Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Reviews

I use the solution in my company for graphs. We need graphs for some resources on Office 365. We also do a lot of stuff with other applications, specifically third-party applications. In Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, we use pipelines to manage the data from third-party applications.

I love the way Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics works, and I can also manage Microsoft Fabric. I can gather all the information using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics on Microsoft Fabric, including areas revolving around reporting using Microsoft Power BI. I love the way all the application resources from Microsoft can synchronize, help me with a lot of stuff, and reduce the time or hour of having maybe a resource for an hour a day while also being able to use artificial intelligence.

In our company, we always want to improve our data management, including how to manage structured and unstructured data. Every day, we need to do a lot of stuff because we are a bank. We have reports from user accounts and client accounts. Eventually, I want to use machine learning bots, maybe since they can help our company.

I have experience with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics.

I am good with the tool's stability part. For stability, I would prefer Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics over other tools. Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

It is a scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a seven to eight out of ten.

I rate the technical support an eight out of ten.

To be able to manage the product's initial setup phase, I believe that you have to know a little bit of networking. On a scale of one to ten, if ten is the easiest, I rate the setup phase as a five or six.

Three people can deploy the solution. A developer, an administrator, and I, the vice president of technology, can deploy the tool.

The tool's on-demand query capabilities help enhance our analytical tasks. I like the way the tool works, as I have people doing queries and an analyst doing a lot of stuff in the product. I love the way that we can manage Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics.

One person can maintain the tool.

I rate the tool a seven out of ten.

We have implemented it for two solutions - data warehousing and BI Synapse (Business Intelligence). We also use it for merchandising, where based on our booking patterns, Synapse is used to analyze and target customers with more products. We use it for virtualizing, and BI is for analyzing business strategies.

The best thing about it is that it has integration at multiple places. It can talk to more than 90 types of data sources, which is one good thing about it.

There are some limitations based on the fact that it is a new platform. Some of our users have recommended switching to a different platform they are more familiar with. However, from an infrastructure standpoint, I believe it can be more secure in terms of availability.

Currently, even though we have locked down public access, the Synapse can still be viewed with the URL without VPN access. It only allows viewing the configuration and not any sensitive data or pipelines. We are working with Microsoft to address this issue, but it seems like they have recommended that it be open, and there is currently no solution. Perhaps there will be improvements in other aspects in the future.

We have been implementing and working with it for about a year now.

It's quite stable. So far, we haven't experienced any failures. If any failures occur, it will be due to the type of data or changes in it. But apart from that, the pipeline runs fine. We are getting our data reports that the team runs from Power BI. So everything seems to be stable so far.

We are premium customers. So, we have access to their top-tier team. I can say it's pretty good.

Positive

It was very complex, but we have grown out of it now. We have at least six environments only on Synapse.

This is the first solution that we are trying out. But if we plan to compare it with another solution called Snowflake, it will open up more dimensions for our thoughts to work. 

However, based on what we have achieved so far, I can rate it as an eight out of ten overall.

The most valuable aspect of this Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is its consolidation of technical support from Microsoft, and its ability to securely host large quantities of data within the cloud environment. The overall ability to manage and maintain Big Data within the cloud provides a heightened level of efficiency, reliability, and support from Microsoft. This results in a superior user experience and an increased level of value for the end user.

There may be some challenges in terms of connecting with Virtual Networks (VNETs) to Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics.

I have been using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics for approximately one year.

The stability of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is great. It offers a high level of performance.

The scalability of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is good.

The support from Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is excellent.

There is a steep learning curve to do the implementation.

I rate the initial setup of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics a seven out of ten.

The entire Microsoft Azure ecosystem is well connected and Microsoft has done well with the features.

My advice to others is to try out the solution, do your homework and research, and set up a POC environment.

I rate Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics an eight out of ten.

We are using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics with multiple customers for data integration, data migration, and data analytics. I offer these services to my customers as part of my service organization called Edge Technologies.

Customers use the solution for analytics, such as forecasting reports. There are a lot of business cases, we customized them based on the customer.

