SQL Server Reviews

In the current organisation there was no centralised data repository. Thus, statistics, reporting, and generic management information were not existent. With the introduction of SQL Server, we have consolidated relevant business data into one main repository. We built reporting structures and analytics on top of the repository to help analysts and teams manage themselves, as well as provide management information. From basic or incomplete reports and statistics, we moved to a full reporting data structure, providing a holistic view of the organisation's data.

Without any doubt the Integration Services and Analysis Services are the most widely used. These are the basis for data quality, data gathering, ETL process, as well as collation for the data warehouse, Cube-generation, and ad-hoc processes. The ease in which you may mold a process flow or even modularly add in new structures is something which is much needed in my job.

An area that definitely needs improvement is the Reporting Service side with the actual report server. Although to be fair, Microsoft has developed a new branch of tools for reporting; presumably that is why they have not improved the Reporting Service side. Nevertheless, if this was not the case then, yes, it would be an area for improvement. Another area would be the SQL Server process monitoring, which is quite basic and could sustain more information.

Overall, SQL Server 2014 is a very stable product and so far I cannot remember major issues that I have encountered. The only item which I can list is application failure during Integration Services debugging, when restarting a process flow. In a number of instances the solutions fails. I have not given this much thought and simply stop and start the debugging service rather than restarting.

So far, we have had no scalability issues. I have read about instances where people encounter issues online, but fortunately enough I have never encountered issues.

Yes, in the past I have worked with different versions of SQL server and have switched due to upgrades to utilise the latest version. I have also used Oracle, Tableau, SAP, and Jaspersoft.

The main reason I went for SQL Server is because it felt easier and more adaptive. Also, most of the products we use within the organisation are Microsoft-based, so that provided an extra advantage over the rest.

Not too complex. We had spent a number of months on the design and planning stages, deciding how we would go about the setup, security, and accessibility aspects, so that when it came time for the actual setup, the process looked pretty straightforward. Don't get me wrong, it still took a number of days to finalise, but we had a concrete plan of action, the steps needed, and the work was delegated accordingly.

My advice is quite straightforward. If you know the number of users who really and truly need access to the Server then it is a no-brainer. If you do not know, then get the basic package and minimum licenses and start from there. Needless to say, users can develop/use data structures outside and then deploy onto the Server.

Within the current organisation, we did not look at other options. I was pretty confident that the product would do the job, based on my previous experience with similar products. One key factor which pushed us to choose SQL Server was the cost of the product versus the amount of work to develop/maintain.

I rate it eight out of 10. It is quite a good product and has improved dramatically. Like all products, it has bugs here and there and some areas still need improvement.

I have been using the solution for the past two and half years, however, I have worked with older versions of SQL Server (2012, 2008, 2005). The solution is quite powerful and versatile and I have not yet used all the areas/modules of the solution. It is not always easy to utilise all the available modules for the solution, especially if your work is focused solely on a particular area. Nonetheless, I try to use different areas for side projects.

Plan thoroughly before, and once implemented go through the structure regularly and remodel accordingly. When planning, go through all the various sections, resources, accessibility, security etc.

We are using SQL Server for data processing.

The most valuable features of SQL Server are the speed, great support, and it is from a known vendor.

The security features of the solution could be better.

I have used SQL Server within the past 12 months.

SQL Server is a scalable solution.

We have approximately 200 users using this solution. We increase the number of users every year.

I have not contacted their technical support.

The process for the deployment is straightforward. It takes approximately four hours to complete.

We did the implementation of SQL Server in-house. We have eight people managing the solution. The team includes managers, technicians, and administrators.

There is a subscription that needs to be purchased to use the solution.

I would advise others this is a good Microsoft solution.

I rate SQL Server a nine out of ten.

Our use case is creating data warehouses using the SQL Server database.

The solution is deployed on-premises and on public and private clouds.

The solution has a user-friendly environment and supporting functionalities. It also has great memory and processing databases.

Other than Synapse and the other version of SQL Server, they face some problems while processing the data. For example, the one issue we face is that when we need to process the queue, it's costly with Azure and SQL Servers. We also face some memory issues with that.

I have been using this solution for more than eight years.

The solution is very stable.

The solution is scalable.

We have a different technical team that deals with issues. So we only communicate the issue to them, and they communicate with the team.

Setup is very easy, especially compared to Oracle.

