SQL Server Reviews

The .NET applications use SQL Servers on a very large scale. Basically, about 80% or 90% of the database platform is on SQL Server.

We are working on version 2019, but we are also now working on the cloud databases. Our goal is to stay away from versions. We are going to go version-less and move to Azure SQL or managed instance, which is version-less. This way we won't need to worry about any upgrades or any version changes because Microsoft is going to take care of these things. We will always have the latest and greatest version.

It is a pretty good solution. The on-premise version 2019 has many features, and they had introduced a really good and stable environment in version 2019. It has very good integration with big data clusters and other things. It covers pretty much everything that you can do with a SQL server. You can use any language to connect to it, which is not there in other solutions. They have also introduced Python, and it also has ArcScale.

PaaS is a modern, scalable database. You can use Power Automate and a lot of features in this. It is very easy, and you don't have to worry about versions and upgrades.

Microsoft keeps on adding new features to this solution. Microsoft is improving its connectivity on an ongoing basis. It connects well with Office 365. If you see something not working, in a couple of weeks, it is going to work because there is a team working on it. You can vote for the things that are missing, and Microsoft can work on them depending on the product that they're launching. 

There are a lot of improvements in the cloud space about which we open a case with Microsoft every now and then. These improvements are not in terms of features or functionality. They are more related to their own compatibility or connectivity on which they keep on working to improve the product.

I have been using this solution for 13 to 14 years.

In version 2019, they introduced a really good and stable environment. Bugs are there, but bug fixes are provided by Microsoft. We have premium support with Microsoft. If we find a bug, they work on it and provide a solution.

It is very scalable, but its scalability also depends on what you're using. If it is on-premise, you have to do everything on your own to scale it out. It is easy, but you have to get the infrastructure ready to scale it out. It is a manual process. If you're on a cloud, then it is pretty much easy and straightforward if your cloud has those availabilities. It also has a Hyperscale, where you can put the upper and lower limit, and it can scale up and down as per the use case and the compute that you need.

We have a lot of users. Everyone is connected to this. We have business users, technical users, application users, and integration users. We have 17,000 instances of SQL Server here with a lot of databases. 

We use Microsoft's Premium Support. They're good. I would rate them an eight out of ten. For on-premise, you design your infrastructure. When you change something or customize a few things, it is hard to get support because the issue can be from either side. When you have a critical issue, which is not straightforward, you have to go between two different vendors, and they start finger-pointing to each other. They say that the issue is not at their end, and there is nothing wrong with their configuration. The issue is because of storage or network. These are the few things for which you have to fight for support. I don't know how they will improve this. It only happens sometimes for an on-premise solution. We don't run into those issues on the cloud because it is their own setup.

A cloud solution is pretty much on their site. They are managing the infrastructure, so they have to provide the solution, and they are good at it, but when you have on-premise, you decide what storage to use. Sometimes, you ignore Microsoft's recommendation, and you don't want to use what they are suggesting. When we run into issues on the DB side or the application side, they can point out to different vendors or causes for issues. 

We also have Oracle, Db2, and MongoDB databases here. We also have some NoSQL apps, but comparatively, SQL Server has a bigger footprint, and it is better than the others. 

Other systems are more complex to configure. When you configure a cluster on the SQL itself, it is easy to configure because you've got more resources, whereas, when you have to configure Oracle or Db2, you have to have a SPEC process because they have to configure that on Red Hat Linux or Unix side. A few companies don't have special admins for Linux because the footprint is not that big. You might have two or three applications running on that system. When you run into a problem, you need to hire someone who can implement it for you, whereas most of the companies, almost 80%, are Microsoft shops. They already have the talent and resources available. You also have offline help and support. You have a lot of blogs or online help available when it comes to Microsoft, but when you go to other solutions like Oracle, sometimes it is a challenge. You really need the right person there, and not everyone will be able to do it. 

The capability of a solution also depends on your needs and configuration. If you configure things wrong, any system will fail. When I'm testing something, I always believe in the functionality because Microsoft and Oracle test their products thoroughly. I never question their functionality, but we also check it according to our plan. You have to customize things based on your needs. If you're not getting the results, you have to consult the tech support and bring them in to configure it. These are the things that you run into when you are in your own data center. If you are not getting the throughput from the storage itself, you need to get the storage admin or storage vendor in there. When you move to the cloud, everything is taken care of.

