Microsoft Azure SQL Database Reviews

My main use cases for Microsoft Azure SQL Database are OLTP and OLAP, as well as ODS for applications.

There has been an impact on my company's operations in AI operations because of Microsoft Azure SQL Database; we are slowly scaling that up.

The impact of the automatic tuning feature on my database performance has increased performance while keeping costs at realistic levels, and it has removed some of the engineering workloads for our DBAs who would have had to worry about manually performing tuning.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database's security features have made a good impact on my data protection strategy; the integration with Purview and everything has made it a lot easier to perform data governance and lineage management for us.

The biggest return on investment from my point of view when using Microsoft Azure SQL Database is not having to worry about actual physical infrastructure and being able to scale based on application needs; if it's a small app, we can have a dedicated database and minimal spend on it, whereas if it's a significant one, we don't have to lay out all the capital expenses. It's all OpEx-based, so it really scales well with the business.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database has absolutely helped me reduce my company's total cost of ownership.

My impressions of Microsoft Azure SQL Database's ability to scale workloads are fantastic; I've never had an issue.

The features of Microsoft Azure SQL Database that I like the most are easy scaling and high availability.

I appreciate those features because it's easy to make Microsoft Azure SQL Database readily available in a multi-region infrastructure.

Using Microsoft Azure SQL Database is very easy; it's much easier than SQL on-premise because I don't have to worry about deploying infrastructure, and I can rapidly deploy via infrastructure as code.

I am using the automatic tuning feature in Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

We are using the new feature of data encryption in Microsoft Azure SQL Database with customer-managed keys only.

The reliability and stability of Microsoft Azure SQL Database platform are rock-solid; it's as good, if not better, than what our on-premise stability has been from an uptime perspective.

I am very happy with Microsoft Azure SQL Database; I don't think there's anything in particular I would change, except to make it cheaper.

I have been using Microsoft Azure SQL Database for eight years.

The resources or support from Microsoft that I have found particularly helpful are our CSAs assigned to our account team; they have been invaluable for that.

I would commend JD Grillo, Mike Petrowski, Phil Feinberg, our main account CTO; they have been instrumental in building out our Azure infrastructure.

From one to ten, I would rate the customer service and technical support of Microsoft an eight to nine; it's good most of the time. We're a big company, and we always have some growing pains, but I would say particularly from our account team's perspective, they're top-notch.

Positive

I was not really using another solution to address similar needs before choosing Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

The setup costs and licensing for Microsoft Azure SQL Database are minimal; it's pay-as-you-go, so we don't have to worry about the licensing costs.

I have not faced any challenges during the implementation or migration of Microsoft Azure SQL Database; it's one of the easier ones to migrate.

Microsoft expertise in SQL Servers was very important when considering cloud database options.

Realistically, it's about ten percent; we're looking to scale that higher.

I don't have an exact percentage, but it's about fifteen to twenty percent off of our standard deployments, particularly across our multiple SDLC environments.

The setup costs and licensing for Microsoft Azure SQL Database are minimal; it's pay-as-you-go, so we don't have to worry about the licensing costs.

I have considered other solutions along the way; we have looked at the other clouds from that perspective, but we're Azure-first.

The reason we're Azure-first is our expertise, and we're trying to get really good at one cloud before we move on to others.

My impressions of Microsoft Azure SQL Database's ability to power next-generation AI applications are that it's getting there; it's not as good as Cosmos DB right now, but we're seeing significant improvements in Microsoft Azure SQL Database space.

My experience with the backup and restore functionalities of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is that they are very straightforward and easy to use.

My advice for other companies that are considering Microsoft Azure SQL Database is that it's a great opportunity to reduce on-premise dependencies; it's an easy lift and shift to a modern platform. If you're looking for a way to begin your cloud adoption journey and start making an adoption move, Microsoft Azure SQL Database is a great way to start. I would rate this product a nine out of ten.

We are looking at a reduction in costs of maybe 30 to 50%, depending on the customer and the use case, so that's what we're considering for a ballpark figure.

In our testing, it has been promising, and we are definitely going to move forward with it.

