Microsoft Azure

Let’s talk about a lesser-known content delivery network – the one provided by Microsoft themselves. You’d think that the CDN of one of the greatest tech companies of all time would be more popular, but I don’t see them on anyone’s top five list. I personally don’t even think of them when someone mentions content delivery. Microsoft’s marketing team for software solutions has been oriented towards big corporate offices ever since the late 80s. Microsoft Office basically keeps them afloat, but their biggest users are accountancy companies – not smut networks. We prefer things cheap and simple.

Granted, it’s nice to pay extra for security and performance, but there are tons of other alternatives that aren’t nearly as expensive and that cater to you specifically. Hell, as a porn webmaster, you could just go for a porn themed content delivery network or even embed external videos from PornHub. That’s why I think it’s unlikely you’ve even considered Microsoft’s CDN solution. It falls under their Azure package and it’s available as a single package, or in combination with their other hosting solutions and it is indeed top-notch quality. So, the question then becomes: What’s the point of the Azure CDN for you? What’s the appeal? Should you consider signing up with the software magnates at all? Those are the questions I’ll try to break down for you.

Complicated Pricing Explanations

I understand that it can’t be easy to put a price on quality content delivery, especially internationally. Amazon’s offers are similarly priced and explained, but their landing pages didn’t make me want to put a gun to my head. Azure’s breakdowns on the CDN pricing is so convoluted you have to read a bit, then scroll down to the FAQ, read the FAQ, cross-reference geographic pricing then scroll back the fuck up to the prices. This is a chore. A second rate web designer could have figured out an easier way to deliver this information. Instead, you get annoying scrolling through their pricing with a huge table that you’ll never memorize, because it uses a ton of decimals.

In their efforts to offer better performance than their competition, Microsoft actually made their CDN much more complicated to use and to explain. For example, they’ve got classic CDN functionality and accelerated data transfer. These are also called Dynamic Site Acceleration or DSA for short. DSA differs from conventional CDN solutions in that it prioritizes speed for data types that are impossible to cache. This is reserved for data that is unique to every customer, as opposed to the kind of data you can serve en masse. Did you get all that? I did, after the migraine went away. I’m glad that they’ve got different kinds of content delivery methods to optimize for speed, but surely they could have done a better job explaining all this.

The Pricing is Dynamic

I’m getting all of this information from the fucking pricing page, mind you. I’m not neck-deep in the fine print or anything. You’re literally expected to read all of this shit and use a calculator to figure out how much you’re going to be spending if you sign up with them. Again, Amazon does something similar. Both of these services are built to be dynamic. You pay for the bandwidth and the storage you use up, instead of having to pay in advance and hope that you’ll make use of your package. At first glance, this seems like a genius solution. You only get charged for what you use and not a penny more.

Except, you pay for this privilege by having to sift through one annoying table after another in order to figure out what the fuck you’re going to be using. It’s not as simple as just putting in an amount in gigabytes per month and getting a number spat back out. Nah, fam. Tons of tables. At the very least, Amazon had a simple calculator for this crap. It was a bit bloated, but it let you add in features as you needed them and you’d get a straight-up price total at the end, like a cart sum. That’s what customers are looking for.

Good Luck Calculating

Microsoft’s calculator gave me eye strain. It’s funny because it’s almost identical to Amazon’s, except it kind of feels like it didn’t go through Q&A. The calculator for Azure’s CDN is painful to look at. It’s all set against a pure white background with thin black lettering and a huge list breakdown of offers and configurations that you don’t have a fucking about. I mean, I’m an established webmaster already. You’d think that I’d be more than able to fill in a pricing template inside a CDN calculator.

First of all, they have seven different types of storage. One of them is called a “storage account”. Another one is called “StorSimple”. So, are these two similar services? Far from it, my dude. I guess it’s time to break open the Microsoft fine print, which reads like legalese and goes down harder than a spoonful of nails. Figuring out the exact package you need on this damn website is a fucking nightmare. I’ve never needed a “dummies” section in my life, but even I have to admit when I’ve been beaten. Microsoft has done me in. I can’t figure out their website.

Hire an Expert

The only way you’re going to make heads or tails of this fucking service is if you get your hands on a freelancer whose entire life goal so far has been to try and make sense of Microsoft’s ass-backwards naming conventions and pricing solutions. Find one of these keyboard jockeys on a freelancing website and have them do the work for you. Yes, I’m literally suggesting that you should hire someone to perform the initial sign-up for you. Failing that, you could reach out to Microsoft’s sales team and send them a breakdown of your monthly throughput and the type of content you serve.

It should be simple enough on your end. Just compile an average of your content delivery amounts and the size of your storage. Make sure to also write down where you’re piping that data to. You can see that information in your audience demographics. It makes a huge difference, since the pricing varies wildly depending on where the content is funneled. Again, Amazon operates the same way. As far as I can tell, delivering content to the USA is cheapest, then the prices just get more expensive the further out you go.

Reasons to Sign Up

Do you want maximal peace of mind bolstered by the latest security features available at all times? That’s what Azure brings to the table. Microsoft has been at the forefront of software development as pioneers of the industry in every corporate field since before the invention of the internet. They might not have been the first great name in computing, but they’ve certainly been the most influential. To this day, they’re a staple among corporate circles. That being said, their name is also synonymous with the legacy approach – meaning they overcomplicate everything that they do, under the excuse that they’re just being thorough. God forbid they simplify a product package.

Compared to alternatives like Amazon, Microsoft is indeed ahead, but not by a lot. Their CDN is far from their flagship product on the top corporate level, so it’s not like they’re trading blows with Amazon or anything. Their other competitors like Cloudflare can’t push them off the market either, so there’s not a lot of cutthroat competition here. Microsoft’s CDN is roughly the best, but not by a lot and that’s the bottom line here.

Reasons to Stay Away

You’re a porn webmaster. Need I say more? The chances of Microsoft being OK with your business model are slim to none. And no, you can’t quote me on that. Mainstream companies have been moving away from pornographic media as much as humanly possible in recent years. It’s not that they hate porn or anything – they’re just putting on a face for companies that are opting out to save face. PayPal was the latest giant to move the fuck away from the adult industry. Who’s to say that Microsoft won’t do the same, en masse?

As it currently stands, as long as your business model is on the up and up, you shouldn’t be incompatible with Microsoft’s CDN. Everything should be fine. The keyword here is “should”, as in, I can’t guarantee it and neither can they. On the other hand, if you sign-up with a porn-oriented CDN, they can’t just get rid of you on account of you being involved in porn. It’s in the name, right? My advice is the same as the one I gave you under my review of Amazon. Get a quote, crunch your numbers and figure out your bottom line. If Microsoft gives you a reasonable offer, fuck it, try your luck.