for us. Our experience with the provider was good. Maintenance is easy and fairly straightforward, mainly point-and-click. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? The licensing costs are expensive. I pay on a monthly basis. We pay through our managed partner. So, it's bundled with other services provided by our partner. Which other solutions did I evaluate? In the past, I used AWS. Personally, I prefer Azure Stack because it offers scalability across availability zones, elastic computing, and a robust marketplace with options for bringing your own license. It's user-friendly and has readily available scripts and patterns. Everything is there for me. What other advice do I have? I would advise you to clearly define your objectives and what you want to get out of it. It may not be the silver bullet that you might be looking for, as it requires shared responsibility. Overall, I would rate the solution a seven out of ten. If you look at the documentation set, there are rims and rims of it. You try to drive something from the console, and it's quite complex. It's not it's not easy and straightforward. You've gotta sit down and review it, look at the documentation, and work your way through it. It's not intuitive. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? Private Cloud If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use? Microsoft Azure Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2023-09-14T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from A cheap solution that helps to consolidate existing infrastructure What is most valuable? The solution is cheap and helps consolidate infrastructure to a converged space compatible with medium customers. What needs improvement? Azure Stack needs to improve integrations. For how long have I used the solution? I have been working with the solution for three to four months. What do I think about the stability of the solution? I rate the tool's stability an eight out of ten. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? I rate Azure Stack's deployment a ten out of ten. My company has one customer for the solution. How was the initial setup? I rate the product's deployment a six out of ten. It took about a month's time to complete. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? I rate the tool's pricing a seven out of ten. What other advice do I have? I rate the solution a seven out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:partner
Date published: 2023-09-21T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Effective tool for cloud and on-premise environments that offers seamless deployment What is our primary use case? Azure Stack is a well-suited solution, especially for small to medium-sized businesses. While its scalability for large corporations is still untested, it is an excellent option for smaller enterprises looking to leverage the entire Azure platform. Azure offers a wide range of services, catering to various needs. For those interested in no-code or low-code automation, Microsoft provides the Power Platform, which includes tools like Power Apps for automation, Power Pivot, and more. These are ideal for teams or departments looking to streamline processes. If someone wants to use Azure as an enterprise data platform, they offer good solutions like Azure Data Lake, specifically using ADX Gen 2 for enterprise storage, which is commonly used. It pairs well with Databricks, especially when handling performance-intensive tasks, as Azure Synapse can be expensive for certain scenarios, such as data warehousing. For typical ETL tasks using Azure Data Factory and Azure Data Storage, the costs are quite reasonable. What is most valuable? I believe that Azure's Delta Lake features align with the Azure Lake House architecture, similar to the traditional Medallion architecture, which comprises bronze, silver, and gold layers. This structure is valuable for effective data warehouse management. You can store your raw data in the bronze layer, standardized data in the silver layer, and customized data in the gold layer. Tools like Informatica and Data Factory, which serve as ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) solutions, do a commendable job of connecting to diverse data sources, processing them, and loading them into Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 (ADLS Gen2). Data Factory, in particular, seamlessly integrates with ADLS Gen2, making it a powerful combination for data processing. It offers the option to leverage Azure Databricks on top of this setup. Databricks provides the capability to work with data tables and allows for custom program development using Python, Spark, or SQL. Combining Azure's solutions with Databricks can lead to massive scalability and efficient processing of big data tasks. What needs improvement? It might be beneficial if Microsoft could introduce a more cost-effective data lake feature within their product. Currently, organizations often partner Azure with Databricks to access Spark clusters and in-memory processing capabilities. Databricks, as the creator of Apache Spark and a leading player in distributed computing, is a significant part of many data workflows. If Microsoft could integrate such capabilities into its product offering at a reduced cost, it would enhance competitiveness compared to services like Amazon Redshift and Google BigQuery. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using it for the last ten months. What do I think about the stability of the solution? Based on my ten months of experience, I would rate Azure's stability as seven out of ten. It's important to note that stability can also be influenced by factors such as pricing tiers and other considerations. While there is room for improvement and potential enhancements, I can affirm that Azure's current stability is satisfactory. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? When evaluating Azure's scalability in comparison to Google Cloud, scalability indeed stands out as a crucial factor. It is essential to note that scalability can also be influenced by the availability of services in specific regions. In regions such as the United States and the European Union, which are considered tier-one regions, Microsoft Azure offers a robust array of cloud services and resources, making scalability quite feasible. However, for Azure to enhance its scalability further, it may need to expand its presence by increasing the availability of services in additional regions and zones. To address this, Azure could consider expanding its services into regions like India and China, where there is a growing demand for cloud resources. This expansion would contribute to Azure's ability to scale effectively and cater to a more extensive global user base. I would rate it seven out of ten. