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Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse vs SAP IQ comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.9
Most are satisfied with ROI, acknowledging its benefits, though improvements are possible, as it efficiently enhances backend operations.
Sentiment score
7.0
SAP IQ offers a high ROI with low implementation costs and significant hardware savings, despite some users not tracking exact returns.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.8
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse support is responsive and expert, though users sometimes need online resources for faster solutions.
Sentiment score
5.6
SAP IQ's service is mixed, with good global support but issues with expertise, staff shortages, and inefficient initial responses.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse excels in scalability, integration, and expandability, though improvements are needed for large data sets.
Sentiment score
7.4
SAP IQ excels in scalability, with easy expansion, though some multiplex architecture limitations are noted by users.
I give the scalability an eight out of ten, indicating it scales well for our needs.
As a consultant, we hire additional programmers when we need to scale up certain major projects.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is praised for its stability, reliability, and quick issue resolution, despite time-consuming extensive dataset processing.
Sentiment score
6.1
SAP IQ's stability has improved, handling high data volumes well, despite occasional issues in earlier versions under high load.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is stable for us because it is built on SQL Server.
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse presents complexity, compatibility challenges, performance issues, high costs, and requires improved in-memory analysis and updates.
SAP IQ needs better integration, stability, training, and affordability to overcome awareness and concurrency issues, enhancing user appeal.
It would be better to release patches less frequently, maybe once a month or once every two months.
When there are many users or many expensive queries, it can be very slow.
The ETL designing process could be optimized for better efficiency.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse's pricing varies by needs; Azure integration can be cost-effective, but technical support costs extra.
SAP IQ offers cost-effective licensing options and economical implementation, ideal for large databases needing partitioning and performance evaluation.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is very expensive.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse offers performance, integration, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness for large data management and business intelligence.
SAP IQ provides fast query processing, data compression, and scalability, ideal for BI with high data demands and user concurrency.
The columnstore index enhances data query performance by using less space and achieving faster performance than general indexing.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is used in the logistics area for optimizing SQL queries related to the loading and unloading of trucks.
There's a feature that allows users to set alerts on triggers within reports, enabling timely actions on pending applications and effectively reducing waiting time.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Parallel Data War...
Ranking in Data Warehouse
10th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP IQ
Ranking in Data Warehouse
16th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (27th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is 1.1%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP IQ is 2.8%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

StevenLai - PeerSpot reviewer
Strong scalable solution with streamlined metadata warehousing
We use it to build our data warehouse and databases, and everything in the back end It helps streamline our metadata warehousing process. As it is our only type of data warehouse and database, it serves as our source, destination, and staging area. This product has many features which are useful…
Tejas Raj - PeerSpot reviewer
Columnar database, so pulling records is easy but there isn't enough documentation for installation
I've seen very few SAP IQ systems in recent years. So people are moving away from SAP IQ In the last three years, I've rarely encountered customers using it. Fewer systems with SAP IQ usage among our customers. Most of them have moved on to HANA. There are parallel products, and there are also viable alternatives from AWS, so many have migrated to those.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
28%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Insurance Company
9%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
42%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse provides good firewall processing in terms of response time.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is excellent but very expensive. Working on the pricing could make it a better solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP IQ?
IQ implementation costs about three thousand dollars. It's less expensive compared to alternatives like Teradata Base in terms of transactional efficiency.
What needs improvement with SAP IQ?
The primary negative aspect is the cost, which can be a challenge due to the economic conditions in Peru.
What is your primary use case for SAP IQ?
I worked on implementing new databases, migration data in production, and developer environments with SAP IQ.
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Auckland Transport, Erste Bank Group, Urban Software Institute, NJVC, Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, Tata Steel Europe
ASR Group, Citrix, State of Indiana, PocketCard Co. Ltd.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse vs. SAP IQ and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.