IBM Power Virtual Server vs. Microsoft Azure

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM Power Virtual Server
Score 7.3 out of 10
N/A
IBM presents their Power Systems Virtual Server as a scalable, cost-effective way to run IBM AIX, IBM i and Linux workloads​.N/A
Microsoft Azure
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform and infrastructure for building, deploying, and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters.
$29
per month
Pricing
IBM Power Virtual ServerMicrosoft Azure
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Developer
$29
per month
Standard
$100
per month
Professional Direct
$1000
per month
Basic
Free
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM Power Virtual ServerMicrosoft Azure
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional DetailsThe free tier lets users have access to a variety of services free for 12 months with limited usage after making an Azure account.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
IBM Power Virtual ServerMicrosoft Azure
Features
IBM Power Virtual ServerMicrosoft Azure
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Product A and Product B
IBM Power Virtual Server
8.5
Ratings
6% above category average
Microsoft Azure
8.5
Ratings
6% above category average
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime8.70 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Dynamic scaling8.30 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Elastic load balancing8.70 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Pre-configured templates8.50 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Monitoring tools8.30 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Pre-defined machine images8.40 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Operating system support8.50 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Security controls8.80 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Automation8.30 Ratings8.00 Ratings
User Ratings
IBM Power Virtual ServerMicrosoft Azure
Likelihood to Recommend
8.2
(0 ratings)
8.9
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.9
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.2
(0 ratings)
9.5
(0 ratings)
Availability
7.0
(0 ratings)
6.8
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.1
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.0
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Configurability
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM Power Virtual ServerMicrosoft Azure
Likelihood to Recommend
Due to its reliability, it is well-suited for mission-critical applications. It is also well suited for running multiple applications on a single server and fully utilizing the server's full capacity. However, it is not well suited for servers that require dedicated IO resources.
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Actually, migrating to Microsoft Azure is a good solution for almost any situation, especially when all components of your network are ready to become cloud-based. The only drawback I personally encounter frequently is that older software packages cannot always be easily picked up and moved to Microsoft Azure in an optimal manner.
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Pros
  • It is good in managing our documents in a precise manner.
  • It is a comprehensive tool and supports other languages like JAVA and Python and it is useful for us.
  • It is quite a valuable tool available at a reasonable price in the market and it is a scalable tool.
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  • Azure simply provides end to end life cycle. Starting from the development to automated deployment, you will find [a] bunch of options. Custom hook-points allow [integration] on-premise resources as well.
  • Excellent documentation around all the services make it really easy for any novice. Overall support by [the] community and Azure Technical team is exceptional.
  • BOT Services, Computer Vision services, ML frameworks provide excellent results as compare to similar services provided by other giants in the same space.
  • Azure data services provide excellent support to ingest data from different sources, ETL, and consumption of data for BI purpose.
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Cons
  • The software appears to be geared for a no-programming approach, which implies that making changes is more difficult.
  • The user base is small making it monotonous and difficult to come up with new methods.
  • The number of rankings is not as large as competitors.
  • The admin end is poorly designed, as they are unable to receive and respond to client feedback.
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  • In our experience, Azure Kubernetes Survice was difficult to set up, which is why we used Kubernetes on top of VMs.
  • Azure REST API is a bit difficult to use, which made it difficult for us to automate our interactions with Azure.
  • Azure's Web UI does a good job of showing metrics on individual VMs, but it would be great if there was a way to show certain metrics from multiple VMs on one dashboard. For example, hard drive usage on our database VMs.
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Likelihood to Renew
At the moment we are 100% satisfied with the performance and our support team is well used to the process involved. So unless we have some major issues in adopting, we are sure to be with IBM itself.
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We have been very satisfied with Windows Azure and now a lot of our business depends on it as more teams are now deploying their applications into Azure. Our next step is to have our Infrastructure team move their resources to Azure. It will take awhile for that to happen but we are positive that it will.
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Usability
I would rate IBM Power Virtual Server’s overall usability as an 8 out of 10. The platform offers a solid interface and intuitive dashboard, making it relatively easy for users with cloud experience to navigate. Its scalability and flexibility are strong points. However, the learning curve for new users can be steep, especially when dealing with complex integrations or configurations. While documentation and support are extensive, some users may find the setup process challenging. Overall, it’s highly functional but could be streamlined further for beginners.
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Microsoft Azure's overall usability has been better than expected. Often times vendors promise the world, only to leave you with a run-down town. Not the case with our experience. From an implementation perspective, all went perfect, and from the user-facing experience we have had no technical issues, just some learning curve issues that are more about "why" than "how"
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Reliability and Availability
Very easy to use.
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It has proven to be unreliable in our production environment and services become unavailable without proper notification to system administrators
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Performance
Easy to use.
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
As with most IBM products the ongoing support for IBM Power Virtual Server is solid and consistent. IBM provides a clear roadmap for receiving support of their products. Both voice and online response is offered. It is obvious that IBM has the internal systems and culture to maintain support functions. This starts from the initial support call to the problem analysis and continues through the problem resolution. Documentation and communication are consistent within this process.
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Support is easy with all the knowledge base articles available for free on the web. Plus, if you have a preferred status you can leverage their concierge support to get rapid response. Sometimes they’ll bounce you around a lot to get you to the right person, but they are quite responsive (especially when you are paying for the service). Many of the older Microsoft skills are also transferable from old-school on-prem to Azure-based virtual interfaces.
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Implementation Rating
It is economic.
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As I have mentioned before the issue with my Oracle Mismatch Version issues that have put a delay on moving one of my platforms will justify my 7 rating.
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Alternatives Considered
There were different factors which were involved in terms of evaluating IBM as a preferred choice over other offering because of performance and reliability in terms of high performance computing and overall enterprise great feature in terms of critical application which outperforms or maybe beat any time other offerings like AWS system manager data availability is one more in terms of disaster recovery solution and high availability feature the kind of offering IBM provide was way more than in terms of other fujitsu server.
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I feel that Microsoft Azure typically outperforms Google Cloud Platform in hybrid cloud capabilities, integration aspects, and, primarily, security compliance features. Azure offered superior integration with Microsoft's enterprise software ecosystem, and it's second to none in my opinion. This made it the natural choice for most, especially if heavily invested in Windows, Office 365, or Active Directory deployments. We chose Azure over GCP because we simply needed Windows workload support as a strong driver, more access to global regions, and let's not forget that most tech teams in an organization are Microsoft Certified, which makes skillset transfer from on-prem to cloud a minimal learning curve over shifting to a different provider.
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Scalability
I would rate IBM Cognos Analytics’ scalability as a 9 out of 10. The platform is highly capable of handling large volumes of data and supporting thousands of users with ease. Its architecture is designed for high performance, though it may require fine-tuning for extremely complex data environments to maintain optimal performance.
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • We have had a return on investment of 30%.
  • There have also been 80% fewer application crashes due to a lack of resources that previously ran on the X86 platform.
  • Administration management has been simplified and staff can dedicate themselves to the development of applications, instead of providing support to users when the applications do not respond efficiently, this made staff 45% more productive.
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  • Times and growth went into it. By balancing on-premises maintenance with continuous cloud improvements, we’ve budgeted and planned endlessly increased capacity.
  • In today’s world of cyber-crime, clients can put even more faith in what they’ve heard. We built an innovative single-sign-on hub for all users. Also, other business platforms use Azure application gateways, reducing worker switching time and increasing productivity.
  • Its step can automate to improve the investment. In addition, we can integrate our organization’s credentials into an authorization for other systems.
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