Microsoft Azure SQL Database Reviews

My main use case for this solution is hosting application databases.

The feature I like the most about Microsoft Azure SQL Database is the scaling part.

It is cost-effective, which is why I appreciate that feature.

I find Microsoft Azure SQL Database very easy to use. Some basic knowledge from Azure is needed, but then you can use it quite easily.

I am using the automatic tuning feature in Microsoft Azure SQL Database for some applications. It scales when there is more need for performance, so that has been the impact on my database performance.

The solution's security features, such as using Defender, have a positive impact on my data protection strategies. Defender helps protect our data.

I think Microsoft Azure SQL Database should be cheaper. The license is expensive, but not always; it depends on the case regarding pricing and licensing. The cost could be lower in some cases.

I have been using Microsoft Azure SQL Database since 2016.

I have not experienced any real issues.

I find it scales workloads well; it scales automatically if you use the correct settings.

I have had experience with customer support and technical support, but not for SQL. The experience is sometimes good and sometimes not as good; it depends on the person you get and the product overall for Microsoft.

I sometimes used Azure SQL Managed Instance before choosing Microsoft Azure SQL Database. The reason I use the other one is based on application requirements; that is the only reason.

If it is possible, I would consider switching to Microsoft Azure SQL Database completely, but most applications I have do not support any other tool, so I have no choice.

The deployment and the migration process of this platform are easy and straightforward.

It has helped me reduce my company's total cost of ownership.

I do use Azure Hybrid Benefits. I have seen less cost as a benefit since implementing this feature, and it is cheaper.

We are exploring the usage of AI in our company. I think Microsoft Azure SQL Database has a place in that AI environment.

I do not know about Microsoft Azure SQL Database's ability to power next-generation AI applications since I have not used that feature, so I only have information from the marketing slides from Microsoft and the sessions, but I have no real experience.

I use the native backup option and have experience with the backup and restore functionalities. It works so far. I assess the reliability in terms of maintaining uptime and availability as good.

Microsoft's expertise in SQL Server is not important to us when considering cloud database options. My advice for other companies thinking of getting Microsoft Azure SQL Database is to use it. They should start with a proof of concept and a test environment, and then if it is successful, roll out to the production environment. I would rate this solution an 8 overall.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database serves as our main database for our application and microservice infrastructure.

What I appreciate most about Microsoft Azure SQL Database is that the infrastructure is managed by Microsoft, which means we do not need to worry about patching, relieving significant time from our engineers.

Transitioning from a traditional on-premise SQL database to Microsoft Azure SQL Database is beneficial because features such as auto-indexing allow us to scale during peak seasons and scale back on demand, which is very useful for handling our spiky peak traffic based on seasonal factors, avoiding the need to purchase more hardware as required with traditional setups. Moving to the cloud saves us not only engineering hours for operations but also helps us manage our spiky website traffic more effectively.

I would change Microsoft Azure SQL Database by removing the four terabyte limit and reconsidering how the database cores relate to the storage.

I have been using Microsoft Azure SQL Database for four years.

My experience with Microsoft Azure SQL Database's automatic tuning has revealed that while we have been using it, we realized the SQL database index that was created was somehow reverted a few days later, likely because of the nature of how our application behaves due to random and spiky web traffic. This may indicate the index was added but reverted later, which was likely caused by our application behavior contributing to this outcome.

I have not used the intelligent performance features of Microsoft Azure SQL Database. Microsoft Azure SQL Database's security features, including Defender for Database, meet our compliance standards as it helps us check all our permissions, roles, and accounts, alerting our team in the event of any changes made, and ensuring we address vulnerabilities detected by Defender for SQL Database.

Regarding customer service and technical support from Microsoft, we are currently on a mission-critical support plan, and the engineers provide timely advice. In one incident involving website outages due to high database I/O, the engineers helped pinpoint the exact problem and guided us on how to resolve it.