The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is its integration with the new legacy systems. Whatever application we want to integrate, we receive the reports based on the objects. The solution is easy to purchase from the cloud.

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics can improve by adding more flexibility to the reports. Having more visible structures based on the area, region and country would be beneficial.

I have been using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics for approximately nine months in production.

The stability of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is good. However, there is a global transformation and consolidation happening.

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is able to scale to the needs of our requirements.

The initial setup of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is easy.

We only have to pay for what we use in the solution. It's easy for the customers. It's not more than some companies, not more than 300 to 400 users. They do not need to buy other license products, such as SAP B1, or analytics tools in the market, such as Tableau.

There is going to be competition in the market with the release of SAP Cloud Analytics.

The solution does not require maintenance because it is sized-based.

I would recommend this solution to others. I have evaluated the fact sheet on the solution.

I rate Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics an eight out of ten.

What I found most valuable in Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is that it's native only for Azure, so you get better performance and there's no issue. To explain further, many different types of data come, in particular, structured and unstructured data. For audit purposes, there's also unstructured data, so the most important aspect is that with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, you have the capability of using both technologies, meaning that you can use or mix structured and unstructured data which is important. This can also be done in Hadoop, and on other platforms, so you have everything in one place. You don't have to worry about how to manage both structured and unstructured data and where to store information. With Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, you can take care of everything, particularly in Azure.

The solution also provides you with many features apart from analytics, for example, storage which makes it better.

An area for improvement in Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is its user interface. You can use it for analytical purposes, but its platform should be a little bit more user-friendly.

Another small point for improvement in Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is its stability. It's good currently, but it could still be improved.

Microsoft is combining different tools and technologies into one solution, so in the future, I'm expecting to see even more improvement in Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics.

An additional feature I'd like to see in the next version of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is the drag-and-drop feature. If you're doing some integrations where you can write Scala or you have SPARK programming or SQL, or you're combining different programming, the process should be seamless, and you should be able to drag and drop in Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics. When doing reporting in the solution, you should also be able to drag and drop. There should be connectors available and a drag-and-drop feature available in the user interface of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, so you won't have to worry about how all processes would work together. You need to be able to drag and drop even from the backend, and having this feature will make the solution more user-friendly.

I've been using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics for three years.

In my opinion, Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is stable. I would rate its stability seven out of ten.

As Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is on the cloud, it's scalable, and you won't have that many issues with scalability. If a solution is cloud-based, you won't have to worry about whether it's scalable or whether it supports other features, because you'd have all features in the cloud itself. You can scale up or scale down Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics based on your requirement, so it all depends on what exactly you want. In the cloud, you won't have to schedule, wait, think, or plan. You can scale up or scale down automatically anytime.

I'm working on behalf of a vendor for the client, so my team is supporting not just users of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics within my company, but several other companies as well. Apart from supporting the infrastructure, data-related services, and other services, my team provides a combined type of effort for clients. My team is a big team with people working together from three different companies providing support for Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics. My team provides technical support for the solution.

The initial setup for Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is straightforward because Azure makes it very easy. Any Azure solution is very user-friendly, but you just have to know how to use the solution, and that's it. Setting up Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is not that complex if you're knowledgeable.

I evaluated AWS, and if you compare Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics with AWS, Azure excels more than AWS.

Amazon or AWS is established, and there's no doubt about it. It's also less costly in comparison with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, but since I worked on both platforms, if you want everything where you have to pay a little bit, and you don't want to pay or invest in some other development areas, and you want certain features to be automatically available for you, apart from a lot of features to be available on any platform you use, then your choice should be Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics. Amazon is a cloud provider only and relies mostly on open-source, but Azure has support from Microsoft which is an innovative company. Whatever product is offered by Azure, Microsoft support is there, and as a company, Microsoft is always very innovative, so a product such as Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is very useful and very user-friendly, which you won't get that much, at least for now, from Amazon. If Amazon wants to be comparable to Azure and have the same capabilities, then it will need to depend on some other companies. Whereas for Microsoft products, for example, GEO, it's native to the Microsoft platform, so it's comfortable to use, even though it's open-source and you're never sure of what type of problems could arise. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, because it's an Azure or Microsoft solution, is more advantageous than AWS.