It is straightforward. There is no complexity. It is all automated, and we do un-attended install. We are not sitting and doing it. We just include it with the server build itself. When the server is built, we provide them the un-attended scripts to run, and everything is configured. They can use the media provided by Microsoft. Everything is done in one step. We just need to do auditing. We need to check at the right place, and we just keep checking it.

Cost is a major derivative for any organization. It has a reasonable cost value, and its cloud support is also better than others. Comparatively, Oracle can do the same things or is even better in certain areas, but it is expensive. The cost along with the support are the plus factors for SQL Server.

You need to know the concepts and the business logic before using this solution. It is not straightforward. You need to know what your application needs are and only then you can work on it. You also need to know about the product and how it works.

I would probably advise others to move to the cloud version, which is a modern database. If you want to use SQL Server, Azure is the best because you get the hybrid benefits. You can bring your own license, and you can save costs. You can save 55% of the cost. With AWS, you have to buy your license, which makes it expensive. If you are using SQL Server and your company is more on the Microsoft side, Azure is easier, and there is no change in it. You can also get more out of it. You don't have to put a lot of complexity in supporting or administrating it because Microsoft does that for you behind the scenes. Therefore, it is good to move to Azure SQL or to manage instances where you have more control. Both of these are PaaS solutions. There is no need to go into IES. It is better to stay on-premise than on IES because it creates more complexity. This is because you still have to build the servers, and you have to still manage them. If your application is compatible to be used with PostgreSQL or MySQL, you can also move there.

It also depends on the kind of talent you have in your company. You have to consider the talent that you have. You can choose other technologies, but you need support from your teams. If they're .NET developers and you have to build the knowledge base, it is smoother to stay with SQL Server because you have to change less on the coding side.

I would rate SQL Server a ten out of ten.

We are a company that produces stock market analytics data and we are working on creating an alerting system for our customers. We use Microsoft SQL Server in our development and I have a lot of experience with it.

In my development role, I store about two gigabytes of data every month.

One of the big advantages of this product is its performance, where it works well when the data is not complex.

If you have a lot of data and you want to perform computations on it, you will have problems and the performance will be degraded.

There are problems when you are dealing with Big Data and it doesn't scale very well. For example, in Hadoop, you can partition your data very well, but in SQL Server, you can't do that. If it could handle horizontal scaling then that would be an improvement.

We experience latency at times when there is a lot of data being processed. In Iran, there is a specific time when all of the markets are open, and a lot of people are using the data to make decisions. Performing actions at that specific time gives us a lot of problems because of limitations in SQL Server. The problem seems to be caused by writing a lot of data to the table at the same time.

Improving the intelligence for managing the SQL server would be very good.

I have been using SQL Server for the past four years, and my company has been using it for approximately seven.

I have seen that this is a very stable product.

We had trouble scaling the solution to handle larger volumes of data. We have been able to scale out by adding CPU power and RAM, but other than by increasing the physical solution, we have not been able to do it very well. For example, we have not been able to do what we have done using Hadoop.

I used Oracle in the past, approximately four years ago. That was stable, but the performance in SQL is very much better nowadays.

The initial setup is very easy.

Our in-house team deployed it by researching how to perform the setup and configuration. As a developer, I just let them know what I need from the product. For example, for my role, I have a lot of writes and I want them to optimize for that situation.

If there are some simple features that I just want to enable, then I can do that myself.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We have a few use cases. They range from temporary storage to long-term storage to backup systems. We're using the full versatile suite for the product currently. It's not just a stand-alone system.

I don't have access to that level of knowledge. We just basically work with it on a small scale capacity in our department. That type of information and statistics are held by our IT administrators.

The solution is very easy to use for me. SQL is the most user-friendly system for databasing aside from Postgres. 

Due to the financial costs of Postgres, the SQL system is a good alternative as the product can be utilized free of charge. 

It's a good learning environment, it's easy enough to learn and understand. Anybody that picks up the language early on will be able to develop in it.

With any development language, any programming or software language available, there's always room for improvement. 

With SQL, it requires the more advanced integrated capabilities of Postgres, however, those capabilities do really come with obvious kinds of costs. For example, if SQL were to improve its functionality to incorporate the functionality that is in Postgres. Obviously, some kind of financial licensing will need to be incorporated. It's a bit of a catch-22 with a system similar to an SQL Server. If we want to avoid costs, we have to take a step back from certain integration capabilities.