The specific benefits I see so far mainly involve cost; we want to get away from the bulk of the cost for Azure SQL Managed Instances. When we go to Microsoft Azure SQL Database, we'll be able to achieve that cost efficiency while also scaling up and down dynamically.

The impact of automatic tuning on our database performance has shown us how we can scale up and down dynamically for cost efficiencies, so it's been a big factor in that regard.

The Microsoft Azure SQL Database security features have a significant impact on our data protection strategies because we try to lock it down from public access, which is important for security for our customers and for us as well; it's a big feature that we lean on quite a bit.

I assess the reliability of Microsoft Azure SQL Database in terms of maintaining uptime and availability as good; there are more options and more flexibility with Microsoft Azure SQL Database than there are with Managed Instances, so we are looking forward to that as well.

I am impressed because if we have a bigger customer with a larger database, we must be able to scale it up to meet the demand for all their customers trying to make payments online or whatnot; for our smaller customers, we can scale it down to achieve that cost benefit.

Our estimate for how much it will reduce total cost of ownership is probably 30 to 50%, which is what we're aiming for.

In terms of ease of use, I assess Microsoft Azure SQL Database as easy to use; it's just the migration of our database that presents a few challenges that we're having to change as developers, but it's a process we're getting through.

My impressions of Microsoft Azure SQL Database's ability to power next-generation AI applications are still developing; we are just now dipping our toes in AI, and we're probably still a year or two away from integrating it fully, so I don't know much about its capabilities on that front just yet.

I am using the automatic tuning feature in Microsoft SQL, and it's a great aspect of the platform.

The primary reason I want to reduce the cost of ownership with Microsoft Azure SQL Database is that it offers more flexibility regarding scaling, and it fits our product better than what it is today versus what it was 20 years ago with the same back end that we had.

During the migration or implementation of Microsoft Azure SQL Database, I didn't really find any challenges; as far as Microsoft Azure SQL Database itself goes, there are some database changes to manage, but there are really no issues with SQL to begin with; it works for us, and we have a team that manages it, so it's a good spot for us.

Microsoft's expertise in SQL Server was very important when considering cloud database options; our database is legacy right now with the way it's designed, so we're still moving towards Microsoft Azure SQL Database. There are a lot of steps to get there, but we are making progress.

Regarding Microsoft's expertise in SQL servers and databases, we haven't really leaned on them much yet; we've got a developer team of about 21 or 22, and they're pretty good with SQL, but we haven't had to reach out.

I would rate Microsoft Azure SQL Database overall as a solution and a database at a nine on a scale of one to ten. A nine is my rating, and what would make it a ten for me is maybe cost, as cost can always come down, and that's always a factor.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database serves as a structured relational database for everyday database usage. My team and I build applications, often conversational AI and generative AI applications. Whatever we are building, we need to store relational data somewhere, either for the app to run independently or for logging and auditing purposes.

The features of Microsoft Azure SQL Database that I appreciate most are how simple it is to integrate with other Microsoft SQL-based integrations and applications. Most of our customers are established organizations with a long history of working with us. They still have a lot of on-premise Microsoft SQL Servers, and some have migrated to Azure SQL Managed Instances. The platform-as-a-service offering provides a seamless journey for customers who do not want to deal with the typical legacy Microsoft on-premise SQL Server setup. We can reuse a lot of existing integrations with SQL Server and reuse a lot of the tooling from SQL Server, and it is just nice and flexible.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database can be easy to use. On a scale of one to five, five being really easy and one being not easy, I would probably rate it a four. I cannot really say why it is not five, as I do not rate anything as a ten out of ten or a five out of five, but it is very easy to use.

The biggest return on investment from my perspective when using Microsoft Azure SQL Database comes from how easy it is to set up and how much of a foundation it already has in terms of being a trusted platform. Most of our return on investment comes from the fact that it is a tried and tested platform. There are lots of people around, both in my organization and the customers that we work for, who are very familiar with it. So it does not matter that we are building a completely new solution or a completely new application; the data layer beneath it is still that tried and tested, trustworthy platform that people are familiar with. Our return on investment is that we do not have to spend too much time training new people on the next new platform. It is something that people already know.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database can be improved overall by being able to compete with some of the features that come from things such as PostgreSQL. From my team's perspective in terms of building AI applications, more native integrations with some of the newer AI data types, such as vectors for storing embeddings, would be beneficial. I think all of that is coming. It is just a big product, so I think it is naturally a little bit behind the curve. However, that is not necessarily a bad thing because a lot of customers, because it has been around for so long, they trust it and they are willing to wait until those features become available.

