SQL Server Reviews

There was an online system in which we had about 2500 requests to the DB per second. Every request had a completion window of one second to process and retrieve data. Before my arrival, the numbers were 1000 requests per second and two, and sometimes, three to five seconds spent per request.

After switching to SQL Server, and AlwaysOn, and Snapshot, and tinkering, and configuring and tinkering, the handling capacity we measured increased to about 5000 requests per second, while the time decreased to 0.5 seconds per request.

The AlwaysOn high-availability feature is the most valuable feature of SQL Server to us. This is because of the relative ease of the configuration, rather than configuring for OLTP-OLAP distinction.

As a software developer, it can be hard to do something in Oracle that is SQL Server specific, and vice-versa, sometimes.

Improvements must not be stopped and must not end. When business needs arrive, then the improvements follow. For example, 15-20 years ago, MySQL did not have built-in Stored Procedure support; there was no business need for MySQL to have stored procedures built-in.

One stability issue I encountered was the deadlocking between calls to the same resources (tables, etc.). That was solved by row versioning. (We were shooting ourselves in the feet).

No scalability issues.

I have never had the need to reach out to the vendor.

Yes I did use another solution previously. The switch was mainly for the performance. Secondly, it was for the technology compatibility.

It was very straightforward. There was no complexity which I couldn’t handle.

I’m not a "product" fan. I try to use "the" product which will comply smoothly with the software I’m working on.

I’ve been working on Microsoft SQL Server since 2005, and currently I’m using SQL Server 2014 in my development environment and SQL Server 2012 in the production environment.

The primary use of SQL Server is to store and retrieve data.  If you go into the extra features that come with your license, you can also do reporting, analytics and ETL.

Everything is valuable. It is a relational database system which is critical for storing reporting data or any data that is highly relate-able. Plus your data is one of the most important assets in your company.  Might as well have a good system to protect it.

In a manufacturing system, storing test data in an Excel file has limitations in how much data can be stored at one time and how many people can manipulate the data at one time. Storing it in SQL Server allows you to store as much data as you have disk space for. It can be viewed and modified by multiple people at one time.

Setting up some of the more complex systems could be simpler. Things like service broker can be tricky to set up for the inexperienced.

Stability seems very good. I have not seen any issues with this.

I have not run into scalability issues. It feels very scalable.

I have not needed to contact technical support for this product

I did not use a previous solution. I have heard of other companies using Microsoft Access or Excel for similar problems. However, after hearing the headaches they have, I would not recommend those for large scale projects.

The initial setup was straightforward, but configuration post-install can be complex. Complexity comes from attempting to optimize it and implementing some of the new features that come in new versions.

We implemented it entirely in-house.  

Pricing and licensing is based on a per core and/or per-processor license. Try to keep these low, but keep it above four. (Four is the minimum number of cores.) If you are working mostly with OLTP, make sure your single thread CPU speeds are high.

We did not evaluate other options. The other options lacked support, lacked performance, or were too expensive.

If you don't have a DBA on site, hiring a consultant is recommended to help get things setup and configured. This will reduce headaches down the line.

• SQL Server Integration Services tools

• Data Quality Services tools

• Master Data Services tools

• SQL Server Reporting Services tools

• Data Partitioning (Horizontal Partitioning) tools

• ColumnStore Indices

• In-Memory OLTP tables

We design and implement DW solutions with SS 2016 Dev Ed tools. This solution has given us high levels of productivity, which has allowed us to use an Agile approach to the design and implementation of DW solutions for our customers, and this Agile approach has in turn given us a competitive advantage in our market.

We have also started exploring the use of Microsoft R Client, MS R Services and MS R Server with SQL Server 2016 Dev Ed, which are part of the hosted Data Science package.

We are also looking forward the inclusion of Python support in SQL Server 2017 for said hosted Data Science package.

We are very interested in complementing DW solutions with Data Science and Machine Learning solutions, which could be a major plus for our existing DW customers, even though all hosted data science tools are only available in Enterprise Ed (for our customers), which again presents the same limiting factor (budget) already mentioned.

Having said that, we see that the potential that the hosted Data Science tools offer to some of our customers is large enough to be explored and considered on a case by case basis, with proper ROI analysis.

We do not have much to complain about SS 2016 Dev Ed in itself, we do have some complaints regarding licensing for SQL Server 2016 Enterprise Ed. In an emerging market like Argentina, it is very steep for our customers to pay U$S 28,000 or more on licensing for an instance of SS 2016 Enterprise Ed, and this poses a limiting factor to our growth.

We have been using SS 2016 Dev Ed for a few months so far, but have been using the previous version (SS 2014 Dev Ed) for more than two years.

The deployment tools for DW solutions in both 2014 and 2016 editions of SQL Server are part of the SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) package. As SSDT is based on Visual Studio, this toolset has been very stable since its inception, both in terms of performance as well as in terms of functionality, so, deployment in 2016 is done in the same way as in 2014, which translates into no issues during deployment.

There were no stability issues.

There were no scalability issues, even though the Dev Ed does not offer the same level of performance and scalability that the equivalent Enterprise Ed offers.

Pertaining to the hosted Data Science package that we have been exploring, we have found an important increase in scalability when comparing the performance of a given solution running as hosted, and the same solution running on the same server with only client R tools.

