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Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse vs Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service comparison

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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

Microsoft Parallel Data War...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (9th)
Oracle Exadata Express Clou...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (14th)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2254953 - PeerSpot reviewer
Service Desk Administrator at a real estate/law firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Virtual machines have handled large data and supported growth but pricing still needs improvement
I believe the product is pretty fast. When I have used it, it is handy. The integration with other Azure products is good and integrates well. Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse's security measures help ensure our sensitive data protection during analysis through measures such as encryption. Its scalability is impressive as it scales up and down really well. We go from a couple of users to tons of users all the time, and it scales and handles things really well. One of the major benefits with this product is that it's Microsoft, which is one of the best ones, and it's just plug and play.
Shrikant Navelkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at Clover Infotech
Have achieved excellent performance and seamless integration with effective cost control in cloud solutions
When customers are migrating from Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service and need to remove some of their test and development environment, what happens in normal virtualization is that they can just switch it off, but in ExaCS, they need to terminate the entire thing. Most of the customers are not aware of this, so they keep spending money even if they want to shut down their UAT environment or development environment, so Oracle needs to make it simpler in terms of reducing the bill on ExaCS when customers want to shut down certain environments. Today, you have to terminate the entire VM, and only then your billing will stop. The only functionality I would expect from Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service is that if Oracle is able to support Oracle MySQL Enterprise also on Exadata, that will solve a lot of problems.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the business intelligence (BI) part of it."
"Data collection and reporting are valuable features of the solution."
"The biggest lessons I've learned through the years are that Microsoft is probably the largest research company there is, so people should stick to people that know what they're doing, and Microsoft definitely has some very, very capable people designing these products, and that's probably why I've stayed with Microsoft so long."
"This is a solution that has good performance and I recommend it."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"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."
"We are able to monitor daily jobs, so if there is anything that needs to be done then we can do it."
"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."
"With this cloud service, a development team can get a database immediately, without long negotiation with other services."
"Exadata is a highly stable and mature solution."
"The performance of the tool is valuable."
"The solution is very stable and offers great performance."
"One of the most valuable parts of the solution is the high availability within the system and the performance enhancement without making any changes or fine-tuning the databases."
"In the cloud, Exadata is more scalable. The on-prem version was limited. It wasn't that scalable because it only came in a quarter rack, half rack, and full rack. In the cloud, it scales to what you need."
"I highly recommend Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service as a very good solution if you can afford it."
"I like that Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service is easier to use and is a cost-saving solution because you won't need to hire people to run and maintain it."
 

Cons

"I would like to see better visualization features."
"I think that the error messages need to be made more specific."
"The only issue with the product is that the process is very slow when we have a huge amount of data."
"There were scalability issues in that there is a limit to 32 concurrent queries."
"The query is slow if we don't optimize it."
"​Concurrent queries are limited to 32, making it more of a data storage mechanism instead of an active DWH solution."
"The initial setup of this solution is complex and can be improved."
"I would like the tool to support different operating systems."
"The support must be faster."
"The only downside is the difficulty in monitoring, and that's why I would like to implement MySQL database."
"Oracle's support could be better."
"I feel there is a need for better integration with Google Maps and Google Earth. This is crucial for me in the geographical facilities of the environment."
"We use artificial intelligence for deep learning, and it would be a huge benefit to implement this in Oracle Exadata."
"The solution's pricing could be improved."
"Customer Service: I had no answer when asking why the Customer Support Identifier is invalid Technical Support: The Customer Support Identifier provided was invalid. This means that I had no support, unfortunately."
"Scaling Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service can be done, but the process is a little tedious, which could be an area for improvement in the solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 is cost-effective."
"Technical support is an additional fee and is expensive."
"The tool could be expensive if we need to manage a lot of data."
"I think the program is well-priced compared to the other offerings that are out in the market."
"The solution's pricing is fairly decent for organizations with huge data sizes."
"All the features that we use do not require any additional subscription or yearly fees."
"I think Oracle pricing is usually above average market price."
"The price of this solution is very comparative to others on the market. There is no direct comparison between this solution and with something else because I do not see any other similar product."
"The tool is not cheap, but it is not really expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Recruiting/Hr Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise22
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service?
Oracle is quite expensive here in Brazil. Pricing is the primary challenge we face with Oracle.
What needs improvement with Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service?
When customers are migrating from Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service and need to remove some of their test and development environment, what happens in normal virtualization is that they can just...
What is your primary use case for Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service?
We have been implementing Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service for our customers for more than 10 to 12 years for our various customers through the on-premise Exadata offerings Oracle has.
 

Also Known As

Microsoft PDW, SQL Server Data Warehouse, Microsoft SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse, MS Parallel Data Warehouse
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Auckland Transport, Erste Bank Group, Urban Software Institute, NJVC, Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, Tata Steel Europe
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Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse vs. Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.