Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Reviews

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics can be used for analytics and brings together data integration.

The integrated workspace in Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics where everything comes together, such as Power BI and Data Factory, is very good. Additionally, the ability to do dedicated SQL pooling is a benefit.

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics can improve querying. I have recently used Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics to connect to the Delta Lake file and I have noticed some issues. It has not been able to read the latest version of the Delta Lake file and I have found this to be a disadvantage that they can improve.

In the future, Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics could improve the performance, there are other solutions that are better, such as Databricks.

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

On the client's side, there are approximately 100 users of this solution.

Have I reached out to Microsoft technical support in a few instances and we have raised a couple of tickets. A couple of agents have been knowledgeable, but not everyone is.

The installation of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics was easy. It was not complicated, but I have not explored the VNet Injection or the Private Endpoint though I think it would be straightforward.

We are on a monthly payment plan for the use of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics.

We have done some comparisons between Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics in many areas, such as processing queries, versus Databricks. We have found Databricks to be better in performance.

I would recommend this solution to others. The client that I am working for, their preferred database is Synapse.

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

The solution is generally used as more of an Analytical Data Warehouse. It's more of an offline enterprise scale. Sometimes I've used it from a marketing perspective, as a marketing data platform. I've not really used it from a risk and the enterprise center as it tends to be more back office, and therefore less around the customer, and more around the finance procurement of HR risk and that type of thing.

The solution is scalable.

It's better than a similar solution offered by Amazon.

Technical support is okay in terms of the help they provide.

The product could be easier to use. For example, I find Snowflake more user-friendly. They should offer simpler operations.

The initial setup could be faster.

Technical support can get expensive as they charge per use. The product could do more around crowdsourcing to help users find answers or answer questions without having to resort to contacting technical support directly.

The product could be more feature-rich.

They should look at some of what AWS and Snowflake are doing. They've both got a feature stack and also push the integration of things. This is a little bit lacking with Azure.

The analytics side of the solution is pretty weak right now. 

I have used this solution for a while. I used it before it was even called Synapse - when it was just Azure SQL Data Warehouse. It's been three or four years.

Technical support is okay, however, it can get expensive. The more you use it, the more it costs. I do not like this particular model.

I also have experience using Snowflake. I use both products. I originally started using Snowflake in 2017.

The solution takes longer to set up than I would like. There are a lot of questions that need to be addressed with the customer, and this can draw out the process. 

You do have to pay more the more you use technical support.

Clients have had a free year and then a monthly cost that they need to pay for licensing and access.

I don't use it personally, as I'm a consultant. However, if I implement it for clients, I do use it.

I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten. There's still some work that needs to be done on the product that can make it a lot better.

I would recommend the solution to a company if they were a Microsoft shop. In that case, it's the obvious thing for them to do and it's a good choice.

We have implemented our data warehouse on Synapse.

The solution has been reliable so far.

The product is scalable, or, at least, that is my understanding. 

We've had a good experience with technical support in general. They are helpful. 

The solution has proven to be very user-friendly.

Right now, we are really struggling with the performance. it's not as good as we had hoped. 

I cannot recall coming across any missing features. 

One problem is that getting the query cost is not easy. I need to use multiple tools. It can be accessed through the web, or we have Azure Data Studio, or SSMS, and I only get the query cost in SSMS, the SQL Server Management Studio. In other tools, I'm not getting it. For example, in the web version or in Azure Data Studio, it is not available. They need to make it accessible in both of those places as well. 

I haven't used the solution for very long. 

The performance on offer is lackluster. We were hoping for better. 

That said, it is reliable, and if I get the required performance, I am happy with it. 

While I haven't really tested the scalability, it is my impression that the solution can scale and it shouldn't be an issue for any company to do so.

Technical support is good. They are helping us in improving the performance. We're quite satisfied with the level of service they are offing us. They are helpful and responsive. 

I did not handle the initial setup. That was handled by another party. Therefore, I don't have any insights into the process or how easy or difficult it was to implement. 

I don't have any insights into the licensing process. It is implemented on our client's side, and therefore, I'm not involved in that.

We're just customers and end-users. My company does not have any relationship. It's our client who has a relationship with Microsoft.