Positive

Before choosing Microsoft Azure SQL Database, I was using an on-premises legacy system.

My experience with the deployment process of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is straightforward, as we are using Entity Framework to deploy our database changes and Terraform for the infrastructure. Using Entity Framework to deploy our database schema has been good without any problems.

The biggest return on investment for us when using Microsoft Azure SQL Database is the time savings since we do not need to manage SQL database updates regularly as it is now fully managed by Microsoft.

My only concern regarding the pricing, setup cost, and licensing of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is that we have a large database size but limited compute requirements, which has forced us to move towards a higher core just to meet our database sizing requirements. We will be checking with the SQL database team on how to transition from our current setup to eventually a hyperscale database.

My advice for other companies considering Microsoft Azure SQL Database is to understand their database requirements and, if they have a larger data size, to consider Managed Instance before committing to SQL Database. I rate this product a nine out of ten.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database serves as our database after we migrated a database to the cloud and we're checking it out to see if that will be somewhere we want to go with a lot more of our applications.

Managed Instance is the feature of Microsoft Azure SQL Database that I like the most.

I have not yet used Microsoft Azure SQL Database intelligent performance features.

My experience with Microsoft Azure SQL Database automatic tuning is intermediate, but it has definitely helped because it takes a lot of the guesswork out of manually going through and finding what could be causing some bottlenecks.

I assess the effectiveness of Microsoft Azure SQL Database security features in meeting compliance standards as pretty good.

Microsoft Azure Active Directory integration and Microsoft Azure Key Vault have helped me manage data security.

The compatibility with SQL Server for transitioning legacy systems to Microsoft Azure SQL Database is very important because it gives us assurance that what we experience today, we can get the same performance on the other side.

One example of how these features have benefited my organization is backup and recovery, which is almost identical to how we do it because as DBAs, your most important job is to make sure the data is available.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database could improve by providing more support for Availability Groups within Managed Instance.

We have been using Microsoft Azure SQL Database for eight months now.

One challenge we faced deploying Microsoft Azure SQL Database was refreshing the databases because we keep copies of them and refresh them to other environments.

I would describe my experience with customer service and technical support as excellent, from the few times we have had to reach out.

Positive

We were using a similar solution previously, which was SQL Server on-premise.

Latency and how strong support would be if something goes wrong stood out in my evaluation process before selecting Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

We have seen a return on investment.

I would say I am at a basic experience level with the pricing, setup costs and licensing because while I am the administrator for the service, I do not provision the services and worry about the cost.

When it comes to licensing costs, it is a lot cheaper when you have Managed Instance versus a standalone SQL server.

Use the tools that Microsoft provides to assess your current environment if you are considering using Microsoft Azure SQL Database. I would rate this overall review as a nine.

My main use case for Microsoft Azure SQL Database is hosting an in-house application to serve different business streams.

The feature I like the most in Microsoft Azure SQL Database is the recovery point of time to recover the database when needed.

These features have benefited my organization by improving response time in seconds and milliseconds, and this will improve customer experience and satisfy the commercial team as well.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database can be improved by getting recent recommendations from Microsoft's side to be applied on a quarter basis, such as the latest batch update.

In a POC, I have been using Microsoft Azure SQL Database for one or two years.

What worked with Microsoft Azure SQL Database is good, but the challenge I faced is that it does not fit for a large-scale or tier-one business application.

I would evaluate customer service and technical support for Microsoft Azure SQL Database as very good.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate service and technical support an eight because it needs improvement, especially for accelerating support or solving a problem immediately or having expertise available around the clock, because there might be a mid-tier experience from the support team, and in some cases, we need to involve an expert immediately to solve our cases.

Positive

Prior to adopting Microsoft Azure SQL Database, I was using another solution such as PostgreSQL and Oracle databases in place, and we have open sources as well in place, such as Mongo SQL or Mongo database.

I would describe my experience with deploying Microsoft Azure SQL Database as good.

