Microsoft Azure cloud hosting , is it any good ?

[justwondering]

I was looking today at Microsofts Azure cloud hosting , the pay as you go plan looks great based on the prices and the way it scales....

But i guess the servers will not be in the UK ....

But as a newbie to cloud hosting , for UK sites is it still important to ideally use a UK host , or with cloud hosting , does it not really matter , due to it been in the so called "cloud"

Does anyone know if Azure has the usual Cpanel type option on the cheaper plans?

Advice please.

http://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/pricing/

 

[AssetDomains]

I doubt you'll get cpanel as standard on most Cloud hosting providers there more aimed at people who need there own servers.
That being said if you install the right Linux distribution you can run cpanel there single user licenses arnt all that cheap though

For cloud in general look at DigitalOcean prices are about the best around you can choose UK, US or EU datacentres. You can use something like serverpilot to quickly get basic hosting databases etc set up.

Its more complex than cpanel for sure but they have tons of amazing guides if you run into any issues

 

[justwondering]

Hi , Thank you for your reply , i must admit , i did a google first , but pretty much hit the old data like your good self...

But the Cpanel was more for setting up wordpress , which it appears is supported by Azure , so that is good news.

I have found out a little bit more , Azure appear to have 8 data centers around the world (based on 2014 info) 2 of those based in Europe and it appears as if you can choose the server location , but of course where abouts in Europe , one of those in London would be great , but not sure where they are at the moment.

I might even give the 1 800 number a call and gather further details .

 

[PoshTiger]

I think you'll find that it's the same as Office 365 - Dublin and Amsterdam.

It's not really designed for web hosting though - you can install apache / php on windows but it's a real pain in the arse tbh and I wouldn't recommend it, especially if you're going to be installing 3rd party extensions like ImageMagick.

Stick to linux based servers from a host that will support it as Asset suggested.