I'm not sure which version we are using, however, I would guess it is the latest version. I'm not 100% sure.

Since the solution is still new to me, and I am having issues with performance, it's too early to say if I would recommend the solution to other users or companies. 

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

We have been using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics as our proof of concept in our data warehouse. As for the analytics part, we have not used it because we do not have any SQL pools. We think it is a bit more than we need because our data is not implicated and the data sets are not very large. It is mostly been used for the detection functions and to link up the sources.

The most valuable features of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics are how easy and quick it is to set up the linked services.

When I was trying to link services to an SFTP site it was not able to do all the possible encryption that I needed. They can improve by adding more encryption options.

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

The solution is incredibly stable. 

The only thing that has not been stable are the pipelines that we are using runtime integration on our on-premise server and something is slowing everything down, it might be a particular ODBC connection. I am not sure if that is due to the Microsoft platform or it might be some other setup or settings that are causing the issue. However, other than this issue, the solution has been brilliant. It has been very reliable and stable.

The solution is scalable. I have changed the interface and most of the operations can be done from the interface by clicking a few buttons, it is quick and easy.

At the moment we only have approximately four people using the solution because it is a data warehouse creation in the back end. We have not reached the stage where our staff will use the product but we are building a single customer view using the platform and we will be increase usage in the future.

The initial installation is straightforward. There is a lot of documentation provided by Microsoft making it very easy to get started.

Having used the serverless option for the database has saved us a lot of money.

We chose the serverless option for the database which has saved us a lot of money. Our costs are approximately £600 per month.

It is beneficial to always plan exactly what the main aims are and then choose the solution that can do it. If you want something quick, I set something up without any knowledge with Azure in three weeks. Once you get going, everything will be at your fingertips.

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

The healthcare sector is looking for how to accomplish certain processes because currently a lot of it is pure logistics. The goal is to announce and to make processes more transparent and see if they can be made more efficient. This is where business analytics comes in. The organization is using different kinds of information sources, such as electronic client dossiers or HR systems. They will see what kind of knowledge is required, how the patient or the clients are experiencing what quality of health, and create dashboards to see how the organization is doing. This will show which areas they can improve and which areas are already more efficient to make them more visible. This should allow a better understanding from the management, organization, and healthcare professional.

The features most valuable are the simplicity, how easy it is to create a dashboard from different information systems. We are trying to get these organizations to work with the architecture. This should allow these organizations if there is a new product or a new piece of software that is introduced to be able to handle operations themselves. For example, being able to attach the new product to a Power Bl, create a connector, or create interactive information exchange between these two or more different information systems. Standardization and simplicity, are key features.

The solution can integrate well if there is a connector. It will integrate perfectly with the Office 365 suite and Workspace 365.

Indicating what areas need improvement in this solution is a difficult question because the organizations that I am working for are really new in this area. However, an even better more simple interface, or perhaps an extension of a connector app store solution, would be helpful. For example, if your organization, has an electronic client dossier and you want to connect that information system in real-time towards Power BI, you just go to the app store and see if there is an ONS connector, introduce it, set it up, and go from there.

In an upcoming release, it would be beneficial to have the ability to have dashboards on mobile devices to receive a better experience for the user.

I have been using the solution for approximately five years.

This solution is reliable. You have to be aware that you are solely depending on an internet connection. The stability is more about the resilience and reliability of the stability of the network rather than the solution itself.

We have not tried to expand the solution into a very large extension because it is a rather small organization that I am working for. The Azure platform where Power BI is running on is expandable to whatever you like.

We have many organizations using this solution. The care organization I am working for has three customers using it. I am also working as an associate with another company and they have multiple organizations that are working with these solutions. My estimate would be approximately 15 organizations that are working with this solution.

We have plans to increase usage, but these organizations are all at the starting point. This is a strategic solution to improve their processes and business continuity. It is a conservative environment, every change is really hard. It is really stressful to get changes done and it will take some time. This solution changes the way in which work is done, it will take up to three to four years to be widely adopted.

