Amazon Redshift Reviews

I'm a freelancer/consultant, so I use the solution across a wide variety of contexts. 

The most valuable feature is that the solution is fully embedded in the AWS stack. 

The product is the best database for analytics, BI, and whatever else I encounter. 

The customer support could be more responsive. 

I've used Redshift for seven years. 

The solution is very stable. 

The tool is highly scalable. I'm a freelancer, so I use the solution in different contexts, but the total number of end users is usually between 100 and 200.

I contacted technical support before, and they could be more responsive. 

Positive

The initial setup was straightforward. I rate it five out of five here.

The product is cheap considering what it provides; I rate it five out of five for affordability. 

I rate Amazon Redshift ten out of ten. 

I recommend the solution to anyone in an AWS environment. I see a lot of fuss about Snowflake, and I used both, but I'm not much of an Azure guy. I don't know why the pickup rate for Redshift in NL is so low, but that's more marketing-driven, as Snowflake has very aggressive marketing.

Amazon Redshift is one of the best products I've ever come across. 

• Performance: Very fast query performance due to columnar-storage databases that leverage the Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) capabilities of its data warehouse architecture.
• Petabyte-scale data warehouse, without any loss in performance and low cost: One of our existing customers stores more than 500 terabytes of data in an AWS Redshift database and the warehouse performance was good. We want to highlight that even if the warehouse size increases to petabytes, Redshift would still work fine and there wouldn’t be any performance issues and would cost less also.

The end users were able to have access to real-time analytics.

We would really like to see a few more connectors included that would enable connecting with other databases and services. We have faced some difficulties pulling data from Teradata and storing it in Redshift. There is no direct connector available between Teradata and Redshift.

We are working with this product for the past 24 months.

We have not faced any stability related issue so far.

We did not encounter any scalability issues in the last 24 months that we have been working with Redshift.

We actually had to reach out to technical support a few times and they were really helpful and solved our problems. We would give it 4/5.

We were using an on-premise MySQL data warehouse. To reduce the cost and improve scalability, we switched to a cloud version of data warehouse databases.

Initial setup and configuration was pretty straightforward. First, we needed to create a Redshift cluster. Once the cluster was created, we created a database schema based on our need in the Redshift cluster.

AWS Redshift is one of the fastest and most cost-effective cloud-based databases. They have charged $3330 per TB/year for the ds2.8x large instances which have 244 GB RAM, 36-core CPU, 10Gbps network and 16 TB HDD.

You need to design the database structure with best sort and distribution keys, along with primary and foreign keys.

We are premium partners with Amazon. 

This service can merge and integrate well with all databases. 

Planting is the primary key enforcement that should be improved but there is probably a reason that they don't follow the reference architecture. It means they are creating clones of the data shading. Cost control measures could be improved along with added transparency.

I've been using this solution for nine months. 

AWS technical support is very good. 

We needed some help from experienced professionals for our initial setup. 

Licensing costs are reasonable. 

I would recommend this solution depending on the scale. You need to decide whether you want to be lined up with a single cloud provider or go over the service and have it deployed on multi cloud. There are many factors to take into consideration. 

I rate this solution seven out of 10. 

We use this solution for our enterprise data warehouse.

We use it for scaling our warehouse.

We also use it for analytics.

A feature I find most valuable in Amazon Redshift is that it's fast.

I also like that you can query the data lake using the Redshift spectrum.

You can build analytics on this solution, similar to QuickSight or Tableau, based on the Redshift Data API.

Amazon Redshift also has good integration and a good API. It's not hard to manage. It even has machine learning features.

This solution could be cheaper, but Amazon could constantly add new instances and decrease the size from previous ones, so it could be an AWS work model.

It would also be better if it can be integrated with non-AWS sources, e.g. additional open source connectors.

We've been using Amazon Redshift for a long time. We've been using it for years.

This solution is stable.

I find this solution scalable to a great extent.

Amazon's technical support works fine.