I have seen a return on investment with Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

The return on investment I can share is that it improves customer experience, and improving customer experience means getting more customer base to use our products, and this is ROI for using such products.

Before selecting Microsoft Azure SQL Database, I considered other solutions such as Oracle and PostgreSQL.

I have not yet used Microsoft Azure SQL Database's intelligent performance features.

My experience with Microsoft Azure SQL Database's automatic tuning is that the database should be optimized and tuned very well, either by doing something to enhance the performance or by consulting support teams to give advice to be applied, such as the latest patch set, or to analyze queries to get optimizer feedback to be applied immediately in order to get applications tuned all the time.

I assess the effectiveness of Microsoft Azure SQL Database's security features in meeting compliance standards as compliant with our security rules.

I have not seen Azure Active Directory integration and Azure Key Vault help manage data security.

The capability with SQL Server for transitioning legacy systems to SQL Databases is important to me as we depend on a famous database technology such as Oracle, but we need to mix and match our technologies in terms of databases and SQL as well, such as Azure SQL, in order to have heterogeneous environments, not depending on one solo vendor. We are trying to move a mid-tier or a small tier to Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

My advice to other organizations considering Microsoft Azure SQL Database is to move a mid-tier or a small team to Microsoft Azure SQL Database. I give this review an overall rating of seven.

My main use case for Microsoft Azure SQL Database is to connect source data for our APIs and hydrate different things for that.

I appreciate Microsoft Azure SQL Database because I enjoy SQL. It works well out of the box, and I know what I'm getting. The product functions as expected without requiring much maintenance.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database benefits my company on a day-to-day basis as it serves as an excellent place to store our database and data. I would appreciate the ability for all teams to operate on one database instead of several different systems. Microsoft Azure SQL Database is one of those solutions that helps consolidate our infrastructure, though unfortunately it is not the only solution we use.

I think Microsoft Azure SQL Database can be improved, but I do not use it frequently enough to identify significant pain points.

In my area of expertise, I have been working for about three years, and in my current position, I have been using Microsoft Azure SQL Database for only about one year.

Regarding reliability, I would generally consider Microsoft Azure SQL Database quite reliable in maintaining uptime and availability.

My impressions of Microsoft Azure SQL Database's ability to scale workloads are positive. I think it works very well with no complaints.

Microsoft's expertise in SQL Server is very good when considering cloud database options. I have not used the support myself, but the documentation is very up-to-date. If I ever need to look something up, it is quite easy to find.

Positive

We have different solutions implemented across our organization. I know that we have some relational and some non-relational options, which is probably part of the reason for having multiple systems. The main differences between those solutions and SQL would be the relational versus non-relational aspect. We use a lot of legacy software, so that probably plays into some compatibility aspect. Beyond that, I am not certain about other differences.

Other than the relational versus non-relational distinctions, I am not entirely clear on why we maintain these different solutions.

The migration and deployment process of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is quite straightforward. If I ever encounter issues, Copilot is quite helpful, as is the documentation. I would not say it is very complicated.

From my point of view, the biggest return on investment with Microsoft Azure SQL Database is that it is great to store our customer data and everything for our different products and be able to access that easily as we want to. I do not know what we put into it, so I am not certain what that looks like from an ROI perspective. However, it works smoothly, I have no complaints, and it is a good database solution.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database has probably helped reduce my company's total cost of ownership.

I have never looked at the pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

I am not considering switching away from Microsoft Azure SQL Database or conducting a proof of concept of another solution.

I would rate Microsoft Azure SQL Database as a five on a scale from one to five in terms of ease of use.

I assess Microsoft Azure SQL Database's ability to integrate with other Microsoft applications as excellent, with no complaints.

I have not had hands-on experience with Microsoft Azure SQL Database working with AI. I know that functionality exists, and part of what I am trying to focus on at Ignite this year is learning how I can integrate different AI solutions and workflows with Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

I am not using the automatic tuning feature in Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

I do not know what impact Microsoft Azure SQL Database's security features have on my data protection strategies, if any.