I have been using Microsoft Azure SQL Database for probably close to five or six years.

I would assess the reliability of Microsoft Azure SQL Database in terms of maintaining uptime and availability as being excellent with zero complaints. I have never had an outage or a problem affect us. Even though for the most part we typically do zone-based redundancy within one region and very rarely do we have the need to go beyond that into a geo-redundant setup, despite that and obviously the lower SLA and lower redundancy that we get with that, we have never had any problems.

The ability to scale workloads with Microsoft Azure SQL Database is great. Going back to using the dev and then the testing and then the production environment and being able to identify demand and bandwidth constraints and how much anticipated usage we get across the different environments. Being able to scale up and down based on different rules such as traffic and also being able to do that manually, the scaling features that are available within Microsoft Azure SQL Database and Microsoft SQL Server are great. I have not really had any problems with it.

I would rate the customer service and technical support of Microsoft Azure SQL Database as an eight out of ten. I have personally never had any issues with the platform, so I have never had to go through the process of logging a support ticket or getting IT support from Microsoft for SQL specifically. However, for colleagues who have, and generally speaking more about the Azure platform as a whole, the experience is usually pretty good and I have never had an issue or a problem that could not be resolved.

Positive

I have always used Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Azure SQL Database; I was not using another solution to address similar needs before choosing Microsoft Azure SQL Database. This comes down to familiarity and what our customers tend to use. It is only more recently, in the last year, that we have been expanding beyond that to things such as PostgreSQL. We still use it quite a lot, but more recently we have been looking at other services.

I faced no challenges during the migration or implementation of Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

I would say Microsoft SQL Server has probably helped reduce my company's total cost of ownership. I sit in the wrong team to answer that question properly, but I know that we use SQL Server both on-premise and in Azure. From what I can tell from our internal infrastructure teams, they are all very happy with it. There is almost certainly going to be a return on investment and a lower total cost of ownership.

Pricing-wise, I think Microsoft Azure SQL Database is actually pretty good. We use the DTU-based tiers, certainly for proof of concepts and early development, because for what you get for your money and how simplistic it is to set up, there is not much out there that really beats it. Going beyond that, there is sometimes almost too much choice when it comes to the pricing and how much it can scale, but ultimately, I am not going to complain that you have all that flexibility.

My impressions of Microsoft Azure SQL Database's ability to power next-generation AI applications are that, more often than not, we tend to be looking at other services, such as Postgres or some of the NoSQL Cosmos offerings. However, that is not to say that Microsoft Azure SQL Database or Microsoft SQL Server cannot be used for that. A lot of the time for us, being a Microsoft partner and a service provider, it is most of the time going to come down to what the customer wants. Given that a lot of our customers do use Microsoft SQL Server and always have and probably still plan to from an ongoing maintenance perspective, we have built AI applications that use Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

I would give this review an overall rating of eight out of ten.

My main use cases for Microsoft Azure SQL Database in my current company are for transactional databases to support our business applications that we build in-house. We also use Microsoft Azure SQL Database for our analytics data warehouse.

I am not using automatic tuning features in Microsoft Azure SQL Database, as that would be a better question for our infrastructure, IT, or networking teams.

In my role as a data engineer, I manage our data warehouse, and currently, we are using Microsoft Azure SQL Database, but we're migrating to Snowflake right now. My role is migrating us away from Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

The most valuable features of Microsoft Azure SQL Database for me are that it stores data in a structure that I'm very familiar with, relational databases. Relational databases are the bread and butter of data warehousing, so that's probably the biggest value for me.

The value of that familiarity with Microsoft Azure SQL Database comes from my background with on-premises SQL Server, making Microsoft Azure SQL Database an easy transition for me. I've taken the Microsoft Azure Foundational certificate, AZ-900 and DP-900, so I know about the other services, but the companies I've worked for have made it easy for me to transition from company to company.

