Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse vs Oracle Big Data Appliance comparison

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse vs. Oracle Big Data Appliance

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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

Microsoft Parallel Data War...

Ranking in Data Warehouse

11th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Oracle Big Data Appliance

Ranking in Data Warehouse

15th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is 3.2%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Big Data Appliance is 2.5%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Warehouse Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse	3.2%
Oracle Big Data Appliance	2.5%
Other	94.3%

Data Warehouse

Featured Reviews

HassanFatemi

CEO at Smart Data-Driven Solutions

Has handled large volumes of data effectively but still needs cost flexibility

There could be improvements on the cost side of Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse because it is still considered to be quite expensive by a lot of users, and many companies are not interested in solutions with parallel data warehousing due to this expense. Addressing the cost would be the number one area for improvement. Additionally, I have not worked recently with it, so I don't know if this feature already exists, but if it doesn't, having an elastic feature that adjusts the service's power dynamically based on the workload would be beneficial instead of fixing the power at a specific level.

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reviewer1031826

Analytics Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Platinum partnership leverages advanced storage and fosters seamless data integration

Areas of Oracle Big Data Appliance that can be improved include the pricing perspective because nowadays they have competition. We have so many technologies that have come to the market for less than even one-fourth or one-fifth of the Oracle price. For my side, the last time I worked with Oracle was in '21, '22. The price is a challenge that they have to look after. From the storage and data management perspective, I cannot recall anything that they have to improve, but they have to improve the visualization part significantly because they offer Oracle BI, which is an extremely not-matured application.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"These separate database servers were turned into a massively parallel, shared nothing database system that offered incredibly good performance, especially under complex mixed workloads."

"With PDW’s Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) design, queries run in minutes instead of hours, and in seconds instead of minutes in comparison to Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) databases."

"One of the most important features is the ease of using MS SQL, as it is very easy to pull the data from it and also very easy to import data from CSV or Excel."

"The most valuable feature is the business intelligence (BI) part of it."

"The most valuable feature for me is querying."

"The stability of the solution is good."

"I am very satisfied with the customer service/technical support."

"It has allowed fast daily loads and analysis of millions of rows of data, which eventually moved to near real-time."

More Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse pros

"Big Data responds to my needs."

"Because Big Data Appliance allows me to have a single source of truth, it means I have clean data that can be monetized and leveraged to gain more insights with real-time reports from the dashboard."

"This is a comprehensive solution that is easy to deploy."

"The most valuable feature is that it can be used in conjunction with Spark memory processing, and our processing time has gone to 20 minutes from what used to be two or three hours on the mainframe."

"We could work on large unstructured datasets from different parts of the world on Facebook and Twitter to get better insights."

"The best thing about the product is that the end-user can build the reports by themselves without really knowing anything about databases."

"The best feature of Oracle Big Data Appliance, from a price perspective for the storage, is because they have technology called the ZFS technology; it offers huge storage with a decent price."

Cons

"It could be made more user-friendly for business users which would increase the user base."

"I would like the ability to do more real-time type updates instead of batch-oriented updates."

"There were scalability issues in that there is a limit to 32 concurrent queries."

"I would like to see better visualization features."

"When there are many users or many expensive queries, it can be very slow."

"Unlike other MPPs, such as Netezza, this requires excellent expertise in SQL to reap the benefits of using it."

"Scalability can be improved because there are other tools that perform better with very large datasets."

"The performance could be improved because the query is slow if we don't optimize it. And even if we optimize it, sometimes it still runs very slow."

More Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse cons

"We need to display the results on our website. I think there is another product that joins with it to give you the possibility."

"The product should be simplified for the average user."

"From a technical perspective, Big Data Appliance could be improved with more innovation in the AI and machine-learning parts instead of relying on Cloudera."

"We had to pursue several performance tuning measures to bring up the system to scale."

"It seems like the deployment of repositories has become more difficult in later versions of the product rather than easier."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool could be expensive if we need to manage a lot of data."

"Technical support is an additional fee and is expensive."

"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."

"All the features that we use do not require any additional subscription or yearly fees."

"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."

"Oracle's prices are too high compared to others in the market."

