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Amazon EMR vs Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon EMR
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Hadoop (3rd), Cloud Data Warehouse (8th)
Microsoft Parallel Data War...
Average Rating
7.6
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (10th)
 

Featured Reviews

CG
Aug 1, 2023
Suitable for online deployments with a serverless architecture
EMR Serverless is useful for online deployments that require a serverless architecture. We were previously using a server-based architecture, but we have since switched to serverless The product is very well-designed. It is easy to use, and it is very cost-effective.   The solution eliminates…
Albert Lacerda - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 9, 2023
User-friendly UI and good support
The solution is expensive and has room for improvement. I believe the cost is the biggest issue. In Brazil, money is not easy to come by, and paying for this stuff is difficult. Most of my clients are moving to the cloud and purchasing some of the infrastructure there, but it is expensive and they don't always get the economic benefits the cloud can offer. They are creating the infrastructure from the cloud and paying a lot of money for it, and other costs are becoming problematic. Power BI is just one example. The process is the biggest barrier here, and sometimes lack of professional knowledge is also an issue. It is hard to find companies that really know what they are doing. The project I am involved in now is creating a data lake in the cloud for a big client. They hired another company, not mine, to create the project, but when we started the meetings I discovered that the big company they hired doesn't really know what they are doing and is still searching for professionals.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It allows users to access the data through a web interface."
"The project management is very streamlined."
"Amazon EMR is a good solution that can be used to manage big data."
"The security of the managed workflow and the managed services are the best features for us. Since we inherited their security model and it's all managed services, those are the key benefits for our clients."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"We are using applications, such as Splunk, Livy, Hadoop, and Spark. We are using all of these applications in Amazon EMR and they're helping us a lot."
"The ability to resize the cluster is what really makes it stand out over other Hadoop and big data solutions."
"In Amazon EMR it is easy to rebuild anything, easy to upgrade and has good fault tolerance."
"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."
"The data transmissions between the data models is the most valuable feature."
"Tools like the BI and SAS are excellent."
"The UI is very simple and functional for my clients, most of the clients that use the solution are not experts."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"It is a very stable database."
"It performs very well overall."
"Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse integrates beautifully with other Microsoft ecosystem products."
 

Cons

"The initial setup was time-consuming."
"The most complicated thing is configuring to the cluster and ensure it's running correctly."
"The solution can become expensive if you are not careful."
"Amazon EMR can improve by adding some features, such as megastore services and HiveServer2. Additionally, the user interface could be better, similar to what Apache service provides, cross-platform services."
"The legacy versions of the solution are not supported in the new versions."
"Amazon EMR is continuously improving, but maybe something like CI/CD out-of-the-box or integration with Prometheus Grafana."
"The product must add some of the latest technologies to provide more flexibility to the users."
"We don't have much control. If we have multiple users, if they want to scale up, the cost will go and increase and we don't know how we can restrict that price part."
"In the future I would love to see a slightly better automation engine, just for the data integration layer, to make it slightly easier for end-users or junior developers to get involved in incremental updating."
"They need to incorporate a machine learning engine."
"This solution would be improved with an option for in-memory data analysis."
"We find the cost of the solution to be a little high."
"The reporting for certain types of data needs to be improved."
"More tools to help designers should be included."
"It could offer more development across the solution."
"SQL installation is pretty tricky. The scalability and customer support also should be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Amazon EMR's price is reasonable."
"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten. It can be expensive since it's a managed service, and if you are not careful, you can run into unexpected charges. You can make a mistake that costs you tens of thousands of dollars. That's happened to us twice, so I'm sensitive to it. We're still trying to work on that. Our smallest client probably spends a hundred thousand dollars yearly on licensing, while our largest is well over a million."
"The product is not cheap, but it is not expensive."
"The cost of Amazon EMR is very high."
"You don't need to pay for licensing on a yearly or monthly basis, you only pay for what you use, in terms of underlying instances."
"There is a small fee for the EMR system, but major cost components are the underlying infrastructure resources which we actually use."
"There is no need to pay extra for third-party software."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"All the features that we use do not require any additional subscription or yearly fees."
"The solution is cost-effective."
"Microsoft has an agreement with the government in our country, so our customers get their licensing costs from the Ministry. Whenever we work with any government, company, or government institute, which is mainly what we are doing, that license comes directly from the Ministry of Technology and Information."
"They offer an annual subscription. The pricing depends on the size of the environments."
"The solution's pricing is fairly decent for organizations with huge data sizes."
"I think the program is well-priced compared to the other offerings that are out in the market."
"The tool could be expensive if we need to manage a lot of data."
"Technical support is an additional fee and is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
25%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
7%
Computer Software Company
26%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Insurance Company
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon EMR?
Amazon EMR is a good solution that can be used to manage big data.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon EMR?
I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten. It can be expensive since it's a managed service, and if you are not careful, you can run into unexpected charges. You can make a mistake that costs you...
What needs improvement with Amazon EMR?
The solution can become expensive if you are not careful.
What do you like most about Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse provides good firewall processing in terms of response time.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?
The solution is cost-effective, especially considering its seamless integration with Azure. However, the cost can be a challenge, particularly for customers who prefer on-premises solutions.
 

Also Known As

Amazon Elastic MapReduce
Microsoft PDW, SQL Server Data Warehouse, Microsoft SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse, MS Parallel Data Warehouse
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Yelp
Auckland Transport, Erste Bank Group, Urban Software Institute, NJVC, Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, Tata Steel Europe
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon EMR vs. Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse and other solutions. Updated: September 2024.
805,335 professionals have used our research since 2012.