SQL Server Reviews

We use it for both development and administration purposes.  

It's serving our data solution needs okay. 

I like that it's the Always On Availability Groups setup. It ensures our servers are always running.

We need it to support Linux for better troubleshooting flexibility.

I have been using this product for five years. We currently use the older versions, SQL Server 2019 and 2017.

We will soon migrate to the 2022 version. 

It works perfectly. No issues there. 

So, it is a stable product. 

There are around 300 to 500 end users using it. 

We use it for our on-premises solutions, virtual servers and SSAS, SSRS packages. Also, our applications are .NET based, so it made sense to use it. 

The initial setup is very easy. It is easy to understand. 

It is an expensive product. 

I would recommend using it , but it's best if you already know how it works.

Overall, I would rate the solution a six out of ten. 

We use the solution to provide the database layer for multiple applications.

We have been using this solution for 10+ years.

I have had issues with SQL Server but Microsoft support has been able to resolve them quickly and most came down to configuration/design errors and not a stability of the product issue.

SQL Server is quick to install < an hour.  Additional features increase the installation time.

The SQL Server pricing model is based on CPU cores that your database server utilises.

To others looking into using a SQL Server, I would say that it goes down to the application that you are developing and what funds you have available to run the total system.

I work as a BI specialist, so I am directly using SQL Server since I am using the database and making reports from it via SSAS.

I use SQL Server daily for data analysis using its database capabilities and reporting via SSAS. It is easy to use for a BI specialist.

It can be better if it enables the use of AI functions. I used to work with Alteryx, and it has an analytical platform that was best for working directly from a database with machine learning algorithms. So, it would be better, I think.

I have been using SQL Server for around three years.

I would rate the stability around nine or ten. I have not encountered any problems with it.

I used to work with Dataiku, however, I switched jobs. I used to work as a developer for Dataiku, and now I am working as a BI specialist.

I think it is not easy to work with date types when compared to Oracle. Oracle is more useful, but I do not know which feature is better for SQL Server.

I deploy all packages myself and use SSIS for that. We are creating stored procedures and triggering some jobs in SQL Server. I did the deployment by myself.

I am unable to determine any ROI since I have always used SQL Server and cannot compare it with other tools.

I have previously worked with Dataiku.

Based on my experience, SQL Server is a common tool and does not offer significantly higher benefits or anything too special. It is easy to use, and I would recommend it to others. 

I would rate it around five on a scale of one to ten.

SQL Server is easy to use. As a Microsoft product, it has an intuitive and user-friendly interface.

The product performance can become slow when the data reaches sizes like a terabyte.

The product is stable. 

Our organization has a maximum of 100 SQL Server users. The scalability needs improvement.

We have used other solutions such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, and Oracle. 

SQL Server is often chosen for Windows platforms due to its compatibility. For other development environments, like PHP or Java, we might select MySQL or PostgreSQL, respectively.

The setup process is straightforward. It involves running the setup file, configuring general settings, setting up a user account, and creating a database. After that, you can create tables within the database and start using it.

The product's price is reasonable. It requires a one-time license purchase, unlike Azure SQL, which operates on a subscription basis.

SQL Server's performance is good enough for medium-sized applications. The security features are adequate and effective.

I rate it a seven out of ten. 

We use the tool to store and retrieve application data. It allows for storage via multiple threads and separates threads.

I find query optimization to be highly valuable for data management. Additionally, drag-and-drop query creation greatly facilitates data management tasks.

The solution's stability can be improved. 

I can't provide a definitive comment on stability, but I'd lean towards the positive side and rate it around a seven out of ten. I've encountered more efficient and faster databases that deserve a higher rating. Therefore, I'm hesitant to rate SQL Server a nine out of ten for stability.

The number of users depends on the primary master database, which handles the core data. The solution typically serves around two million users interacting with the primary master database. In terms of deployment and maintenance, not much is needed. I'm quite familiar with databases, so that I can handle it myself. Even without guides, setting up and maintaining the system is manageable.

The deployment process was fairly simple, especially with SQL Server and other modern products. The interfaces are easy to understand, and the configuration is straightforward. Typically, you need to configure a node endpoint for the JDBC driver if you're connecting from a client.

Currently, we don't heavily rely on SQL Server for our projects. Most applications are developed for evaluation or quick setup and checking methods. For production-grade deployments, we primarily use PostgreSQL.

The database architecture plays a crucial role in data-heavy applications. I've worked with databases, particularly in telecom, requiring extremely real-time operations like quick authentication and seamless data transfer for calls. These use cases demand quick responsiveness and scalability, especially during high-traffic events like sports matches. Scaling up certain database nodes becomes essential to handle the increased volume of data.

I rate the overall solution a seven out of ten.I haven't personally used the .NET framework, but it seems to be more elaborate compared to Java or Python.

The solution is used as our backend database for our in-house applications. 

It's consolidated all of our Microsoft Access databases.

Having everything in one centralized set of databases is the most valuable feature.

Over the years additional features, data warehousing, cubing, just better performance and better manageability in terms of the actual Microsoft SQL Server AppLINK console.

I have experience with SQL Server. 