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896,942 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Marketing Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

24%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	22

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	1
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	7

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is very expensive.

What needs improvement with Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?

The pricing could be better; I think it actually just went up.

What is your primary use case for Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?

The basic use case for us is virtual machines. In real estate, we use it for our operations. They handle large data sets well, and the performance is good during those times.

What needs improvement with Oracle Big Data Appliance?

What is your primary use case for Oracle Big Data Appliance?

The typical use case for Oracle Big Data Appliance, which my clients use, is usually that the customer who has an Oracle application uses it because they can leverage the storage part. I don't need...

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Product Reports

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse

Download Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse product report

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse report

Data Warehouse

Download Oracle Big Data Appliance product report

Also Known As

Microsoft PDW, SQL Server Data Warehouse, Microsoft SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse, MS Parallel Data Warehouse

No data available

Overview

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse offers high performance and usability with seamless SQL Server integration, handling large data efficiently with a user-friendly interface. Known for its cost-effectiveness and robust security, it excels in integrating data across Microsoft ecosystem.

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse efficiently manages large datasets from diverse sources, supporting a unified data approach. Its integration with SQL Server and compatibility with tools like Qlik enhances data management and decision-making capabilities. With impressive scalability and security features, it is widely used in sectors such as finance, healthcare, and logistics for analytics and reporting. However, users seek improvements in integration with non-Microsoft layers, memory usage, SQL configuration, and scalability.

What are the key features of Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?

Clustered Columnstore Index: Boosts performance for complex queries.
SQL Server Integration: Seamless connectivity with Microsoft's database solutions.
Data Volume Handling: Efficient management of large datasets.
Cost Management: Ability to pause operations for cost savings.
Security Measures: Ensures robust data protection.

What benefits do users expect when evaluating Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?

Performance Efficiency: High-speed data processing capabilities.
Cost-Effectiveness: Suitable pricing model in specific scenarios.
Scalability: Ability to grow with business needs.
Integration Capabilities: Compatibility with Microsoft products and SQL Server.

In industries like finance, healthcare, and logistics, Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse supports analytics, reporting, and decision-making processes. Organizations utilize it to maintain historical data, develop business intelligence models, and create actionable dashboards, benefiting from its integration with key tools and efficient data management.

Microsoft

Oracle Big Data Appliance offers a comprehensive platform integrating ZFS technology and supporting Spark, designed to boost performance with Hadoop distributions, ensuring data security and accessibility across multiple languages.

Oracle Big Data Appliance presents an adaptable solution facilitating data consolidation with robust storage technology, crucial for central data repositories. Its Spark in-memory processing significantly reduces time through seamless integration with Hadoop distributions like Hortonworks and Cloudera. Role-based security enhances organizational data access, while multi-language support meets diverse processing requirements. Although challenges exist in AI capabilities and visualization tool efficiency, the platform remains valuable for entity-wide deployment.

What key features does Oracle Big Data Appliance offer?

Drag-and-Drop Interface: Enables non-technical users to build reports effortlessly.
ZFS Technology: Provides cost-effective storage solutions.
Spark on YARN Support: Enhances Hadoop performance with faster processing.
Security Roles: Ensures data access alignment with user privileges.
Multi-Language Support: Assists in handling diverse language processing needs.

What benefits should users look for when evaluating Oracle Big Data Appliance?

Centralized Data Management: Avoids the need for additional data warehouses.
Regulatory Reporting Facilitation: Eases compliance processes in sectors like Medicare.
Role-Based Reporting: Empowers end-users to create reports based on specific needs.
Consultation Integrations: Supports seamless data management when coupled with external services.

Oracle Big Data Appliance is predominantly used in healthcare and financial services, where data consolidation and regulatory compliance are crucial. Entities leverage Oracle's storage capabilities to maintain centralized repositories, expediting regulatory reporting and claim management processes, particularly benefiting sectors like Medicare. Consulting services frequently integrate Oracle platforms to enhance data management efficiency, especially for organizations utilizing Oracle applications.

Oracle

Sample Customers

Auckland Transport, Erste Bank Group, Urban Software Institute, NJVC, Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, Tata Steel Europe

Caixa Bank

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse vs. Oracle Big Data Appliance