In terms of ease of use, I found Microsoft Azure SQL Database as easy to use as the on-premises version. My experience was that it really was pretty seamless. I didn't have to learn any new SQL. We're still able to access it using SSMS, the same similar interface, so it was a seamless transition.

Areas where Microsoft Azure SQL Database could improve include expanding the data types that can be supported. My company is working with a lot of geography data now, and that would be something great to see.

My impression of Microsoft Azure SQL Database's ability to scale workloads is that I haven't had a lot of experience with it, but from what I hear from my senior data engineers, there are some workloads that we feel are too big and that it doesn't really do a good job of handling. We have some workarounds that we have to use for our data warehousing pipelines for that very reason.

When it comes to what too big means, it's not even talking about terabytes. Our data warehouse in total is about two terabytes, and the tables we're referring to are around 60 million rows, which are approximately 60 to 70 gigabytes.

I have been in my current role for a little over a year.

In terms of assessing the reliability of Microsoft Azure SQL Database regarding uptime and availability, I would say it's pretty good. We don't get too many failures—maybe one, sometimes twice a month—but they're nothing that requires more than clicking a button and getting things restarted. So it's pretty easy.

We hear that moving those takes a longer time than we'd prefer, which is one of the reasons why the director was able to convince them to move to Snowflake, as they said it would be quicker. So far, I haven't seen any improvement.

I have not used Microsoft support specifically for Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

Neutral

Prior to Microsoft Azure SQL Database, the company I worked with used Excel.

The primary driver to move to Microsoft Azure SQL Database was that I left the other company because I didn't feel they were keeping up with the latest technology such as Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

I wasn't involved in the migration or implementation of Microsoft Azure SQL Database since I'm new at the company, but the migration is currently taking place as we're migrating away.

I haven't seen any return on my investment in Microsoft Azure SQL Database, nor a reduction in total cost of ownership.

I have not seen a reduction in operational costs.

I have evaluated other databases while considering or moving to Snowflake; we looked at data warehousing solutions including Fabric, Databricks, and Snowflake, which were the three we focused on.

The main difference between Snowflake, Databricks, and Microsoft Azure SQL Database, both in terms of pros and cons, is that I'm typically very tool-agnostic. A lot of them have the same pros. Cons were more context-specific. Since our company is a Microsoft company, it would have made more sense to stick with Microsoft products. Snowflake's pro is that it provides a similar interface, so it's not too difficult to transition from Microsoft Azure SQL Database or Microsoft SQL Server to Snowflake. The con is that Microsoft SQL and Microsoft use T-SQL, while in Snowflake, we have to learn a portion of ANSI SQL. It's not too different, but there are some differences. Databricks has the big pros of supporting a number of languages, and a similar pro for both Databricks and Snowflake is having more control over compute, such as determining how large you want your cluster in Databricks or your warehouse size in Snowflake based on the number of nodes.

A pro within Microsoft Azure SQL Database over these databases is just a preference; to be honest, right now, the main pro with Microsoft Azure SQL Database is that it's what I've always used.

The decision to migrate was indeed a manager's decision, but he's not even there anymore.

We're still moving; I'm still seeing what's available because it's caused some headaches. Now that that manager isn't there, who knows? We might be able to have another conversation about staying with Microsoft since we already have the account. There definitely were some challenges in the migration.

The impact of Microsoft Azure SQL Database's security features on my data protection strategies is limited, as I don't work with security often.

I'm not using the new feature of data encryption in Microsoft Azure SQL Database since that's also not my primary role.

I have some experience with the backup and restore functionalities of Microsoft Azure SQL Database, but it's very minimal. We do our daily backups using Microsoft Azure SQL Server.

My impression of its backup functionalities and restore functionalities is that we haven't had to restore, so I don't have much of an impression or any feedback to give on that. Backups run smoothly, and we haven't had any issues or failures with any of our backups so far.

