Quick tech specs
- Supports Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processor
- Runtime Firmware Verification
- Industry Standard Technology
- With MS Azure Stack Node
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.
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HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen10 Server with MS Azure Stack Node is rated
4.20 out of
5 by
20.
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Robert Urech 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
reviewer1070739 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
reviewer1405461 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
Gordon NG 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
reviewer1426680 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
Venugopal Varadarajan 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
Venugopal Varadarajan 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
reviewer1456617 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
Ibrahim Rasras 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
reviewer1109874 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
reviewer973659 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
Chetan Jayatheertha 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
Prannay Srivastava 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
Victor Filho 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
Ayman Abdel Hady 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
Cariappa M 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
Oan-Ali 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
reviewer1994934 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
Jari Lähteenmäki 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
Waqas Manzoor 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