SQL Server Reviews

We use SQL Server to ingest and to extract reports for multiple customers. 

SQL Server is cost effective in multiple ways - both the cost of software and the cost of the resource. Meaning, how many resources do we have and what is their expertise level? How easily can they use the SQL Servers or can I use any of the software? Do I need to hire somebody else from the outside to work on the cost?

The feature that I have found most valuable is that it is easy to code. You can very easily get a resource to work on that. For example, if we have a big project it's hard to get a good resource in the IT industry. However, since SQL Server is the most popular solution, you can easily get resources to use it so the risk factors are very, very low. Even if someone leaves the company, you can easily replace them.

Additionally, it is very stable. 

You don't need to struggle for anything. Most of the codes are there.

In terms of what could be improved, everything on-premises is now moving to the cloud. Obviously SQL Server has also moved because Microsoft has its own cloud called Azure SQL and azure synapse. Every solution comes with its own advantages and disadvantages. Each cloud has its own way to maintain resources and that plays a major role. But I would say that Azure Clouds are easy to work as compared to others. To  Performance-wise it's still not as good as on-premises, but it is easy to work with. For example, if you are familiar with the SQL server then you don't need to put any effort to work on the Azure SQL or Azure Synapse. Your efficiency will not decrease and you can easily manage any projects. Its advantage is that it is very similar. Apart from that, if you moving to any other Warehouse like Snowflake, redshift with existing SQL server resources is a little difficult and organizations need to spend money on their training. Which increases cost. 

I have been using SQL Server for almost 10 years.

We just use the on-premises SQL because we have our own server, and we use it on that.

It is stable.

SQL Server is scalable. We started with one hundred data points and now we have up to 1500, it's scalable. You just need to install the new version every time it comes out with a new capability, such as SQL Server 2019 where you can do multiple things.

If I'm talking about the on-premises maintenance requirement, we need a DBA for that if the SQL maintenance is required. But if you move to the cloud this is automatically done by Microsoft itself. however, this still requires some maintenance though.

Microsoft has one of the best supports. They are highly enlightened. It is a very mature product. Even if many times I feel I can do it myself, I choose to reach out to the support team because they have a large number of users and they outsource. You are definitely going to get the outcome you want.

It's hard to tell the exact reason of switching. As I told earlier, Choosing DB cannot be measured only on the performance of the Database. Multiple points need to be considered.

The initial setup is straightforward. Again, it's a mature solution, so it is very straightforward. You don't need to worry about that.

My advice is that this is the time to completely move to the cloud. If you have a golden or platinum partnership with Microsoft or you have good Microsoft resources then best is to move azure clouds. Azure DB services have been improved a lot in the past few years and it continually improving like others. 

They are trying to make it closer to the on-premises version. I know it cannot be exactly like on-premises but they can bring most important features. For example Azure brings SSIS features in ADF which solve lot of issues. Another example, Azure launch Snowflake connector with ADF which saves us to writing code in Azure function. 

At last in my view, you need to evaluate what exactly you are looking for and what type of resource do you have and what is the growth rate of your data. Do you have a direct partner with Microsoft? All things are interrelated and the decision has to depend on these.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate SQL Server a Seven.

I would rate MS SQL Server 4/5 for its ease of administration,rich features, Nice GUI support for all its complex features.

Valuable features include:

1.Management Studio (Nice GUI support for all its complex features.)

2.Hot add CPU

3.Configure Dynamic memory also configure MIN and MAX memory.( Very flexible)

4.Replication ( Very Simple).

5.Clustering (The best high availability feature available among all
its compitators due to its robustness and scalability).

6.SSIS ( Very rich).

7.In memory OLTP in SQL Server 2012

8.Always On (High Availability) in SQL Server 2012

9.SQL Server Profiler

10.DMVs

The MSBI features SSAS, SSIS as well as SSRS together has enabled us to build a data warehouse for our Enterprise with Business Intelligence reports around the data. We have fully exploited its all complex features like Slowly Changing Dimensions in SSIS etc.