I am not using the data encryption feature on Microsoft Azure SQL Database, or at least not knowingly.

I have not used the backup and restore functionalities of Microsoft Azure SQL Database. Our database engineers have touched that before, but I have never used it. It seems to work as intended.

We are still using other solutions alongside Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

My advice for other companies that are considering Microsoft Azure SQL Database is to go for it, especially if you are using other Microsoft products. It seems to integrate with everything very well, and it just works.

I have rated this review a nine out of ten overall.

My main use cases for Microsoft Azure SQL Database are third-party applications.

The features of Microsoft Azure SQL Database that I appreciate the most are Availability Groups.

My organization benefits from consolidation efforts with these features.

Active Directory integration and Azure Key Vault have helped manage data security.

User permissions authentication to Microsoft Azure SQL Database is something that has been helpful.

I have no comments at the moment on how Microsoft Azure SQL Database can be improved.

I have no comments on additional features that I would like to see released in the next release.

I do not have any comments at this time.

I have been using Microsoft Azure SQL Database for less than a year.

I have not used Microsoft Azure SQL Database intelligence features.

Regarding my experience with SQL Database Automatic Tuning, I have not used it yet.

I have not raised any issues regarding customer service and technical support.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate customer service technical support a seven.

I would probably give that rating based on my previous history opening up other support cases with Microsoft.

Positive

Prior to adopting Microsoft Azure SQL Database, I was using on-premises SQL Server environments to address similar needs.

The adoption of more Azure services led me to consider a change.

I have no comments describing my experience with deploying Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

I faced no challenges, but it was seamless because I already had Microsoft Entra and Active Directory set up with seamless permissions and an established environment.

Before selecting Microsoft Azure SQL Database, I considered Postgres.

What stood out to me in my evaluation process was the ease of getting the third-party application to support SQL Server.

I am currently looking into transitioning legacy systems to Microsoft Azure SQL Database to perform an on-premises migration from SQL infrastructure to Azure SQL.

In this particular use case with Microsoft Azure SQL Database, it actually moves many of the hurdles away. Hosting these types of databases on-premises can be challenging, but if you have the ability to do it on Azure, that is beneficial, and it also removes security obstacles as well.

I have no comments on anything they can improve on, change, or any additional release I would like to see.

I would rate this review an eight overall.

The primary use cases for Microsoft Azure SQL Database are to establish relational databases in the cloud and database-focused applications that are cloud-ready.

SQL has been a game changer for many of the organizations I have worked for. It is very easy to implement, manage, and offers great insights into what is happening inside the engine. 

Microsoft Azure SQL Database is integrated into other Azure capabilities and has a great foundation being on SQL Server with a long history of security, performance, and usability from a DBA perspective. 

Once you've set up a server, adding databases is easy. There's a minor challenge with having data in separate databases that you want to connect like we do on premises.

I'm looking forward to using some of these new AI-driven functions that have come out around vectorization. Having the data closer to my transactional databases or data makes it easy to augment and enhance the Database and applications I currently use.

It's great that Azure SQL now seamlessly integrates with Microsoft Fabric. It's a first-tier service in the cloud that connects to web applications and other databases. The data transformation orchestration capabilities within Database Factory and similar capabilities make it effortless to move that stuff forward.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database could improve by having better tooling in terms of connecting to other database platforms and better capabilities around programmable interfaces. There should be more fine-tuning on the storage layer. I would like to see T-SQL improvements to automatically translate features from other database platforms for easier migration, as well as some improvements around column store and native capabilities like those in Iceberg and PowerK built into the SQL Server product.

I have used Microsoft Azure SQL Database for about seven years.