Setup was easy. This is a managed service, so you don't need to install anything. You just choose the size of the cluster and within 10 to 20 minutes, it's built.

This solution implements the pay-as-you-use model, so no license. It's just for underlying infrastructure.

I evaluated Cloudera and Azure.

We usually rely on some distribution, not like classic Hadoop. We do not use  open source Hadoop because our customers prefer some distribution to get support. Some paid features from Cloudera and Amazon provide their own support.

We provide expertise for different services of AWS, e.g. most of them because we are a premium partner and we have program competencies. We develop data, big data, machine learning, and migration, so we cover a large field.

We have some clients with Azure, but most of our clients are with AWS.

The deployment of Amazon Redshift is through AWS. It's a home-based, proprietary solution. It's fully managed by AWS.

Amazon Redshift has implemented most of the features that we currently need, so I can't name additional features that I expect from them in the next release.

The number of people needed for the deployment and maintenance of this solution in our organization is just one: only to set up. It's just one DevOps.

I would recommend Amazon Redshift as a solution for others who are thinking about using it.

I'm rating Amazon Redshift an eight out of ten.

Our data warehouse is Redshift now.

Overall, I'm satisfied with the solution so far, and, from an accounting perspective, it works well for my tasks and duties. 

The product is very stable. 

Changing from local servers to the cloud is very easy. It's so nice not to have to worry about physical servers. 

We need more AWS applications. They have some solutions from Amazon that can manage performance, however, we will need something that can also manage financial reporting, visualization, and analytics - instead of having to go to other solutions like Tableau or Power BI. If they can offer comparable options, we'd like to be able to choose all AWS solutions instead of other platforms. 

The refreshment rate of data reaching Redshift from other sources should be faster.

It could be more efficient during tasks such as data refreshing or uploading. 

I've been using the solution for about a year or so. It hasn't been too long just yet.

The solution is very stable. It's better than OWC, as a technology. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.

I cannot speak to how helpful technical support is as this is not my area of expertise here. I'm not directly connected with AWS. That said, it is my understanding that they are doing a pretty good job with our own technical team and they have been helpful.

We used ODBC before to maintain our tables. Oracle ODBC was used as a server, as a data warehouse environment.

Changing to Redshift was a big change for us. However, after a while, we get used to it and it is okay now as it's coming together under a bigger picture of a framework, as a bigger framework. We are going to keep everything in the cloud and moving to AWS and we will put everything there and manage it as a framework going forward.

I'm not using it day in, day out and I did not handle the initial setup. There is a team involved with that side of the product. I'm using it for the closing of the accounting cycle every month. I don't handle implementation tasks. 

I cannot speak to the pricing. I don't handle billing or payments. 

We're customers and end-users.

While I cannot speak to the exact version number, my understanding is that we are using the most up-to-date version of the solution. 

I'd advise those considering the solution to go for AWS products. They are the best. You will have more synergy between your software. It's nice not having multi-software working on the technology itself. If you can, use as many genuine Amazon products as possible and integrate them together. 

Overall, I would rate the product at a seven out of ten. 

Our primary use case of this product is as a data warehouse. We are partners with Amazon. 

Amazon Redshift has a very user-friendly SQL editor and it's very easy to use the connectors. The product provides a lot of options to connect to different sources and the modeling capabilities are also good. As a fully managed data warehouse solution, the two important aspects are the connectors and how well we can use SQL for data modeling. In both cases, this is an efficient product.

Improvement could be made in the area of streaming data. The capability can definitely be improved. There are other products like Kinesis which is a separate service we use for streaming data ingestion. Whatever features are missing in Redshift, they have separate sources but if there were the feasibility to ingest real-time streaming data directly into RedShift, that would be very useful. 

I've been using this solution for the past year. 

The product is 100% stable.

The solution is scalable. This is backend technology and end users are not aware they are using it. We probably have four or five users in the company. 

The technical support is good, they're very responsive. 