If I ever have to do call Microsoft support, they are really supportive. For instance, on the Office 365 suite, I had an issue and I received a call back the next day by somebody in the United States. They walked me through the issue and they resolved it within a few hours. They have service-level agreements to attend to and there is good monitoring to see what the status is, the support was really good.

In the initial setup, to make it really easy I have, for instance, just a plain Excel sheet retrieving information in and one information system which brings in live data giving you a good starting point. It is not a really hard setup, to do it is quite straightforward. In the Netherlands, there are some major players concerning electronic client dossiers and electronic patient dossiers. Once you go through the complexity once you can then re-use it for a different customer.

The deployment just takes approximately two hours. It is the testing and the acceptance, and what to get out of the product, that is going to take a longer period of time. This could take up to a couple of weeks to a couple of months.

The type of license depends on what you want. This is a perpetual and monthly license, similar to Office 365.

My company pays for the license and  I am not sure about the price. Sometimes my company wants to have a micro business case study to see if it is an actual benefit for us to purchase. It is a strategic solution and we have to make sure that the organization understands this is going to save them money in the long run.

My advice to those wanting to implement this solution would be to "Think big and act small." See what is up ahead. One of the organizations that I am working for, the big picture is population health management. We are not going to start with that, we are going to start to improve one small process, which is a cumbersome process that is been difficult for many years. That is the process that we are going to make transparent towards the organization, to see where the bottlenecks could be or are, and improve that process. 

We want the user experience to improve and that the amount of time you can save is monitored, which can be used for other care processes. Start with a cumbersome problem, resolve them first. You can actually tell within the organization, if the solution is already working, not on the larger scale, but on the small scale. Once you start seeing these results move on to the next problem.

The solution is secure. However, the organization has to be aware that if you use the security by default, the security is there. It has security by design. It is not the optimal security, I would always recommend that organizations use multi-factor authentication for an additional security layer. Additionally, if possible, have a next-generation firewall within their network in use or, if not, start implementing that if they are planning to move forward into an outsource Azure platform-based eco landscape.

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

The stability of the solution is pretty good. It's one of the solution's most valuable aspects.

The useability, the user interface, is very user-friendly.

The solution needs to improve its integration capabilities. It needs better integration with SQL and other databases. 

The initial setup is complex.

The product needs to implement more machine learning and artificial intelligence.

If they had more IoT and streaming capabilities, it would be helpful.

The product could use more analytics tools.

It would be helpful if we could use the product with less coding.

Normally, the solution is quite stable. The performance is pretty good. We don't regularly deal with issues. It doesn't crash or freeze, and I can't recall any bugs or glitches.

The solution can scale, however, it is expensive to do so. If a company wants to expand, it will have to pay. Therefore, they should be prepared for that.

Currently, we have about 200 people using the solution.

I don't have a direct relationship with the technical support when I have a problem. They aren't very good. We aren't satisfied with the level of support we get.

The initial setup is not too straightforward. It's rather complex. We had to get some outside assistance.

The deployment process took us about three months. It was a while.

We hired a consultant to help us with the implementation of the solution.

I don't have exact KPIs on this, however, I need to improve the sizing in order to improve our ROI.

The is a monthly licensing fee. I can't speak to how much we actually pay, however.

There is just one fee. You do not have any more costs over and above that.

While we didn't previously evaluate other options, in 2021, we need to explore the other solutions. I intend to look at the Amazon and Google Cloud platforms as other options.

We are both partners and end-users of the product. We use it internally and we use it with some of our clients.

I would caution new users that there is one parameter they need to watch carefully. That is the size of the data warehouse. If you don't configure this parameter to be as small as possible, your costs will be quite high.

I would rate the solution at a seven out of ten. It's a stable platform, however, the price model is questionable in comparison to Amazon and Google and the contact with support is a problem for me. 

We're using this solution for general data integration. We are customers of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics and I'm a data specialist. 

I like the solution because it's very interactive and provides flexibility. It's mostly a drag-and-drop procedure. It also provides a lot of design choices.

We've only recently starting testing this solution and it would be helpful if the documentation was better or if the company could provide some kind of presentation to help us understand how the tool works and what's required to optimize use of the solution.

We've been testing this solution for a couple of months. 

I haven't seen any issues with stability or scalability. We have an infrastructure team of around 40 people. 