I am not sure if these areas have been taken care in SQL 2012 but areas for improvement include:

1.In SQL 2008 ,Data encryption is not a fully mature feature.Encryption works fine for individual rows.For handling a batch a for loop has to be written.This is not straight forward.
2.Horizontal partitioning is not a fully mature feature.In horizontal partitioning Partition key has to be part of primary key.This becomes difficult to implement in already existing database.

14 years.

No not at all.

No.

No.

Good.

Good. We have had only a few issues.

We were a Microsoft shop (.NET, Share point etc) primarily, hence using MS SQL Server 2008.

It was straightforward.

We implemented through in-house.

1. Find out the right licensing mode you require (Comes with different options CAL/Server and # of CPUs and Virtualisation).

2. Use the Enterprise lincencing or Standard edition or Web according to your need.

3.Make use of SQL Server Clustering or LOg Shipping high availability solution, the best you can find.

The solution is used primarily for medium companies in vertical accounting applications. We use the solution as a good general-purpose database.

I value the ability it gives me to test on small machines and easily scale up to larger devices for live applications.

When we run into problems, it's usually during installation, and finding answers to the problem has been a nightmare because the documentation is terrible.

Likewise, I find the business reporting rather poor, and the solution doesn't work well as a data warehouse product. When I tried to use it as one, I did not find it very satisfactory.

I've used SQL Server for about 20 years, probably. I've used a number of different versions, including 2010 and 2007.

We have never had a stability problem.

We rarely have more than a few hundred users. It's more about the person using it since we don't have heavy, continuous use.

We've never had a sensible answer from technical support.

I have generally found implementing the solution easy. But when it comes to the time we took to implement the solution, the problem's always been the application and not the database. The solution is usually easy to implement because we use standard facilities. If you need something special, you run into all sorts of trouble because SQL Server gives you an awful lot of ability to change the settings.

We've used it as a development tool, and it's very cheap as a development tool. Besides, someone else has paid for it for my use, so it's a question of whether the cost suits the end user. The solution has a good midrange price for the applications in which we've used it. Oracle's pricing would raise more eyebrows, but SQL Server's pricing has proven satisfactory for our market range.

We mainly use SQL Server because it's cost-effective for our applications. We've occasionally tried other databases for various reasons. We've used the Sybase database, but the Sybase database is very close to SQL Server. We've also tried MySQL, but that was more of an exercise in porting than anything else. However, it's not a fair comparison because we had done the development on SQL Server and then used that as a porting exercise.

The solution's generally been easy to use for the general cases we've used. The solution has been satisfactory for the sort of applications we've used.

We've been very much middle of the road in using SQL Server. We don't use specialist, and we've tried to keep to standard SQL as far as possible. We don't use the clustering facilities or try to use any of the specialist facilities. We could drop it and switch to MySQL or another database if we had to. We are using SQL Server, not for the particular services it's got, but using it as a middle-range product. We're taking advantage of the fact that it runs on all sorts of platforms, and it's a good value development product that works very easily for us. We're not using it for some of the things Microsoft clients find particularly useful for. We're not high-intensity users. For people like us, it fits in very easily.

For our purposes, SQL Server is just about ideal. It's easy to use and fit. Some of the later versions, in particular, have been easy to use. We have had installation problems on some of the later versions, and the documentation is poor. I'll rate SQL Server a seven out of ten.

We use SQL Server to import data from different source systems. Depending on requirements, you act as the resource and can schedule jobs in the Azure environment. The server can be stopped when not required so there's no cost when it's not being used. We make use of the pipeline to put the data into the SQL Azure environment and extract it to the server. I'm the associate manager.

The best feature in SQL Server is the CDC mechanism for adding data incrementally. Another good feature is the ability to store any type of data in SQL Server, it's a big advantage.

You need to be careful if you have a very large amount of data, because the platform can be degraded if you're not on top of it. Oracle handles that issue better and it's the main problem I have with SQL Server. The performance should be better.

This is a stable product. 

This product is scalable, we have between 20 and 30 users in our company. We'll continue to use this product. 