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? Before Azure Stack and the cloud solutions, many organizations followed a gradual evolution in their data processing journey. Initially, they relied on traditional data warehousing solutions like enterprise data warehouses. Over time, teams began transitioning towards big data technologies, such as Hadoop and HBase. Subsequently, they shifted their focus to Spark-based processing for more advanced data analytics. Now, the trend has moved towards cloud-based solutions, with options like AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure offering similar capabilities. In our current organization, we've adopted Azure as our enterprise solution, making a transition from Teradata. In my past roles with a different organization, we embraced Google Cloud after progressing from big data and Spark processing. This incremental journey showcases how organizations adapt their data processing strategies to leverage evolving technologies and cloud platforms. How was the initial setup? The initial setup was straightforward. I would rate it eight out of ten. What about the implementation team? In general, the time required to prepare and set up a solution can vary based on the specific context. When approaching Azure as an individual user, signing up and creating a billing account can be a straightforward process. This enables you to deploy Azure services promptly for individual use. If you are dealing with the adoption of cloud services at an enterprise scale or within an organization, the setup process becomes more complex. Organizations often have their procedures in place. They might have dedicated teams, such as a cloud operations team or an infrastructure demand intake team, responsible for handling these setups. Consequently, the deployment timeline and process can be influenced by the organization's specific SLAs (Service Level Agreements) and the way their cloud engineering operations are structured. For instance, an individual user looking to use Azure for learning purposes can get started quickly, as it's a matter of setting up a billing account and accessing cloud services. But when an organization, such as Cisco, a healthcare provider, or Philips, wishes to use Azure at scale, they establish their setup processes. This includes how they manage demand intake, define SLAs, and handle resource provisioning. Therefore, the time it takes to deploy infrastructure or services within such organizations can vary significantly, often taking several weeks. It is important to note that this timeline is dictated by the organization's policies and procedures rather than a limitation of Azure as a product. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? When comparing Azure to Amazon and Google, it appears that Azure offers the most cost-effective solution. This cost-efficiency is primarily tied to consumption-based billing, where you pay for what you use. Azure's billing processes are straightforward, and they provide their own monitoring and billing tools to help users accurately track and manage their usage. I would rate it one out of ten. Which other solutions did I evaluate? In large organizations, it is common to have dedicated teams for various tasks. For instance, there might be a research team, an economic analysis team, and a solution architecture team. These teams collaborate to make informed decisions. In our case, we conducted a comprehensive comparative study involving Google Cloud, AWS, and Azure. We determined that Azure was the preferred solution for most of our requirements. However, when it came to demanding analytics workloads, particularly in the realm of AI and machine learning, we opted for AWS due to its robust capabilities in that domain. What other advice do I have? When considering the suitability of Azure, it largely depends on the complexity of the use case. For data analytics teams with a headcount ranging from ten thousand to fifteen thousand, Azure proves to be a highly effective solution. However, for large-scale processing, the choice might vary, especially depending on the industry. Sectors like automotive or pharmaceutical could comfortably opt for Azure as their primary platform, although specific teams within these industries might still require high-end processing solutions like Google BigQuery or Amazon Redshift. Azure stands out for its user-friendliness and intuitiveness, making it an excellent choice for those looking to get started quickly. It's notably easier to use compared to AWS and Google Cloud, offering straightforward solutions that require minimal training. I would rate it eight out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? Public Cloud If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use? Microsoft Azure Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.customer
Date published: 2023-09-26T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Though the solution offers great features like scalability and ease of use, the setup phase needs to be made easier What is our primary use case? My company uses Azure Stack to host the records management software. What is most valuable? The most valuable features of the solution are scalability, ease of use, and its ongoing maintenance process that takes away a lot of trouble when one has to do an on-premises installation. What needs improvement? I feel that Azure Stack has so many different variables which are not very clear. Unless you have a great deal of knowledge or a really good integrator, you may encounter a few surprises when you begin with the implementation phase of Azure Stack. In general, the initial setup phase of Azure Stack is an area with concern that needs improvement. The initial setup affected me the most from the point of view of the cost structures related to Azure Stack. I can't comment if I would like to see any additional functionalities added to the solution since I currently don't use even 10 percent of its capabilities. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using Azure Stack for six months. My company just uses the product internally. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The product has remained stable so far in our company. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? It is a scalable solution. There are around 30 users of the product in our company, and I get it to the needs of approximately 250 clients of our company who use the solution. My company does not necessarily plan to increase the use of the solution in the near future. The usage of the solution will organically grow if required. How are customer service and support? I have faced no issues with the technical support provided by Microsoft. I haven't had direct contact with Microsoft since it is the vendor from Microsoft that provides me with good technical support. I rate the technical support an eight out of ten. How would you rate customer service and support? Positive Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? I currently use Fortinet FortiGate. I haven't previously worked with products similar to Azure Stack since every product in our company was deployed on an on-premises model. How was the initial setup? The solution was initially deployed on an on-premises model, and currently, my company is shifting the product to the cloud. The solution's implementation phase took place over a span of approximately two and a half months. People from Azure managed the deployment of the solution in our company from their end, so I don't know the efforts people put in to deploy the solution. What about the implementation team? I have a consultant who takes care of the deployment, configuration, and migration part of the solution. I haven't faced any issues with the solution's deployment, configuration, and migration phases since I got help from a third-party integrator, who was very helpful. What was our ROI? I have not seen any return on investment from the use of the solution in my company. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? Azure Stack's price falls on the higher side of the spectrum. The licensing costs for Azure Stack in our region range somewhere between 40,000 to 50,000 USD. Though my company makes monthly payments towards the licensing costs of Azure Stack, I have plans to purchase a three-year plan in the future. The licensing costs for Azure Stack include the cost of the additional facilities it provides, like maintenance and support. What other advice do I have? I am satisfied with the overall product. I recommend those who plan to use the product in the future to do their homework and learn everything about it before purchasing it. I rate the overall product a seven out of ten. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2023-09-26T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from A portfolio of products that extend Azure services and capabilities to your environment of choice What is our primary use case? We primarily utilize Azure Stack for hybrid cloud deployments, mainly for scaling up compute resources quickly when needed. This involves spinning up instances on the public cloud, specifically Azure, to manage workloads distributed across on-premises and the public cloud. Additionally, we employ Azure Stack for certain floor-based or edge computing solutions, particularly in locations such as factories, to store, maintain, and support specific operations. Azure Stack serves a crucial role in our hybrid cloud strategy because we can't place all our data in the public cloud for various reasons. One key use case for Azure Stack is data localization, especially in countries like Australia and Denmark where strict data regulations are in place. For applications and data that cannot leave the country, we rely on Azure Stack to maintain and manage them locally. Meanwhile, for other workloads, we leverage the public cloud, predominantly Azure, to meet our requirements. What is most valuable? One of the features I really appreciate is the Hybrid Cloud Extension UI. It simplifies the management of workloads across on-premises, public cloud, and edge locations through a single interface. This functionality streamlines the management process for me. Another aspect I find valuable is the consistency Azure Stack offers. It provides a uniform experience, from service names to user interface, whether I'm working in the cloud, on-premises, or at the edge. This consistency is crucial in managing various deployment scenarios. Lastly, Azure Stack's ability to function in isolated or remote areas, such as factory and plant locations with limited network connectivity, is highly valuable. This synced operation capability ensures smooth operations even in challenging environments. What needs improvement? One aspect that I consider a drawback is the cost associated with Azure Stack, as its deployment expenses tend to be on the higher side compared to other solutions. Another significant challenge is integration, especially with third-party products. While Azure Stack seamlessly integrates with Microsoft's own tools and platforms, there is room for improvement in its compatibility with third-party solutions. Lastly, although updating and patching Azure Stack is more straightforward than in older Windows versions, there is still room for enhancement in the upgrade and patch management process. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using the solution for more than 18 months. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It is definitely stable and I would rate it nine or eight out of ten. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? It's a bit complex to scale and I would rate it a seven out of ten. How are customer service and support? The customer service is good. How would you rate customer service and support? Positive Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? The reason we lean towards Azure Stack over competitors is that it offers strong integration with the public cloud, specifically Azure. Many of our clients use Microsoft 365, and this leads to a significant presence of Azure workloads. Additionally, a substantial portion of our servers run on Windows. These factors make Azure Stack a favorable choice for us. When comparing it to Nutanix, Azure Stack stands out in terms of its integration with the public cloud and, in some cases, cost-effectiveness. How was the initial setup? The initial setup is moderate, not extremely simple but not very complex. It is hybrid but depends on the requirements of the client. The percentage of workloads on Azure Stack varies across our customers, ranging from ten percent to sixty percent. We opt for Azure Stack as a hybrid solution when a customer has some workloads on the public cloud. Typically, we set up Azure Stack in an on-premises data center and migrate workloads from existing environments, such as VMware or Hyper-V, to Azure Stack. However, if the workloads are primarily for the public cloud, we migrate them directly to the public cloud. The choice between Azure Stack and public cloud migration depends on various factors, including connectivity, compliance, costs, and other specific requirements. In essence, our Azure Stack environments are hybrid, with around thirty to forty percent of workloads residing on-premises and the remaining fifty to sixty percent in the public cloud. I would rate it a seven out of ten. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? The pricing falls in the middle. It serves as a mediator between being expensive and being affordable, but it's not exactly cheap either. I would rate it a six out of ten. What other advice do I have? I would overall rate it an eight out of ten. Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2023-09-19T00:00:00-04:00

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