From a development perspective, the solution needs to be a lot easier to understand or it needs to be easier to implement API packages for connection pooling so we don't have connection interruptions when, let's say, a hundred people simultaneously access the network on a given system, utilizing a specific or single database. Any type of connection pool or connection integration that could increase the total number of users to access simultaneously would be beneficial. That said, I also know there are some security risks involved with that type of connection pooling. However, something from SQL-side that can increase its connection access or its connection stability for multiple user access to a single database system would be great.

I've been using the solution for the past six months or so.

The solution is extremely stable. It's got an amazing backup repository system, a fail-safe system for if any type of data should it be lost. It's got a backup system that stores everything on a day-to-day basis or an hourly basis as well. Depending on the backup and storage drive that you're using or the capacity of the server it is installed on or the local machine, you can pretty much back up any type of critical data, any recent data, or any archive-based data relatively fast. You can also pull that data again, based on the system restore and the server restore is fairly quick.

The solution is 100% scalable to any kind of circumstances you find yourself in. It's easy to use and ready for any type of environment you're working on. It's scalable to any environment as well as to any amount of data. The only limiting aspect of scalability is if you're working on a local system or working on a server-based system. The physical data storage capacity is the only hindrance to scalability. If you've got sufficient data storage, then the scalability is endless.

The only people, to my knowledge, that have any access to the SQL Servers would be the administration and the department of development. The numbers range from anything from 50 to 150 people at any given time.

I'm not sure if we have plans, as an organization, to increase usage.

Any technical support queries we relay to our IT administration team and the IT administration team handle it directly with Microsoft Support. I haven't actually dealt with them directly.

I have experience with Postgres.

The main functionality that I've encountered within the six months is that Postgres is capable to incorporate itself or integrate itself with any known choosing standard API. With the SQL Server, we've got to use connection strings or connection pooling to do this. The API function is not as robust in SQL Server as it is in Postgres as the Postgres user package is based on APIs. Packages based on other companies or software languages that have the communication protocols are already enabled. With SQL Server, you have to hard code those connection strings or connection poolings for the APIs, which makes it far more difficult to use. However, it is still capable of doing it, it is just a longer approach.

Due to the fact that Postgres is a fully integrated package installation, done from a single installer, with SQL Server you can do an advanced complex installation which requires a lot of IT administration background knowledge. Alternatively, you can do a stand-alone use case installation system, if you're just using it for a backup system. They've got a backup package that you install and that's the standard installation you use. Due to SQL's user-friendly approach, it's got a lot of pre-made installation packages that you can install based on the needs or necessities of the company.

The length of time that SQL Server standard installation takes obviously depends on network speed, and UT package downloads. It could take anywhere from five minutes to half an hour. This is all dependent on the network speed that you're running the server installation on. If you've got a fast enough network speed, it should take no longer than five minutes. With a home-based network speed, say a fiber line with 10 megs, it should take you about 15 to 30 minutes just for a standard installation.

The solution is very affordable. It can be used free of charge.

There are payment packages for SQL based on dollars for any level of additions. They offer enterprise, express, and production additions that are available as well as community additions and student additions, which are completely free.

Before anybody had even considered doing any kind of database access, they reviewed all possible capabilities, according to price, functionality, and integration requirements. Ultimately, they settled from the start on SQL Server.

As far as I remember, our administration team did review other options. I'm not familiar with the options that were available prior to this, however, as they stated to me, before SQL has been the one from the go ahead, the option that they chose and they've been running with it since then.

Overall, I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten. We've been quite happy with the solution so far.

Basically with any databasing system, SQL included, a company should be looking at the requirements for why they're looking for any type of databasing system. Is it for backups? Is it for storage? Is it for cross-communication between departments or inter-department communication? Who's going to have the access prior? If it's just going to be on a technical or development level, not a lot of people need to worry about integration requirements except the installation team. Other than that, companies should just look at the financial as well as system requirements that are basically needed for the project or for the company you're in. If a company needs a large scale solution, financially speaking, SQL would be a good solution, however, Postgres would be a far better solution due to its capabilities, integration and API access.

The primary use is to maintain my database client.

What I like best about this product is the environment.

The documentation and manuals are very good.

The pricing could be improved.

I would like to have the option to use fewer processors for certain tasks, thus reducing the licensing fee. That would be great.

I have been working with SQL Server for more than 10 years.

I use SQL Server on a daily basis.