We haven't needed to contact technical support. If there is an issue we use the different SQL forums and we can easily fix issues. 

The initial setup is straightforward, you can install with basic knowledge. Installation doesn't take long at all, I did it myself. 

There are no annual licensing fees, you pay when you use the product. 

I rate this solution a nine out of 10.

We use this Relational Database Management System for Line of Business systems, including Enterprise Resource Planning, Data Warehouse, Web Applications, and Business Intelligence.

Solutions are procured, built, and enhanced in the REIT industry, FMCG ERP, distribution and warehousing, manufacturing systems, knowledge workers such as workflow and portals, web applications, custom developments areas, enterprise reporting and analytics for internal reporting, and decision support systems.

Integration solutions provide robust integration to various and disparate third-party systems.

This is a simple to deploy, own, and manage RDMS.

Skills and support for this product are widely available. The security and vulnerability management are well-managed through the vendor. Lifecycles are greatly improved in recent releases, to make upgrades easier.

A license buys enterprise-grade data integration, reporting, and analytical capabilities as well.

It has broad adoption and support for integration with leading software brands such as SAP and Sage.

Data availability and security is well taken care of for the enterprise and is the backbone of first-class business continuity plans.

Support and adoption are important because skills are available to lower the total cost of ownership. 

High availability, read-only copy synchronization, and data integrity mean that it is relatively easy to ensure data security, availability, and integrity. Lower tier SKUs offer high-end features.

Data integration is available, as SSIS offers a flexible data integration platform with rich features including .NET integration for web-service integration, or bus architectures.

SSAS analytical DBs are powerful yet easy to develop and own.

SSRS offers enterprise reporting that is reasonably user-friendly.

It is easy to deploy cloud/on-premises hybrid implementations with a familiar and consistent toolset.

It is costly to implement high throughput systems, beyond millions of transactions per second. The hardware to run the systems, especially for high availability deployments is expensive, i.e. more resources to run.

Linux-based editions are not yet proven to be on par with Windows deployments.

Row-level security is obscure to implement.

Running cloud offerings are expensive; for example, the Instance as a Service offering.

Third-party tooling is required to manage code version control.

Managing BLOB data is not equally simple to implement.

The engine that implements query plans was updated in the 2012/2014 refresh that could necessitate a costly rewrite of queries.

I have been working with SQL Server for 21 years.

I have a very high opinion of the stability of the solution. It is one of the most mature products available.

Best practice setup is important to consider but when implemented correctly, it just runs.

The vendor is excellent and their relationship with Microsoft has proven invaluable. The 2008 > 2012 and 2012 > 2014 upgrades had specific issues that made them costly. Recent upgrades have been relatively painless.

We have tried using different technologies, depending on the use case. This is not the best tool for document-oriented or unstructured data.

It is relatively simple to run. We spent a good amount of time preparing the requirements for a high-availability cluster that paved the way for a reasonably straightforward implementation.

We had assistance from our vendor. We consider our vendor nimble and best in class. They contributed greatly to the stable running of the platform.

It is a positive ROI, especially in that we leverage many of the features in the offering.

With recent releases, the Standard Edition (cheaper) SKU has some of the earlier version Enterprise features. SQL Express has some limitations.

The Azure Platform as a Service option remains relatively expensive, at least in South Africa, compared to on-premises, but it is worth exploring.

Some baseline comparisons were made around 2012 to Oracle, with MS SQL Server coming out to have a lower total cost of ownership.

It is a first-class enterprise RDBMS and will continue to enjoy favourable sentiment from developers and DBAs.

We primarily use the solution as a WAP server and we have it on-premises.

It's helped us connect to our company's machines.

The pricing of the product is very good.

We've found the stability to be very reliable.

The initial setup isn't too complicated. It's pretty straightforward.

Overall, the solution could be improved in future releases. We hope to improve the way we use it ourselves in our next project.

The solution could offer better integration with other solutions - specifically Microsoft.

I've been using the solution for about five years at this point. It'd been a while.