The latency in the cloud is great, but it increases for hybrid applications. I hope this will improve over time, potentially due to changes in the networking stack in Azure

Microsoft Azure SQL Database scales well within paid limits, but once size restrictions and top-tier thresholds are hit, transitioning becomes difficult. It would be beneficial if it could scale without a difficult transition process.

The expertise and support from Microsoft, especially at conferences and through documentation on their website, are valuable. They have invested significantly, although there is room for more investment in training materials to ensure our people are well-trained and have information readily available for managing the solution.

It is much better than the other database platforms that we have used.

Migrating our data and that of our customers from on-premises to the cloud was seamless. Azure Hybrid Benefit helped make the transition straightforward, particularly in like-to-like scenarios.

We had some trouble with SQL Agent and maintenance capabilities. It was difficult to transition those into the cloud, so we had to reinvent a couple of things because they weren't available in the cloud. There was a cost, and there was some confusion a number of times about what the expectation should be when it goes into the cloud.

SQL Server has helped to significantly reduce the total cost of ownership. In one company that I led, we reduced costs from $20 million to about $5 million per year.

Azure Hybrid Benefit reduced costs by facilitating an easy transition of on-premises databases to the cloud. Licensing discussions were straightforward, minimizing the challenges of moving data to the cloud.

I would rate the overall solution between eight and nine, as it covers the majority of our needs and competes better than most other databases we use.

Currently, SQL is our main database repository within the bank. All of our client data is stored on the SQL database, and it's the main database we use in the field. Most of our critical systems are on SQL databases.

Our migration to Azure for most databases has increased our organization's efficiency and reduced the maintenance required to manage on-premises infrastructure. With on-premises infrastructure, you have to build and maintain your setup. It has reduced our downtime. We've improved our productivity because we can automate database deployments and script execution within the database.

SQL is easy to use and easily integrates with many systems. There aren't many code changes needed when you're using SQL databases. Integrating Azure SQL with other Microsoft applications is instant because they're all Microsoft solutions. 

There isn't any new improvement that I can think of at the moment. We have different deployment choices, such as running SQL on an Azure VM or deploying SQL-managed instances. The managed instance is a significant improvement over running SQL in an Azure VM.

I have used Azure SQL for about four years.

Initially, we had latency issues with SQL databases because we hadn't optimized the platform. Over time, we overcame these challenges with support, and now we no longer experience latency issues. We can't tell the difference between running on-prem or Azure because we no longer have those latency issues.

Azure SQL databases allow easy scaling. Microsoft manages the underlying infrastructure in a managed instance environment, so all you consume is the database. Resources like storage automatically scale up without any manual intervention.

We have an enterprise agreement with Microsoft, which provides us with excellent support. Microsoft played a significant role, even from a training perspective, and provided resources that directed us toward the right deployment path.

Positive

Deploying Azure SQL is straightforward. We had a few challenges, but Microsoft offers an excellent training program. They ensured we got the training to understand the deployment. For example, we wanted to deploy the traditional framework clusters, but Microsoft pointed us in the right direction to raise our resources.

It's hard to quantify because we didn't calculate the costs when we were on-premises, but it may have lowered the total cost of ownership because you only purchase the storage you need and pay for what you're using. If you're managing your own data center, you always have to overprovision your systems and pay for storage space you're not using. I think it's cost-efficient.

I would rate the overall solution an eight out of ten.

Azure SQL serves a variety of purposes across our client base. It supports both customer-facing and internal products, depending on the specific needs of each client.

Using Azure SQL Database is not difficult.

I'm excited about the Azure SQL database's ability to power next-generation AI applications because its capabilities unlock greater potential.

The Azure Hybrid Benefit simplifies the process of migrating servers to the cloud by reducing the licensing complexities and costs associated with running Windows Server or SQL Server workloads in Azure.

Integrating Azure SQL database with other Microsoft applications is easy. For someone with my level of experience, it is not complicated at all. 

We remain committed to delivering our services with consistent willingness and enthusiasm. Utilizing Azure SQL Database has enabled us to maintain our productivity levels without interruption. This technology significantly enhances our operational efficiency.