I would rate Microsoft Azure SQL Database as a seven on a scale of one to ten. I'm giving it a seven because it's something that I'm familiar with, and it's easy for me to work with. What would make it better would be expanding the support for different data types; I think that would be a big thing for me because right now, being able to support geography data types is important for our company. We work in land and building homes, and we are trying to use more geographical data to help us pinpoint good places to help build homes.

The benefit of the user-friendly feature in Microsoft Azure SQL Database for our company is that developers do not need to search everywhere to get information directly. I will not mention the name of the other cloud provider, but it can be very difficult to get information in a simple way. If a manager asks for information, there is often a struggle to obtain it. In Azure, we know exactly where to look for that information, and if there is a problem such as an application being down, we need to know where to run that query. It is straightforward, so we just go to the data plane and get that information.

I assess Microsoft Azure SQL Database's ability to integrate with other Microsoft applications as straightforward. Since everything is on the cloud and we are mostly using the cloud, it is easy to install a connector and connect the hybrid setup from on-premise to cloud or vice versa. Microsoft Learn also helps us because their documentation is straightforward.

The impact of Microsoft Azure SQL Database's security features on our data protection strategies is significant. We use many security features such as data sensitivity and also use Purview for that. Since it comes from Microsoft, it is natively supported, which is what we want. We do not have any plan to use another third-party database solution provider, which is why we started using everything on Azure, including Microsoft SQL Managed Instances and Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database is a reliable product. The whole world mostly uses it, and I find it reliable. Whenever we need information, we can get it, which is the most important thing.

Pricing could be one area for improvement, as it is always a concern for every customer regarding costs. It is unlikely that a price reduction will happen.

Neutral

We are using the automatic tuning feature in Microsoft Azure SQL Database. Although I have not been in touch with the database administrators, they told us about a year ago that it is easy to use on a day-to-day basis. They are satisfied with how auto-tuning has made their jobs easier because they do not need to struggle to get a fix deployed, and they know when to deploy it specifically for non-production and production databases.

Data encryption is a by-default requirement for us in Microsoft Azure SQL Database as it is a policy.

I do not know of any impact that the automatic tuning feature has had on our data security strategies.

My experience with the backup and restore functionalities of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is limited, as this is handled by the database team.

I understand that feedback will go somewhere and possibly lead to changes, but I do not have much to add on this issue.

My overall rating for this product is nine out of ten.

My main use cases for Microsoft Azure SQL Database are storing data for our developers. We support our developers and they use it particularly to store their data.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database has helped us tremendously with regards to cost and scaling. In regards to identity and governance, it has been amazing with authenticating with MFA, which is very important to our company. It is simple to use as well. It is just really easy to use and really easy with permissions as well through Entra ID.

The features from Microsoft Azure SQL Database that I like the most are that it is easily scalable, easy to manage, security, and identity. Using managed identities for our apps is pretty easy to use. Scalability is also valuable.

Azure's Active Directory integration and Azure Key Vault have helped manage data security. We manage everything through Entra ID and we also use managed identities for apps in order to use authentication for the database.

I would describe my experience deploying Microsoft Azure SQL Database as pretty straightforward. We have it all in code, so we deploy through Bicep. It is pretty straightforward with code.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database can be improved by making the interface a little easier for users to manage. A lot of the configuration has to be done through PowerShell, but perhaps they could include some more enhancements and settings to do through the portal.

I have been working in my current role for about three years.

I have not used Azure Database Intelligence Performance features. I don't think we have automatic tuning enabled for Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

I would evaluate my customer service and technical support as honestly having very minimal issues, but Microsoft has been very helpful.

On a scale from one being the worst and ten being the best, I would rate my customer service and technical support an eight. I rate it an eight usually because of timing. Sometimes it takes time and sometimes they are not really straightforward to the point of the issues.

Positive

We had no other solutions before selecting Microsoft Azure SQL Database. That was all we wanted to do.

I was not using another solution to address similar needs prior to adopting Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

I have seen a return on investment with Microsoft Azure SQL Database from our developers.

I actually do not do anything with the pricing setup cost or licensing for Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

I would assess the effectiveness of Microsoft Azure SQL Database security features in meeting compliance standards as currently pretty open, as we are just implementing policies for the database. We have not really gone into much of a compliance standard. Right now, it is an open network. We do plan on doing that in the next few months.