Synapse is a bit costly. If I compare it with different databases, I think it's a reasonable price. If I'm talking about licensing of the Oracle, it seems that normal organizations have it and some smaller organizations can also afford it, which is a good thing.

I have also evaluated Oracle.

I would rate this solution 8 out of 10. 

I always recommend SQL Server. To whoever asks me, I will say, "Just go for it." The databases are good. In terms of pricing, SQL Server is good. In terms of functionality, it gives you all the basic requirements. You can also integrate it with different applications, which is an advantage.

All of our .NET applications and some of our third-party applications require a single server database, AutoCAD, and things like that. Our custom apps are the largest estate of databases.

In our production environments, we're on version 17. I've worked with the most recent version but not in a production environment. 

I like the availability group functionality. We are setting up more clusters using availability groups. The enterprise licensing or Software Assurance makes it a little bit cheaper as well. It is nice to have that read-only copy for reporting and everything else.

They've been adding a lot of great functionality such as columnstore indexes to improve the way indexes are rebuilt and to be able to do online index rebuilds. All those are great features.

On the SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) side, I have noticed more bugs in terms of being able to connect to our SQL servers. I can't tell how many times my recent server list got dropped or cleaned out. It is a pain, and it would be nice to have that recent connect list when you connect in. For whatever reason, once in a while, I get a hard error, and it'll close. When I go back in, everything is cleared out. It is annoying when you are working with more than a hundred database instances.

I have been working with this solution for probably 18 years.

Everything is pretty much scripted out, so it is pretty straightforward for us. 

They've been adding a lot of great functionality, and hopefully, they continue down that path. We don't use a lot of the more advanced features at this point, but for what we're doing right now, it's working really great with availability groups and other features. 

Its usability has gotten a lot better after version 14. There were a lot of great updates after version 14 for SQL or query performance with the engine.

I would rate it an eight out of 10.

We are business consults. We use SQL Server to ensure that critical applications remain operational by performing BCM activities across application and database servers.

SQL Server has scaled as per our requirements.

I would like to see improvements made to the stability of SQL Server, as well as more analytics requirements.

From a restoration perspective, I have been working with SQL Server for a few years.

The stability of the SQL Server needs improvements.

We have over 2,000 users in our organization.

I have contacted technical support, and overall my experience with technical support was okay.

The installation took a few days to complete.

We have a team of three or four admins to maintain this solution.

We had assistance from an integrator.

Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis.

We were evaluating other solutions for a specific requirement in our organization. The requirement is now complete.

I would recommend this solution to others who are interested in using it.

I would rate SQL Server an eight out of ten.

We set up SQL Servers for developers who develop applications for data mining. Our clients are generally small or medium-sized businesses. There's also a SQL Server Express that many software vendors use to support their applications. That gets installed often—usually as part of the application installation. 

It is fairly easy to work with. I like the high-availability options, like mirroring for example, and the high-availability groups. It's quite an interesting feature that enables high availability for the SQL Server. I think it's important. So that's the feature that I'm particularly interested in and it works pretty well.

The Management Studio is a pretty heavy piece of software, and it's sometimes slow. I would recommend making an express version of the Management Studio, which is lighter and has fewer features but is a little faster.

"Using" is the wrong word. We mostly set it up for others. The last time we set up an SQL Server for a client was about a year ago.

We haven't had any experiences. The software hasn't been unstable or glitchy in our environment so far.

In terms of scalability, it would be closed to a high-availability group. So I would say it varies in scale. 

I would rate it nine out of 10. Nothing's perfect.

Our primary use case is for SQL Server is data warehousing and business intelligence.

This solution acts as the backbone of most IT services. It is essential for us to use it.

I have found the whole solution with all its features wonderful.

If this solution could provide an automatic indexing feature it would be very useful.

In the next release, there could be better integration with Power BI or other tools.

I have been using this solution for approximately 20 years.

The solution is stable. There has been a few bugs but all solutions have them at one time or another.

There are scalability limitations and this is why we are evaluating cloud alternatives. 

I rate the scalability of SQL Server a four out of five.

We provide support for our clients but if we need support we receive it quickly because we are prime customers.

We are currently evaluating cloud options.

I would advise those wanting to implement this solution to thoroughly investigate if this is the right tool for their use case.

I rate SQL Server an eight out of ten.