Microsoft Azure SQL Database Reviews

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.

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.

We're a healthcare organization hosting EHR systems like NextGen, Allscripts, Athena, and ECW, which require an SQL back end. We have a lot of NextGen clients who need a production SQL Server, a reporting server, and maybe a test server. We set up AO clusters if they have enterprise licensing, and we also do physical servers, depending on the client. 

We use Nutanix infrastructure and are moving more to Azure and AWS. We integrate SQL Servers for our clients, matching set-ups with their financial capacity and licensing. 

Overall, Azure SQL has been great. The ease of deployment and scalability are significant reasons we push our larger clients to Azure. We could throw the kitchen sink at the thing if we wanted. 

We use Azure Hybrid Benefit, depending on the client. We work with many nonprofits, and we always make reservations because you save tons of money. Normally, when we do our initial deployment, the first month's bill is sky-high. We build out the environment and servers, then we do the reservations. Of course, we will enable the hybrid licensing depending on the client. It saves time because everything is in one pane of glass it just simplifies the deployment of things. 

Azure SQL has improved our productivity. We try to customize with alerts to gain visibility into SQL. We have dedicated DBAs to do the SQL coding work, especially when it comes to specific EHRs or client-specific.

The deployment was straightforward, and the overall experience was very positive. I feel like I could do SQL migrations blindfolded. We onboard a lot of clients that have as many as 1,500 users. We're migrating from our private cloud to Azure or AWS, so it all goes hand in hand. I'm typically not involved with deployment. Once they set up the SQL clusters, I ensure everything runs like it did before. 

We're starting to implement more AI solutions. For example, we have a custom dev team that does live archiving. If the EHR system goes down, they have another way to access patient records and images. We have another new product called ChartAI that's integrated with AI to do dictation and handle things involving charts. It saves the practitioners and doctors time by automating processes and simplifying things. We integrate with multiple platforms across the board, and we've never had any issues. It's pretty seamless. 

Microsoft is at the forefront of databases, and everyone uses SQL. It's a reliable, solid platform.

Improvement could be made in the performance tools, offering a better overview of core issues like process activity and latency, as we currently rely on third-party tools and SQL jobs for monitoring and alerts. A comprehensive built-in solution for performance analysis would also be beneficial.

I have used SQL databases for around 20 years, and I have worked with my current organization for five years.

The latency and availability of Microsoft Azure SQL have been great. It's always been reliable. The only issue we've had has been connectivity between sites like the SonicWall locking up. SQL never crashes or suddenly becomes unavailable.

It's easy to scale Azure SQL. Scalability is critical because we can only scale so much in our private cloud. Our clients choose to have physical SQL clusters. Scalability is big for our large clients because we can always increase. 

We haven't had needed to open a ticket to customer service, but the great thing is that there's so much information online that you can troubleshoot your issues without getting support involved.

Positive

I have the deployment down to a science. We cut everything over and build it from scratch on the other side. We use Nutanix Move to move SQL databases between data centers if needed and set up the core databases or the support server. The day of the cutover, we back it up, stop the database, and restore it. From there, we're putting all the SQL logins back in and doing the maintenance jobs. 

I've seen significant cost savings due to hybrid licensing and reservations. Initially, the costs might be high, but savings occur once everything is in place and reservations are applied.

It greatly reduces the total cost of ownership through efficient licensing depending on the client, the cost savings, and hybrid benefits. We aim for a blend of organizational and client-owned licensing.

I rate Microsoft Azure SQL 10 out of 10.

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 to store restaurant sales data within the food and hospitality industry.

As the Azure SQL Database provides automatic backups, it gives us peace of mind knowing that we have backups and the restore capability available. Additionally, it is quick to set up and offers scalability. As our needs increase, we can easily scale it up to handle more data and faster processing.

Some of the best features of Microsoft Azure SQL Database are its scalability, pricing, and ease of setup. It is quick to set up and easy to scale. 

As our data needs increase, scaling up is as straightforward as dragging a slider to increase processing speed. The product also offers automatic backups, giving us peace of mind about data security. 