The compatibility with SQL Server for transitioning legacy systems to Microsoft Azure SQL Database is important, but I got in when it was already established, so we did not really migrate much. Therefore, I cannot really speak to the migration.

From their end point, I think they have mentioned that Microsoft Azure SQL Database is pretty efficient to use. It is pretty easy to manage as well on their end.

Being straightforward is something that works well, and I did not face any challenges. Mostly it is documented, so it is pretty easy to do.

My advice to another organization that is considering Microsoft Azure SQL Database would be that if they are on cloud, there are many options, but they should explore their options and see what makes more sense to their customers. Our customers really did not have a vision for anything else other than SQL, and they have also used it before, so it was easier for them. I would recommend exploring options and if it makes sense, going for it.

I would rate this review a nine out of ten.

The major use case started with moving to Microsoft Azure SQL Database from on-premises captive data centers, focusing on modernization and cloud migration with associated changes. Post that, everybody started using the PaaS solutions around the always-on features. That's where core enterprise use cases and scalable models come into play.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database's ability to segregate read-write operations helps me manage my application and workloads effectively. The fact that a lot needs to go wrong for it to go down is valuable. The high availability, always-on feature, and the way it integrates is simpler for the end user.

Automatic tuning in Microsoft Azure SQL Database helps in simplifying administrative practices. Something that can repair itself is always beneficial. In production, you cannot use it extensively because you don't know the impact of those fine-tuning adjustments. There's always a cost in terms of performance when you do fine-tuning, so there has to be a balance. For the initial 30%, it's great. For the rest, enterprises need to keep monitoring it.

The effectiveness of Microsoft Azure SQL Database's security features in meeting compliance standards has been amazing.

Active Directory definitely helps manage data security, and Key Vault adds to the advantages. There are some use cases where you will not be using it.

There are two aspects to Microsoft Azure SQL Database that can be improved. While the cost versus benefit debate continues, Microsoft Azure SQL Database has been cost-driven for a very long time rather than value-driven. Real price optimization needs to come into place. Running something this complex, I understand that when compared to solutions like Oracle, they appear very much cheaper. However, that is a story we've been using for a very long time and have been paying for accordingly. As a customer, I believe something which has been established, stable, and rugged for a very long time also needs cost optimization.

I have been using Microsoft Azure SQL Database for around five years.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database helps me keep my business on. Most importantly, it helps me continuously and predictably serve my customers.

We manage our support in-house for Microsoft Azure SQL Database. Unless there's a real escalated issue, we are generally pretty self-sufficient.

Positive

I have a very small on-premises footprint now, with everything else on the cloud.

The deployment process of Microsoft Azure SQL Database was earlier quite challenging because everything had to be done manually. Since the advent of GitHub and infrastructure as code, many things have become easier. People now work more on first-time implementation and re-implementation is much easier.

We are continuously trying to work on optimizing Microsoft Azure SQL Database. Switching is probably not being considered.

The biggest return on investment for me when using Microsoft Azure SQL Database is my control on uptime.

All ROI discussions regarding Microsoft Azure SQL Database center on cost versus value. If your value is worth it and your stakes are high enough, the value justifies the investment.

Regarding the setup cost and licensing, pricing is a significant consideration.

A whole lot of evaluation is required for Microsoft Azure SQL Database. For some applications it may be suitable, for others it may be less appropriate. Decisions go on an application-to-application and use-case-to-use-case basis.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database is not being used to its full potential. Having a good amount of database engineers was probably one of the reasons for not using it to its full capacity.

If your data is not reaching your application, what is the value of that data?

My user misbehavior has less impact on my uptime and data flow. I might not know what will come or what will not come. However, because I am on Microsoft Azure SQL Database, I have better capability and better options than to go down. Definitely, if I compare it with my old days on premises, it is superior. The comparison from my IaaS implementation to PaaS implementation clearly shows the advantage. I would rate this review a 9 out of 10.

We use many different vendors in private equity because we own real estate, and we have numerous different data sources that we need to import. We are planning to move to Fabric soon because we have disparate data from different management systems as well as from our HR platform and various other sources, so we want to compile everything into one centralized location.

