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Azure SQL Managed Instance vs Imply Enterprise comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Azure SQL Managed Instance
Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.1
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (30th)
Imply Enterprise
Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)
14th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

FataiAkinwande - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief IT Consultant at d3astech
Managed database service has simplified hybrid integration and strengthened automated backups
The only red flag I could point out is you don't have 100% control of your data. You don't have 100% control of that particular server because it is Microsoft that has access to it. For instance, if you are working with a government organization that doesn't want their data to be resided outside the country, it will not work. You cannot use it because there's no way the data is going to be resided somewhere outside a particular country. Let's say for instance, I'm having an engagement with a Lagos state government with a particular product that need to be deployed and then I can never propose such kind of environment for them because Lagos state will never allow their data to be resided elsewhere except within their data center. In that case, you can't use it. Technology evolves every day and then as technology moves, I move as well. Currently, with what I'm seeing on Azure SQL Managed Instance, it's somewhat perfect, but they still need to do more. But if I'm going to probably figure out what could be the added features within the environment, maybe probably the SA admin should be released to the users within the SQL infrastructure team, SQL team, that is the database team members. Because currently, nobody has access to the SQL admin. The SA admin is one of the greatest accounts. Although Microsoft put a provision for that, your Active Directory account can perform the same function that SA admin can do, because you're not running the SQL within your own VM or physical server. Microsoft controls that. Aside from that, because to me, I don't even see it as a problem because there's a provision for that. In the absence of that SA admin, your Active Directory account can be probably elevated to perform the same function. I don't see anything that's probably against it.
DB
Director of Engineering at Paytm
Provides cost efficiency and flexible control over clusters
The managed offering has two models: Polaris and Hybrid. We explored both during the PoC phase. The Hybrid model gives you the flexibility to keep your data safe on your own site but still have a managed service to control your infrastructure. The Polaris model, on the other hand, does not give you an insight into what kind of AWS box you are using. Based on your capacity planning, you can just choose the correct size of the box. It also gives you a dashboard. I would like Imply to include more flexible billing models with added options for superior infrastructure control, flexibility in scaling, and cost-effectiveness, such as choosing the number of CPUs required. We should have more flexibility and control over the infrastructure in terms of upscaling and downscaling. Currently, there are only certain tightly bound options. With more flexible options, more customers will adopt the solution.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Security-wise, Azure SQL Managed Instance is absolutely robust, and governance-wise, the manageability of Azure SQL Managed Instance is very good."
"I can tell you categorically that the ROI, the return on investment is very, very high and it's very commendable."
"Imply Enterprise has positively impacted our organization as we have not faced any downtime in the past six months, and the stability is very high."
"Imply Enterprise has positively impacted my organization by making our work easy and efficient, making our monitoring manageable for us and making it easy to diagnose issues."
"One specific outcome showing how Imply Enterprise improves things for customers is that analytics performance improves significantly; customers who previously used Google BigQuery for advertising analytics switched to Druid and reduced their analytics time from one or two days to just one or two hours."
"We have not faced any downtime."
"One of the best parts of the solution is the Hybrid model that allows flexibility to keep control over the clusters."
 

Cons

"Azure SQL Managed Instance can be improved by adding more scalability options."
"The only red flag I could point out is you don't have 100% control of your data. You don't have 100% control of that particular server because it is Microsoft that has access to it."
"I would like Imply to include more flexible billing models with added options for superior infrastructure control, flexibility in scaling, and cost-effectiveness, such as choosing the number of CPUs required. We should have more flexibility and control over the infrastructure in terms of upscaling and downscaling. Currently, there are only certain tightly bound options."
"Imply Enterprise can be improved by providing more integrations and additional features."
"I would like Imply Enterprise to include more flexible billing models to add options for infrastructure control, flexibility in scaling, and cost efficiency."
"In my opinion, the customer support from Imply is good but not the best, as many customers in South Korea prefer Korean support, while communication is mainly in English, which sometimes complicates support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Imply pricing is in the middle range. Understanding the data model can help reduce overall system costs."
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Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Azure SQL Managed Instance?
Azure SQL Managed Instance can be improved by adding more scalability options. I need to have more flexibility in terms of scalability with Azure SQL Managed Instance. In sizing, I need some option...
What is your primary use case for Azure SQL Managed Instance?
My main use case for Azure SQL Managed Instance is for storing information related to insurance and claims in the staging database to avoid using Dataverse because it is more expensive. I use Azure...
What advice do you have for others considering Azure SQL Managed Instance?
My advice for others looking into using Azure SQL Managed Instance is that if they have some SaaS applications such as Dataverse or any other SaaS applications like BPM or ServiceNow, wherein their...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Imply?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that licensing is post-paid, and the setup cost is not very difficult or restrictive, making installation easier than with other solutions.
What needs improvement with Imply?
Imply Enterprise can be improved by providing more integrations and additional features. I would like to see more user-specific functionality, similar to some other tools we have in our industry th...
What is your primary use case for Imply?
My main use case for Imply Enterprise is based on monitoring performance metrics, tracking, and support. I use it for creating, deploying, managing our infrastructure and monitoring it. A specific ...
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

Overview

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