Thus far, the solution has been quite stable. It doesn't crash or freeze. there aren't bugs or glitches. It works well for us overall and we find it to be reliable.

I'm not sure about the capability of the solution's scalability. We've never really tested its capabilities, and it's therefore hard to gauge.

We have a department that handles support. I find them knowledgeable. They respond in a reasonable amount of time. 

The initial setup wasn't complex. It was pretty straightforward. We didn't have any issues with the implementation process at all.

The licensing is reasonable. It's not too expensive. We are charged on a yearly basis, however, I don't know the exact amount we are charged. I'm not a part of the billing and payments department.

I believe we are using the 2019 version of the solution.

In general, I would recommend the solution to other organizations. We've mostly been pretty happy with its performance.

We're not Microsoft partners. We are just customers.

Overall, I would rate the solution eight out of ten. If it had better integration capabilities with Microsoft, I might rate it higher.

Probably the most useful feature of SQL Server is the ability to write and execute SQL on the fly.

Even though there are some very useful features on Oracle, MySQL, and other platforms, the SQL Server by far has the most robust capabilities of any database platform.

In my experience with numerous coding languages and platforms, the SQL Server has the only programming language that allows the user to create, compile, and execute code in its own language.

To clarify, Java, .NET, PL/SQL and all other programming languages can dynamically create code, but not their own. In other words, Java can dynamically create SQL and execute it, but it cannot create Java and compile/execute.

Other great features are:

• Passing tables as parameters
• Table valued functions
• Horizontal table partitioning
• Very granular disk partitioning

The most recent example is a data warehouse I've created for a client that enables us to use a "no-SQL" construct. This is only possible due to the dynamic SQL capability.

Our client collects data from dozens of sources with little to no commonality between them. With other platforms, this would require a table for each data source. However, because of the dynamic SQL, we have three tables that will accommodate ANY data source and it will never require us to change the data warehouse schema.

As a result, maintenance is virtually zero.

The only real improvement I've been looking for is finally being addressed by Microsoft.

Since SQL Server only ran on Windows, it was not competitive with other platforms which could run on Linux. This has recently been realized with the release of SQL Server for Linux. I currently have the pre-release version and I'm very impressed with what they have so far.

I have been using SQL Server for 17 years.

We did not encounter any issues with stability. None at all.

We did not encounter any issues with scalability. I have been able to create databases with billions of records with no degradation in performance. The partitioning has been a critical feature in enabling scalability.

In my experience with their support, I would rate it as outstanding. Their techs are professional and extremely helpful.

I typically use whatever database platform my client uses. However, whenever I am provided with the option to choose, I will always go with SQL Server.

In older versions, the setup was rather onerous. However, in the latest several releases, it has been extremely simple to install and set up.

Do the research and get the correct licensing model for your given purpose. A lot of people gravitate toward the Open Source databases because they don't have an upfront cost.

I find that what you don't pay upfront is what you have to invest in development and maintenance time on implementation. On far too many occasions, I have spent weeks writing code for features that SQL Server already has built in.

Either pay for the licensing cost or pay multiple times that for the labor involved in creating features, from scratch, that are native to products like SQL Server and Oracle.

I have a good deal of knowledge on SQL Server, and Oracle, MySQL. I have some familiarity with DB2 and PostgreSQL. The database platform chosen will ultimately depend on the needs of the client.

Look very closely at the built-in features. For those features that you may need, estimate what it would take to replicate that same functionality on the "free" products.

The comparison is not on the licensing cost. It's on the features and the license cost versus the labor cost.

This is the main database for our financial system. I'm the IT manager and we are customers of SQL server. 

We've been using this solution for many years.

We're satisfied with the stability.

We have around 100 users. The database isn't used directly, so users are not even aware that there is a SQL Server underneath. 

There are some local companies that have direct relations with Microsoft. We use them regularly when we need some support.

I don't recall, it's been many years since we implemented this product. 

We pay a license fee, it could always be cheaper.

I recommend this solution and rate it 10 out of 10.