Our data engineers find Microsoft Azure SQL Database easy to work with, and my role as a product manager allows me to translate requirements to them in a straightforward way. We have excellent data engineers, so ease of use is the primary factor.

The effectiveness of Microsoft Azure SQL Database security features in meeting our compliance standards is crucial because we are SEC compliant, and that is one of our main criteria for compliance; otherwise, our investors would be very upset.

I have not used Microsoft Azure SQL Database intelligent performance features.

I am unfamiliar with Microsoft Azure SQL Database automatic tuning.

The challenge we face is that we need to implement an alerting system to notify us when issues occur, which is a problem for later. We are fortunate that we do not have many of those instances, but that is definitely a challenge we will need to address at some point.

I wish the customer service and technical support were a bit quicker, though I recognize that not everything can be solved within an hour or a day.

I have been using Microsoft Azure SQL Database for approximately three years.

I wish the customer service and technical support were a bit quicker, though I recognize that not everything can be solved within an hour or a day.

On a scale from one being the worst and ten being the best, I would rate my customer service and technical support a seven.

I give the customer service and technical support a seven based on the response rate, though the responses I have received are very good and have pointed me in the right direction. We have implemented our solutions; it is just about timing.

Prior to adopting Microsoft Azure SQL Database, we had servers on-premises, so fortunately when we moved to Azure, we did not need to handle that transition, though I cannot speak to that process as it occurred before my time.

My experience with deploying Microsoft Azure SQL Database has been pleasant and straightforward, but I have had excellent engineers to guide me on exactly where I should go and what I should be doing, so the process has been very positive for me.

Since we continue to use Microsoft Azure SQL Database year after year, I suppose we have seen a return on investment.

My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing is that it is fortunately not my department; my VP handles that.

My VP is very firm about keeping everything within the Microsoft suite of products, so I do not even know if he evaluated other solutions before selecting Microsoft Azure SQL Database because we wanted to stay all Microsoft. So, you received a home run with that.

I would not know if Microsoft Azure Active Directory integration and Azure Key Vault have helped manage data security; I believe our data engineers would have that answer.

The compatibility with other SQL servers for transitioning legacy systems to Microsoft Azure SQL Database is probably moderately important, as they need something to work with. If it is something they need to learn, it is not the end of the world, but the less they have to onboard different systems, the better.

My data engineers would have better examples of how the features of Microsoft Azure SQL Database have benefited our organization than I would.

One thing I plan to do in the next year with Microsoft Azure SQL Database is create more of a sandbox and testing environment and maintain consistent refresh data between the two. Currently, we refresh monthly, which is insufficient for my testing needs and for training and onboarding. In the next year, we plan to establish a more streamlined workflow to create sandbox and test environments.

The advice I would give to another organization considering Microsoft Azure SQL Database is to evaluate what is most important to the organization and determine if it aligns with what Azure provides. Our company is fully committed to Microsoft, which is fortunate, but the key is to understand your actual needs; if you want more control and more ownership of the system, that is not necessarily the value proposition of this service. We want you to maintain it for us and manage everything for us, so I would recommend creating a thorough list of requirements. I would rate this product a seven overall.

Our main use case for Microsoft Azure SQL Database is mostly to serve as the backend for our enterprise applications.

The feature I like the most about Microsoft Azure SQL Database is that it's a managed service, which is the main reason we use it. As a global enterprise, we used to spend a lot of time maintaining SQL Server and SQL Databases. Using Azure SQL allows us to leverage our people's comprehensive power to focus on more important tasks than just upgrading the SQL and doing maintenance.

The effectiveness of Microsoft Azure SQL Database security features in meeting compliance standards is very important for us, as tracking the setup for our on-premises databases was very hard, especially when our team grew. Now, in combination with Azure Policies, we have strict control over the policies and setup of our databases, along with good results from vulnerability scanning and other tools that help us advance towards a well-managed environment.

I think the question of how Microsoft Azure SQL Database can be improved is a good one, but to be honest, I need to ask my operations teams as I'm not sure what the best area for enhancement would be.