The initial setup is very simple because it's a fully managed service and not much is required from the user's end.

The licensing is paid on a monthly basis, and I think the pricing is acceptable. They also have a pay-per-go model which is on a per user basis. 

If a company is already using Amazon Cloud or they're looking for a cloud solution, Amazon is one of the oldest and most reliable cloud service providers and Redshift is a no-brainer for data warehouse needs.

I rate this product a nine out of 10. 

We are using the latest version of Amazon Redshift, although I cannot state which one. It is actually updated automatically, which prevents us from tracking it.

We use Amazon Redshift as our data warehouse solution. We use it for collecting and analyzing our data. We store our data for analytics in the solution.

The solution has improved the performance of our queries.

We like that the solution is a scalable, column-store database. We are completely talking about an analytic database.

I cannot state which features of the solution are in need of improvement, since those which we make use of have not changed.

The solution has four maintenance windows so, when it comes to stability, I think it would be better to decrease their number.

I rate the solution as an eight out of ten because it is not 100 percent, as there is much service-related maintenance required. It would be nice to see support for the usual LTP features, such as those involving traditional processing.

The solution has four maintenance windows so, when it comes to stability, I think it would be better to decrease their number.

The solution is scalable.

We use the solution extensively, as part of our daily work.

The decision to increase our usage would depend on our business needs.

I cannot comment on technical support, as I have never had contact with them.

Prior to going with Amazon Redshift, I used Azure Data Warehouse and Google BigQuery.

The decision to go with Amazon Redshift was reached by the CTO, so that, in respect of the data warehouse, the entire environment is set up in Amazon.

I feel Amazon to be better than the other solutions we worked with.

The initial setup is easy. Just one or two clicks are needed to set up the solution.

We did not make use of a consultant or integrator.

Not much staff is required to maintain the solution.

I am not aware of the licensing terms.

I am just the user and we make use of the solution.

The solution is deployed solely on the cloud.

I believe there are around 20 people making use of the solution in our environment.

While the solution is not appropriate for every case in which usage must be evaluated, it can be used for sure.

I rate Amazon Redshift as an eight out of ten.

We are a solution provider and Amazon Redshift is one of the products that we implement for our clients. We are working with a few customers that have it implemented right now.

The feature that we find most useful is the ability to do analytics on the fly. It's the most important because it gives us the ability to provide solutions to multiple customers.

We have had some challenges with respect to considering some of the high-end availability architecture for production. We don't find many issues now, but initially, we had some challenges.

This is an older product, so when it comes to usability, it requires a technical person to work with it. It requires a specialist and a good business case to work on it. It has to be a little more user-friendly than what it is today.

In our experiments, the handling of unstructured data was not very smooth.

We have been using Redshift for the last year and a half.

It is fairly stable and works reasonably well.

We tested the scalability to 10 or 15 terabytes and we didn't have an issue with it. I'm not sure what the limit is.

The technical support is very good and they have helped us to move forward with this product. We also had a lot of good support from the community, as well.

It is not complex for a specialist because it is fairly well documented and systematic.

The specialists required by this product are what you will find in most enterprises. However, in a smaller organization, you might have to engage multiple parties with separate expertise to set it up correctly. For example, you will require somebody with experience in database migration to the cloud.

At the moment, pricing is a little bit on the higher side, although it depends on the size of the company. If it's a fairly large enterprise that has a defined budget then they may not have too much of an issue with the pricing.

We have also tried Cosmos DB and Azure for our customers, but they were not chosen after the PoC. Azure and AWS have different database offerings and we experimented with both, but the customer ended up in production and we stayed with that.

My advice for anybody who is implementing Redshift is to ensure that the requirements include having technical people on board to continuously work on getting the results you want. Because it's not that user-friendly, there is a need for a technical resource in the company.

Also, I would suggest watching out for scalability beyond what we have tested. If there is a need for scaling then it should be tested, although it depends on the use case.

If Redshift had a proper interface then I would score it higher.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.