For the features we receive, the price is very reasonable.

One area for improvement is the need for accurate cost estimates. When I initially tried to set it up, I could not get an accurate quote on what my monthly costs would be based on my needs.

I have used Microsoft Azure SQL Database for a couple of years.

I have never experienced any downtime with Microsoft Azure SQL Database. It has been completely stable.

I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten. Scaling the solution is incredibly simple and involves just clicking a button or dragging a slider.

The customer support is hard to reach, with Microsoft’s technical support being difficult to get in touch with. While support exists, you have to be very patient to reach the right area, and communication is mainly through email chats rather than speaking to someone directly.

Neutral

I have only used Microsoft SQL Servers during my 15 years of experience. I have not used another cloud database.

The initial setup of Microsoft Azure SQL Database was straightforward and took only a couple of hours to complete.

The return on investment includes time savings, backup, and security features that minimize worry. It is a cost-effective solution at about $100 a month. It is ensuring we receive what we pay for through the blend of price, performance, and features.

While the pricing of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is good, obtaining an estimate of monthly costs based on specific needs was challenging. Initially, Microsoft asked us to sign up and use the service to see what it would cost.

I have not evaluated other SQL database solutions, since my familiarity is with the Windows environment, leading to the choice of Azure.

I would recommend Microsoft Azure SQL Database to others. For the price, you get an excellent balance of features and performance. I would suggest exploring AWS, although I am not familiar with its setup or the feature-to-price ratio.

I use Azure SQL Database as a reporting repository. We have clients who use Epicor ERP. I replicate portions of that database into Azure SQL Database for clients to use for Power BI or other reporting.

Additionally, I have niche use cases, such as using it as a witness in an RDP farm or a SQL high availability group. We have a couple of small websites using it as their primary data store, but the majority of use cases are for reporting and business intelligence.

We have integrated it with Microsoft Copilot agents as well as things like Power BI. We are also doing replication with on-premise or VM-based SQL Servers. It seems a little bit more complex to use Azure SQL Database as a data source for Microsoft Copilot add-in. There is a fairly complex setup to use it as a data source, but it is possible for sure. Otherwise, for things like Power BI and business intelligence, it is fantastic.

It is less expensive than doing a full-blown virtual machine for some of the lightweight loads, but I cannot give any numbers.

Azure SQL Database is very quick and easy to use. It certainly makes my infrastructure and development teams more efficient.

It is fantastic for business intelligence purposes.

There are compatibility issues that prevent Azure SQL Database from being a direct replacement for SQL Server running on a virtual machine. For instance, handling application-initiated DBCC commands is a challenge.

We had occasional compatibility issues which sometimes were showstoppers. If we have an application that we do not control, such as SolidWorks, when we try to deploy it using Azure SQL Database, it blows up because it is trying to make a call to the database that is not supported. It is like a black box to us. We do not have the ability to do anything other than go with a different SQL, for instance, SQL running on a VM. There are command compatibility issues with SQL Server standard.

I have been using Azure SQL Database for more than eight years.

The latency and availability of Azure SQL Database have been fantastic. We have had no issues with it.

While scaling, it can be a bit laggy. 

First-line support is challenging as they tend to be not very helpful. It usually takes an escalation or two to reach someone who can truly assist me. Once I reach the right people, the support is incredibly knowledgeable and thorough, but there is a delay in getting to the right people.

Neutral

From a licensing benefit standpoint, we have clients who are coming with their own SQL licensing with Software Assurance, and they are able to use those licenses for their Azure SQL and reduce costs.

I looked at other Microsoft options such as SQL Managed Instance or SQL in a virtual machine. I also considered the data store option running in Amazon Web Services but ultimately found Azure SQL to be easier and cheaper. The performance and cost were the main reasons for going for Azure SQL.

Microsoft’s expertise in SQL Server was very important when considering cloud database options. 

I would advise verifying application compatibility. Also, make sure that you review your security configuration and that you are following the guidance from Microsoft on security configuration.

I would rate Azure SQL Database an eight out of ten.

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.