The scalability is not very good because when you add processors to the machine, the price of the license goes up. Scaling is very expensive. We have approximately 500 people who are using it.

Technical support is very good.

We used the Oracle Database prior to SQL Server.

The initial setup is simple and the deployment took one day.

We had assistance with our deployment and the experience was very good.

This is an expensive product, especially when you need two servers, or for enterprise solutions. We pay approximately $12,000 USD per month for both the server and the license.

At this time, all of my applications are running on SQL Server. However, in the future, if the application can be migrated to Oracle or another database then I may do that because SQL Server is very expensive.

This is a good product, although my advice is that if a company can afford it then they should use Oracle instead.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

ERP Database.

Using the SQL queries, the user can quickly and efficiently retrieve a large number of records from a database. In standard SQL, it is very easy to manage the database system. It doesn't require a substantial amount of code to manage the database system. Long established are used by the SQL databases that are being used by ISO and ANSI. Using the SQL language, the users can make different views of the database structure.SQL has a difficult interface that makes few users uncomfortable while dealing with the database.

Microsoft database is very user friendly. This new version of SQL Server continues to meet these twin demands. It adds new features from the worlds of data science and NoSQL. It offers cross-platform capabilities and Docker container compatibility. But it also reinforces its investment in core database engine performance, ease of index maintenance, high availability, and data warehouse performance. That's a difficult balance and one that other database vendors don't have to meet. While this may be Microsoft's cross to bear, the company does pretty well with it, turning a formidable challenge into a positive market differentiator.

The latest version supports for big data analytics. SQL Server's vector processing-based batch execution mode is now available to the entire execution of R or Python code. Since much of the work that tends to be done in R and Python involves aggregation, batch mode - which processes rows of data several at a time, can be very helpful. Two other new batch mode features, memory grant feedback, and adaptive joins will enhance SQL Server's performance and efficiency as well. It is good to move from Microsoft to deal with big data analytics

CAL licenses should cost less. Microsoft usually prices high for client access licenses. Server plus user client access license (CAL) licensing requires a separate Server license for each server on which the software is installed, plus a user CAL for each user accessing the server. A SQL Server CAL is required for a user to access or use the services or functionality of either edition of SQL Server and frequent updates to the latest versions will lead to obsolete and discontinuing the security patches has to be improved.

Since two years

Very good stability with 250-300 users.

This product can withstand with 250-300 users.

Very good.

SQL standard 2008.

Straightforward - no complexity.

Vendor team with an in-house team.

2 years.

It is an overall very good product.

Our primary use case for this product is as a transaction database and for the provision of rational data through the application-based server. The main application of my current organization is pointing towards the SQL server database and some servers which are later used for data warehousing. So mainly we use it for transaction data and data warehousing. I'm the assistant manager and data administrator, and we are customers of SQL. 

Security is obviously the most valuable feature because I can provide certain logins for a particular level of security and I can provide specific permissions for certain logins. That's a very good feature. I like the user interface as well, it's easy to use. The SSMS Management Studio, which we use to do some work in database file query is a recent feature from 2018 and the SSMS is quite good. It has many features and it also shows the query statistics which I was not getting previously. The other feature I like is the query store which helped me a lot to analyze the data getting hit on the database. 

I'd like to see a simplification of the query optimizer and feel that SQL needs to look into the internal processing of the query because the query optimizer sometimes uses a different query plan, which we don't expect. It is similar to the triggers they have which are used after execution and not before. For example, if I'm running a query, my trigger will be run after the query has executed although I sometimes need the trigger before execution. That's a feature not supported by the product. 

I've been using this solution for four years. 

It is quite scalable compared to other data engines and the latest version has increased support for new technologies, like Python and other languages. It's a big improvement on the previous version. We have 30 to 40 SQL servers installed and they're used for different different applications; internal applications, client applications as well as for ETA tools and reporting purpose. We probably have up to 200 users querying the SQL server of the product on a daily basis.

I'm satisfied with the technical support. Whenever a call is raised to Microsoft they see to it that all our questions are answered properly and in a timely manner. It doesn't take long for things to be resolved. 

The initial setup is very straightforward, just like any typical software where you just click next, next, next, next. You just need to know your environment properly and which exact features you need to install. Deployment takes max one to two hours to install on-premises. Depending on the environment and whether or not you're installing any cluster environment, it will take a couple of hours. To deploy a stand-alone SQL server doesn't take much time. 