I'm an architect and I'm using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, and apart from that solution, I'm also using other types such as Big Data, AIML, SPARK, and Scala. I'm also into other languages and reporting services.

I'm using the solution for my clients. Currently, I'm using it for clients, particularly Netherland-based banking institutions that have a cloud setup on Azure, but the deployment is now hybrid because of an ongoing migration. It's not completely migrated yet, so there's still something left in the data center. The clients have an ongoing migration from Hadoop and SD inSITE as well, which would be moved completely to Azure Cloud, so as of now, the deployment of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is still hybrid.

My rating for Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is seven out of ten as it combines many different features that you can use, so it's a good solution, and in the future, I'm expecting it to be better and better.

Several teams use Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, but then in my team, around twenty-five people use it, but that's not the complete number of users. Many people use the solution, with different features being used.

I don't see a product comparable to Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics that's available on the cloud. Currently, there's no comparison, so you can't say whether it's good or bad, though room for improvement in any product will always be there. Based on all the features of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, my rating for it is seven out of ten, at the moment, there's no competition for the solution because I've not come across any other tool that's comparable to Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics.

We primarily use the solution for our cloud data warehouse. 

The usability has been excellent. 

It offers good integration. 

The product works well with other Azure products.

The initial setup is very convenient.

It is scalable.

We have found the solution to be stable. 

The security is fine.

We'd like the solution to have more analytics capability.

We would like more detail on reports so that they are easy to understand in terms of usage of data and services. It could be improved.

I've been using the solution for one year. 

It's a stable product. It is reliable. The performance is good. It doesn't crash or freeze. There aren't bugs or glitches. 

We can scale the product up and down according to our needs.

We have around 100 people using the solution right now. 

My customer uses it on a daily basis.

We are satisfied with technical support. I haven't used them too much.

Neutral

I've also used Snowflake. 

Azure Synapse is a more integrated platform. With Snowflake, you need to buy it separately and run it off Microsoft. Snowflake, however, has better cost control. Snowflake is comparatively cost-efficient.

It is a straightforward setup. It's easy and not overly complex. I have not measured how long it actually takes; however, I can say the implementation is convenient. My administrator handled the setup. I did not handle it directly myself. 

The solution can get expensive, and it's hard to monitor the costs. It does depend on how you utilize it. You can configure it in a certain way.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. 

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is used for analytics.

The most valuable features of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics are the interface and the agility of the on-cloud platform.

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics's overall integration within the Azure ecosystem could improve. The native Microsoft solution versus another solution, such as Databricks, there are areas where there could be some improvements.

I have been using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics for approximately two years.

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is stable.

The scalability of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is very good.

We have hundreds of people using this solution.

Compared to the traditional data center approach, the cloud has pushed forward well for maintenance reduction. There is a 60 to 80 percent reduction.

My advice to others is this solution is not meant for small databases.

I rate Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics an eight out of ten.

Our company includes 50 analysts who use the solution on a daily basis to predict customer behavior. 

The solution's best feature is its predictive analytics. 

Integration with other vendors has limitations and could be improved. 

Integration of process analytics would be a nice addition that allows us to analyze efficiency. 

I have been using the solution for six months. 

The solution is stable. 

The solution is a web data warehousing and analytical platform built for enterprise environments, so it is definitely scalable. 

Technical support is very responsive and knowledgeable. 

I rate support an eight out of ten. 

Positive

We do not use other solutions because we operate in a Microsoft environment that is not expected to go to AWS.

The initial setup is complex and I rate it a four out of ten. 

The solution was implemented through a third-party vendor team. 

The solution has helped to predict sales and focus attention on enhancements that have improved the bottom line. 

I rate the ROI a six out of ten. 

I don't know specifics about pricing but I hear that it is quite expensive. For example, Power BI is not as expensive as this solution.  