Rather than thinking about the flaws, I would enhance Microsoft Azure SQL Database with more AI or perhaps even cheaper prices; everybody would prefer everything to be cheaper. However, I don't see any real flaws, especially since it helped me prove that it's a good service, so I'm a really happy user.

The idea is to make it cheaper, as always. Cost is indeed an area for improvement, but it's a general observation.

I would say that we started using Microsoft Azure SQL Database quite early, about seven years ago, during our first attempt to migrate databases and start building new applications using Azure SQL.

My experience with customer service and technical support is dependent on the issue. For simple queries, it usually goes smoothly, but more complex issues tend to lead to tough discussions and often require escalation to our Microsoft contact due to slower response times. When we need support, it's typically urgent as we have a capable team, and backend issues require quick resolution from the provider.

Neutral

My company did not consider other solutions before choosing Microsoft Azure SQL Database, as it was a natural advancement given that we are based on Microsoft products. After thirty years of using Microsoft products, it just made sense, especially since everything integrates seamlessly into Entra ID, making it difficult to switch to other clouds.

Describing my experience deploying Microsoft Azure SQL Database, I find it easy because we run our infrastructure as code, with templates aligning with our policies and standardized architectural blocks. For us, it's like a vending machine; someone orders a database, and they get a consistent database every time, only tweaking the SKU or some minor settings for specific requirements.

The biggest return on investment for us when using Microsoft Azure SQL Database is that it's a managed service, which means we don't need to manage upgrades ourselves. This is crucial for an enterprise like ours that primarily does manufacturing. This is vital as we can maintain the same number of people in our operations teams even as our company grows quickly.

Regarding trying to use another solution while using Microsoft SQL, could you clarify whether you mean Microsoft or Azure alternatives?

We are exploring options like PostgreSQL or other databases while using it, but our team's extensive experience with Microsoft products keeps us primarily using Microsoft SQL. After seeing announcements about new features that might bring some PostgreSQL functionalities into Microsoft's ecosystem, I am excited to explore those options further.

My advice to other companies considering Microsoft Azure SQL Database is to try it and realize how much it alleviates the burden of managing SQLs, especially since something typically goes wrong in critical situations. Azure SQL significantly reduces the number of failures, and I'd recommend using Azure Migrate to assess databases and test with the first solution, even checking pricing as you might be pleasantly surprised; it's a really worthwhile solution. I would rate this review an eight out of ten.

Regarding Microsoft Azure SQL Database, I work with that product. For one of our projects, we need to use this Microsoft Azure SQL Database. We are using this Microsoft Azure SQL Database to store our data solution.

Azure Active Directory is something we are frequently using for our login to our application for the customer and for any application. Using Azure Active Directory is a great feature for securing our connectivity for any clients or users connecting to our data.

Regarding the transitioning option with SQL Server, using Microsoft Azure SQL Database is more costly than if we are using any other service because retrieving data and putting the throughput is a costlier part. Pricing is the only concern I see as a disadvantage for Microsoft Azure SQL Database. The only thing that concerns me today is the pricing connected with Microsoft Azure SQL Database; everything else is all right.

Regarding Microsoft Azure SQL Database, I have worked with the product for around one year or a longer period of time.

Regarding the stability of Microsoft Azure SQL Database, it is stable.

I find it easy to scale Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

I would rate support for Microsoft Azure SQL Database as nine out of ten.

Positive

I have already used Oracle database earlier in my career, which is different from Microsoft.

In terms of installation, it is not complicated, actually; it is quite simple.

I purchased it from Azure only.

The pricing for Microsoft Azure SQL Database is a bit high.

If we compare Microsoft Azure SQL Database to Oracle, the pricing would be different. Oracle products are less expensive if we compare them to Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

I'm not using the Automatic Tuning feature directly. The biggest benefit from Microsoft Azure SQL Database is that we are choosing to use an Azure VM, where we are using our own database instead of using SQL Server; we have migrated from Microsoft Azure SQL Database to our internal SQL database. I don't think there are any features left to add to Microsoft Azure SQL Database; I see everything is there. All self-documentation is okay; I have no concerns about this. The review rating for Microsoft Azure SQL Database is 9 out of 10.