The company chose Synapse Analytics because the price is fair and I understand it's cheaper than Snowflake.

We're also hoping to evaluate Snowflake which is an advanced version of both Azure and AWS together. Snowflake has advantages, especially in terms of scalability which can also be implemented separately at the storage level and also at the computer level. 

I think Synapse Analytics is definitely better than the traditional high solution data solutions that we've previously used. It's definitely worth considering and I haven't come across anything negative, only advantages for now.

I would rate this solution an eight out of 10. 

I work with Azure Synapse Analytics, Power BI, and Premier as a data administrator, using Microsoft's Azure cloud infrastructure. Azure Synapse Analytics is the principal data administration tool for our internal data warehousing, but we also use it for our customers' data warehousing and analytics in different industries. For data entry, we use Microsoft Power BI.

Internally, we have about 200 personnel currently using Azure Synapse Analytics, including data specialists, service managers, and other tech workers. It is not extensively used by all, however, because we don't often use it for very large amounts of data, except where financial data is involved.

Azure Synapse Analytics helps us move quickly when it comes to finding data warehousing and analytics solutions for our customers.

We use Azure Synapse Analytics in many different areas and industries, so I like that you can administrate and create pipelines for different sources of data and later integrate and deploy it to other internal areas, such as separate dashboards for financials, and so on.

It is our main data warehouse solution, and the one big feature I appreciate is all its various analytics functions. The built-in analytics also makes it an attractive option for our customers, where we act as a service provider for them.

Unfortunately, we have had some issues with the dashboard reporting. Sometimes, the data for specific periods would just appear blank on the dashboard. To investigate this, we worked with a Microsoft incident agent and it turned out to be a result of bugs in the platform when dealing with specific types of queries in Azure Data Factory.

We have also encountered some bugs regarding incompatibility with certain versions of Power BI. In the past, Power BI used to integrate nicely with Azure Analysis Services which we used as a bridge between Power BI and Synapse Analytics, but they have since discontinued the features that worked so well for us.

Apart from fixing bugs, I would also suggest:

• The learning features and documentation could be improved and expanded on.
• The calculation and forecasting tools could be made more clear and easy to use.
• The price could be lower.
  

I have been using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics for one and a half years now. 

When it comes to stability, Synapse Analytics has suited us well, because it's very fast, i.e. it has good performance. Compared with the on-premises SQL solutions we've used, the results are two times as fast.

There are some bugs that we've encountered with the platform but we are able to work with Microsoft directly to resolve them as they come up.

I'm very impressed by the scalability of Synapse Analytics, even though we don't use it for huge amounts of data most of the time. Combined with the availability of machine learning and other features in the cloud, it has a lot of potential, especially in the area of finance.

In our context as service provider, normally we have direct contact with the server. But in some cases, we have needed extra support which was very slow.

For technical issues, I often solve them myself using Microsoft's learning resources and support forum.

For me, it's the fifth data warehouse I've used. Other specialists here also use other warehousing solutions based on SQL but for the moment Synapse Analytics is the best overall solution for us primarily because of its ease of implementation and flexibility.

Because I was not familiar with the solution beforehand, the initial setup was quite complex. I had to learn a lot in the beginning stages. I'm grateful that there is help to be found in the Microsoft forums, however, and there are also options to study for certifications that help you learn how to use the platform properly.

It took approximately six months to implement Azure Synapse Analytics in our organization. We set up the data warehouse features for internal use across 200 users, including data specialists, service managers, and tech workers who manage our own data and also our customers' data.

For the main deployment, we used a third-party support provider in Chile who helped us greatly.

We normally pay between $300 and $500 per month, which is quite expensive for how much we actually use it, performance- and usage-wise. They have a cheap version and an expensive version, and our usage usually falls in the middle ground, which makes it not as cost-effective as it could be.

We evaluated on-premises SQL solutions for data warehousing, but our main motivation for using Synapse Analytics instead is that it lets us come up with and manage customer solutions very quickly. Some specialists are still using other SQL solutions as well, however.

There is always room for improvement with Azure Synapse Analytics, but for our use cases it works very well. 

I would rate Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics a seven out of ten.