The solution has superior modeling and predictive analytical abilities in comparison to Power BI. There isn't really an expectation that you would get these superior abilities in Power BI because the solutions have different purposes and use cases. 

I rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

I work in the financial industry where the most important thing is PII so the solution's data masking feature is very useful for clients. 

The solution operates like a typical SQL Server environment so there is no alienation in terms of technical knowledge. A developer will feel at home using the solution. 

The product needs a tool that allows for work from a laptop instead of a browser. When working in on-premises environments, it is important to have all tools installed on a laptop rather than relying on internet connectivity which is a big inconvenience. For example, it would be brilliant to add an integration on Visual Studio to create all pipelines in an offline mode. 

The solution cannot store much data and might require purchasing additional storage. For example if you have 1 TB of data, processing it in the solution will cost ten times more than processing it in Databricks. 

I have been using the solution for seven months. 

The solution's stability is good. 

The solution is highly scalable. For example, if you have 100 DWUs, you can increase up to 20,000 DWUs by letting Microsoft know your requirements. Your needs for DWUs will be satisfied based on how much you are willing to pay.

Support wavers depending on the size of the customer. For example, a Fortune 500 customer will receive tremendous support and quick turnaround time. 

Smaller customers might find it challenging to receive support. 

The initial setup is very easy.

The solution is very expensive because it often requires the purchase of additional storage. Many customers are willing to pay for something that is available in the open source market. If the price of the solution isn't reduced, it will not sell well in the future. I rate the price an eight out of ten. 

Our company heavily promotes Databricks because of the solution's cost impact on our clients. Databricks provides a data lake and a warehouse framework that gives the same or better performance when compared to Synapse, but there is a massive learning curve to using it. Most customers are not aware of Databricks so they don't understand it or use it. 

Two negatives of Databricks are that it is cloud native with no option for an on-premises server and it does not have good integration with any of the IDs. I provided this feedback while I was in training and their team acknowledged the web browser is an issue to resolve. Most developers do not like to work in a browser environment because accidently hitting F5 will cause complete loss or the internet goes down and all changes are lost. These type of issues do not occur when working in offline mode. 

Six months ago, Databricks launched a new product called Databricks SQL that offers multiple platforms such as data engineering with or without a SQL server environment. There is a focus on targeting developers familiar with SQL because the product will only require a different kind of syntax but the SQL environment is still there. Databricks is investing heavily in training developers free of cost and providing certification seminars to increase knowledge of the product as it evolves. 

There are use cases for Azure Synapse with customers who do not want to move away from SQL Server or want a similar experience. The solution offers the ability to create an on-premises server with a SQL syntax that is familiar to developers with no learning curve. Most customers prefer Synapse until they realize the high cost and then they switch to Databricks. 

I rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

We use Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics for a combination of a data warehouse with some advanced capabilities, to allow us to run some machine learning models on top of it. 

The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is the capabilities, and the integration with other Azure resources, such as Data Factory, Databricks, and Spark for data processing. The overall ability to compose the solution with other Azure resources is valuable.

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics could improve in usability. I have found the same issue with all Microsoft solutions.

I have been using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics for approximately 10 months.

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is stable.

The scalability of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is very good.

We have approximately 40 people using the solution. We have plans to increase our usage in the future.

I rate the support from Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics a three out of five.

Neutral

I did not use another solution prior to using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics.

The initial setup of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is straightforward. The full process took a couple of weeks when we started and finished.

We did the implementation of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics in-house.

We have a cloud services team with approximately three or four people and they take care of everything we need to support Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics.

It's difficult to compute a return on investment in data analytics.

The price of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics can vary. Other solutions are typically fixed prices and a fixed cost regardless of usage, but this solution is based on usage or consumption.

The best comparison for Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics would be with or against Snowflake. The only difference is that Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is more modular. If you want to build something very complex, you can. However, if you want to do something simple, you could stick with easy-to-use, more integrated platforms, such as Snowflake.

My advice to others is they should leverage other Azure components if they can. If they are looking for an integrated solution that's easy to use, they should look at competitors.

I rate Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics an eight out of ten.