I would recommend this solution, particularly for OLTP purposes, the transactional data purpose rather than for warehousing. For data warehousing I think there are better solutions but for the transaction data, for application purposes, SQL Server great.

I would rate this solution a nine out of 10. 

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.

In my role as faculty, I would use it to facilitate having a database with all the teachers needed that are equivalent to Oracle as a database for a small scale project.

The most valuable aspect of the solution is that the metadata is just generalized. Metadata is the way that data is described both for technical aspects of building a database and for the user interfaces. Our metadata is the objects attached to the database, not in the software. 

It helps with moving the design of the database into reality.

The server itself doesn't need much improvement. 

The product overall would benefit from the addition of better tutorials to help master the skills necessary to actually build a project database. Right now, what is available isn't sufficient.

Overall, I would suggest a nice tight integration with the toolset now known as Power BI. It might not even be missing, however, I'm planning to concentrate a lot of my time with the tutorials and I have Power BI loaded onto my HP laptop. bA brilliant student did it for me when she demoed it in a class. I'm going to use that copy of it and have many tutorials to get ready. 

I have enough experience to support students and grad students who use it as a database backend to accomplish their projects.

I have to qualify my experience with "using" the solution. I have done not very much on my own individually or for a client using SQL Server. I have been supportive in the role of facilitator for students to succeed with it and to be observant of how it is very similar in conceptual important ways to my very deep experience with Oracle as the database backend.

That said, I've been familiar with the solution for about ten years now.

What I don't know yet is if it would be stable when being migrated from the scale of a project that would be in a prototype on a small machine, into a much larger environment in order to get ready to go to production. I'm not sure of that experience, whether it's vulnerable or not. I haven't tried it.

However, in my experience, so far, the solution is quite stable. In terms of stability, with Microsoft being so supportive of its success, and so many smart professionals who have the skillsets to use it, that it would be stable. I'm confident about that. It's not a new tool, so stable being defined as it doesn't break down.

In terms of scalability, with the right people supporting it, who have the skills to do so, it would scale up. It's likely to be true in the context of the overall tool called Power BI that Microsoft has released, and which has high credibility among Gardner Group and others about it being available for business intelligence.

The solution isn't used often or widely per se. Not many people, if any, use it regularly due to the fact that an instance of SQL Server is set up only to accomplish a project relevant to a course that needs to have a database. After that, it doesn't stick around. It doesn't last longer than that.

Previous to my position at the university, I worked both as an employee and a consultant and was very much involved with Oracle as a database for years, going back to 1997 and until about 2010.

The initial setup isn't complex. It's certainly straightforward. The downloads and the installs don't all fall apart. It succeeds. The constraint is in the context of the students enabling a SQL Server to run on a laptop. That's a constraint rather than on an actual problem with the hardware server itself. 

Deployment takes, on average, about four hours. After that, you have a somewhat bare-bones server with the capability of running SQL datum to create the data itself or to import it from another database.

Since the solution is only really used for training purposes for classes and isn't meant to exist permanently, there's no one who needs to really maintain it.

I don't recall any help from people in the university who had the knowledge to support a student who was doing it for the course I was teaching. Sometimes these students have plenty of experience in their own professional job and they bring it to class to help succeed with the effort.

I, unfortunately, do not handle licensing, so I don't know what the costs are for the product.

MySQL as a database is sufficient for the scale of the projects that I've been talking about for ht purposes we have currently. PostgreSQL, which I do not personally know very well, is something else we looked at. It's a matter of the scale, generally. When I'm teaching, I'm probably the only member of faculty teaching actual database design in our school of engineering. We only would work on something that I call prototyping. Nothing that would reach for the responsibility of becoming our actual production database. 

In August of last summer, we updated to the latest version of the solution. At least, at that time, it was the latest version.

What the school does in its academics is make a minimum training available for students who want to use it. They can learn how.

Now we're all online. I do not know if the University has SQL Server as the backend for any of its regular production databases. I think it only is a database for students to choose when they need one for a project.

I don't think it has extensive utilization. And in the teaching involved for online learning, I would probably express very lightweight recommendations to try it because we're not on campus. We cannot connect to a real server for a backend in order to do the install on onsite. This is just a COVID-19 in constraint.

If a company is considering utilizing this tool in the future, I would advise that they have someone on staff or in a consulting agreement who really knows the tool, and has succeeded with it.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten. It's the right tool for production-ready or enabled databases. It's now equivalent to Oracle.