Azure SQL Database has significantly reduced our total cost of ownership by eliminating the need for managing physical infrastructure, including data warehouses and data centers.

The integration with Azure Data Factory is seamless and straightforward, described as just a click away. From my experience, this integration is not overly complicated for someone at my level. However, it might be challenging for a newcomer. Additionally, Azure SQL helps in reducing the company's total cost of ownership because we don't have to manage on-premises infrastructure. Migrating servers is easier, and there is less concern about licensing. These features also aid in cost reduction.

Sometimes, we encounter limitations due to our use of a government cloud environment, which differs from commercial cloud platforms. Certain features available commercially may not be applicable in our gov cloud. To overcome this, we collaborated with the network team to develop alternative solutions. We always approach tasks with multiple plans, A, B, and C to proactively address potential challenges and avoid reactive problem-solving.

I have been using Microsoft Azure SQL Database for two years.

The latency and availability of the Azure SQL database have been satisfactory thus far.

As Azure SQL database is a Platform-as-a-Service offering managed by Microsoft, we are confident in its ability to scale workloads effectively.

Microsoft provides excellent service and is always available to support us. They are very supportive and engaged.

Positive

We were predominantly a Microsoft shop, and choosing Azure SQL was a natural progression from on-premises to the cloud.

I would rate Azure SQL eight out of ten. This is because things change frequently, bringing new features and capabilities we haven't fully explored yet. I always leave room for growth, considering potential challenges we haven't encountered.

Microsoft's SQL Server expertise was a key factor in our decision to adopt their cloud database solutions. Their consistent support and readily available communication have proven invaluable, particularly the helpful human interaction we've experienced.

We use Microsoft Azure SQL Database mainly for the backend of the transaction of data. It is used for various sectors like healthcare, patient data, and ERP.

Azure SQL's user interface makes it easy to provision a database. It integrates well on the back end with our functions and logic apps. While Azure SQL is probably not a good fit for running AI-based applications on top of it, AI might provide better performance monitoring or bottleneck analysis. AI can help the SQL server operate better. 

There is a need for dynamic scaling support without losing current transactions. That should be part of the standard offering to SKUs. It doesn't have Auto SQL. We have HyperSQL, but there are limitations on the Elastic Pool. It only allows 25 databases. It would help if we could automatically analyze and optimize long-running queries instead of handling these tasks manually. 

We have been using Azure SQL Database for about 10 years.

For our solution, Microsoft Azure SQL Database has been accessible, though there are performance bottlenecks related to old code and long-running or poorly optimized queries.

Scaling is primarily manual unless using Elastic Pool. Automatic scaling without transaction loss is a desired feature. Scalability could be improved with auto scale options.

Our interaction with Microsoft has been limited as our team is experienced. However, we recently worked with Microsoft on the new database watcher feature and confirmed limits for the hyperscale with Elastic Pool.

Positive

Our solution was initially built for an on-premises data center using SQL Server as the backend. Moving to Azure, we continued with Azure SQL Database because it supports the majority of needed functionalities.

We used managed instances and standard offerings to manage the transition from on-prem data hosting to Azure, given the lack of auto-scaling.

Our internal DBA team handled the implementation, leveraging their expertise to ensure a smooth process.

Our main savings come from using Elastic Pool, which reduces costs by 30 to 40 percent for multiple databases and 10 percent from vCore provisioning. The serverless feature should save a lot, but the database is rarely paused or parked, so we don't save as much as we should. 

We do not use Azure Hybrid Benefits because of company policy. Hence, all licensing costs are associated with Azure SQL licensing rather than bringing on-prem licenses to Azure.

Options like Cosmos DB and vector databases are considered for AI applications. However, we stay with Azure SQL for transactional data stores.

I rate Microsoft Azure SQL Database nine out of 10. It's still missing some features, so I deducted one point.