This scalability advantage presents itself as an important reason to consider these tools as a viable solution to some of our DW customers.

As usual, MS offers a very good customer service. The amount of resources (self-study materials, online courses, tutorials) is huge, most of it is free.

Paid customer service is also very good.

Paid tech support is very good and efficient.

I have always used DW tools from Microsoft since SQL Server 2000.

If prior to the setup you do the proper training, there are no issues with setup, but the learning curve is wide and tall.

You could get started fast and sure if you stick to the many Wizards included with the tools, but the scope of said Wizards is limited.

We did not have deployment/implementation issues.

Since SS 2014 Dev Ed, MS is offering these tools free of charge, ROI mainly is focused around training investment. As I have said, we do the training in-house. ROI is around one year (12 months).

No issues with pricing and licensing for SS 2016 Dev Ed, as it is free of charge, as mentioned above, the thorny issue with pricing and licensing is with customers. We do our best to design DW solutions that can cover reqs from our customers within the capabilities of SS 2016 Standard Ed.

The cost-benefit ratio offered by Microsoft's DW solutions is, by a long shot, much more convenient for our customers (small and medium companies) than solutions from other vendors, hands down.

Consider the ROI (most training investment). If training is not in-house, only hire training from an official Microsoft Training Center in your region. Look for the best Training Center. Once you are done with the training, you can start taking customers for DW projects.

Most of SQL Server High Availability and Disaster Recovery solutions. They are easy to configure and maintain.

It provides the best performance and an easy way to monitor and troubleshoot problems.

Indexing, execution plans, and the SQL Server Management Studio performance.

Over seven years.

No.

No.

Medium.

No.

Complex design, easy configuration.

It is not very expensive and is suitable for an international company, like what I am working with. Free licenses are suitable for small companies, too.

No.

Stable and easy to administrate.

Performance improvements, optimizer enhancements. Most of our clients have high demands for performance, and this version of SQL Server delivers what we need.

We are a professional services company, so we use SQL Server to help our clients achieve their goals. Our clients use SQL Server 2016 for their most demanding mission critical systems, for data warehouses, and big data solutions.

The Query Store is a good start, but I expect the query processor to be a lot smarter and to use machine learning in order to improve and adjust execution plans automatically.

One year.

Since we are working with a lot of clients on many edge cases, we encounter bugs and stability issues once in a while, but these are rare.

If you know how to work with the product and leverage its various features and possibilities, then you can achieve great scalability.

Microsoft offers several levels of technical support, which is OK, but not too good. But there is a wonderful community with lots of resources on the internet, so most issues can be solved without contacting Microsoft support.

No, I have been using SQL Server for the past 20 years.

The initial setup is very clear and friendly. It has improved from the previous version.

Unfortunately, SQL Server licensing is a very complex topic. I advise people to consult with a licensing expert.

No.

Download the Developer Edition for free, install it on your personal computer (it’s very easy), and start exploring. If you need help with something, just search for it on the internet, and you’ll find a wealth of resources about everything you need.

• Net integration is best for me
• Better optimizer
• Ease of use (admin tools)

We used this to solve many complex problems.

Overall, trying to make over with Oracle, it can be improved in usage for high data migration companies of large scale.

I have experience using both the versions of SQL Server 2008, 2012 for more than two years.

Never had issues with stability, may be we were handling structured data well.

No, federal vs clusters approach explains you well that you can search for them.

Technical support rating would be around a seven and a half out of 10.

Setup is easy as what we want the database to do for our problems, compared to Oracle latest versions you need to spend more time on the initial setting up where these cannot go wrong with partitioning and indexing and it needs to be perfect.

Go for SQL and compare it with pricing and stability with other Microsoft products.

Definitely yes, with Oracle only if the needed situations cannot be met, mostly it covers better.

Best practices are the always a better choice for implementing the solution, hire a good expert and consult a better person with huge experience in architecting database systems for decades.

The way the product shows the execution plan and the facility to the developer and tests the SQL code.

The product is used in the core systems. It has been used since the beginning.

Better execution plans and better debugging.

Improved dependency of use of temporary tables to reach good performance in complex SQL.

I've used this solution for six years.

Sometimes the cross-database performance isn't the best.

No.

An eight out of 10.

I have used Oracle and I also use IBM DB2. All of them have pros and cons.

No.

Great product. Like any software, a good and prepared staff is the key to success.

The ability to organize and structure our data in order to extract and provide it to various products and systems within our organization. It is widely used and has great online support from many third-party sites.

We're able to easily upscale previous systems to provide an efficient interface for our internal clients to do their jobs effectively.

Learning SQL could be easier. Some inbuilt tools to enable faster query writing would be very useful.

I have used various versions for at least 25 years, on and off.

No, none.

When upsizing, some tools do not do a very good job of scaling efficiently and lots of after tweaks need to be made.

From Microsoft -- poor/very expensive, but there are many other helpful resources out there.

Used MS Access, but data ports became too large for it to support, so we needed a product to take us to the next level as our data ports grew.

A lot of initial reading was required to carefully manage the process of setting everything up correctly.

Not my area.

No, others evaluated.

Do your homework first and be prepared for a tough learning curve.