It is a highly stable solution. It was our database of choice because of its reliability. It just does what it says on the tin. We've never experienced any issues with it. I've never experienced any issues with it crashing or anything like that. 

The solution is very scalability. I rate the scalability a ten out of ten. 

Their technical team is very efficient. 

Positive

We switched to SQL for the reliability and scalability.

The initial setup is cumbersome as it's very menu-driven. The deployment takes half a day's time. We run it on a virtual machine or virtual service. We build a virtual server. We downloaded the ISO from Microsoft's licensing website.

I rate the setup an eight out of ten. 

The deployment was done by a single person, in-house. 

The SQL server is affordable. I rate the pricing a five out of ten. 

I rate the overall solution a ten out of ten. 

We primarily use the solution for our daily operations.

The solution has provided our clients with some valuable data feeds.

The performance is a very valuable aspect of the solution.

SQL is very easy to manage.

Occasionally the performance, as good as it is, is a bit off. We sometimes experience memory spiking. If they could maybe fix that aspect of the solution, that would be quite helpful for our organization.

We've been using the solution for more than ten years at this point.

The solution is extremely stable. We haven't had issues. We don't really experience bugs or glitches and haven't had the system crash on us before.

The scalability of the solution is very good. A company that needs to expand should be able to do so fairly easily.

We have about ten people using SQL at our organization. Some are in Operations. Some are developers.

The data we have is constantly expanding and growing for us, so we already are increasing the capacity of the SQL server. We'll continue to do so as necessary.

If we have any issues, we contact Microsoft. We only do so if something happens and we can't fix it ourselves. It hasn't happened too many times, and it usually doesn't revert to me to reach out, so although I know we have used them in the past, I myself have no direct experience dealing with them.

It's been about ten years since we started using SQL, which is quite a long time. I don't recall if we used a different solution before that or not. If we did, I don't know what it would have been.

I'm not sure how to answer as to if the solution is straightforward or complex in terms of setup. I didn't handle the deployment, so I'm not the person who would be best equipped to answer these types of questions.

I'm not the person that deals with billing and payments, so I don't know what the cost of the solution is, or if it is monthly or yearly billing. 

I'm not sure if we would have looked at something else or what it might have been. If there was research and a comparison was done, that would have been a decade ago. It's been a long time. 

We are using the 2008 and 2017 versions.

I'd like others to know that SQL is easy to use and easy to manage. It also offers pretty good performance, in my opinion.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. It's not too expensive, or at least that is my understanding, but I am aware there are lots of open source options out there as well companies may want to consider.

It has all of our data. Our company sells contracts when you buy a car. We sell aftermarket insurance for the tyre, wheel, ding, dent, windshield, etc. When somebody buys a contract, we capture all of that data into a legacy database PostgreSQL, and my task is to incorporate that into our financial platform using T-SQL. So, I write queries, procedures, and views. I use SSIS, and I use SSRS. My job is to get the data into our financial system so that we can process claims, payments, cancellations, and refunds. 

In terms of its version, we're up-to-date. We have version 2019.

This is the heart of the whole company. SQL Server is where all of our financials are. It has all of our data.

I've been using SQL Server for 20 years, and there is nothing that it can't do. It is awesome.

When we are talking about event space architecture, scalability generally comes into play. For example, I might have a hundred thousand transactions a second, and then all of a sudden, I build something that everybody in the world wants. The next thing I know is that I have a million transactions a second. So, to be able to process the throughput, I'd have to scale up, and then when the holidays are over, I'm again down to a hundred thousand transactions, and I want to scale back down. SQL Server is not going to do that. In this way, it is not very scalable. One of the reasons why they want us to use Kafka is so that if we need to, we can do that, but our base program is on SQL Server. So, this is where we would use a Kafka event stack so that if I need more servers, I can just write a command, and I can have more consumers, more brokers, and more producers, and when the holiday season is over, it scales right back down again. SQL Server is not going to do that.

I have been using this solution for 20 years.

We do clustering. If one SQL Server goes down, it automatically goes to another one.

I don't ever need tech support. If it breaks, I can just rebuild it.

They're now using a different database for contracting called Road Runner. I don't know what that is, and how it stores data. I don't know anything about it. 

There is also Postgres. I like SQL Server more than Postgres. That's only because I know SQL Server. I don't know Postgres as well. So, I can't say which one is better because I don't have the same amount of experience in both.

I can bring up a SQL Server in an hour or so and set it up.

In terms of maintenance, the number of people required depends on the need. 
We have a team of DBAs, developers, and UA analysts. We probably have 40 people in our IT area who are maintaining our solution. I'm just the developer. I'm the guy who makes the magic happen, but without other people collecting the information that I need to make the magic happen, I'm stuck. Without the guy who is an expert in permissions, partitioning, and performance tuning, I'm stuck. So, it's definitely a team effort. You can do it all, but you don't want to do it all because then you're running your head off, and you don't really get good at anything. It would be a jack of all trades, master of none type of scenario.

You will seldom find a database that was designed correctly. Just because you got a poor-quality database doesn't mean that you're going to get a better database anywhere else. You rarely get to build a thing on your own. Usually, you inherit somebody else's stuff. So, the challenging thing is working with what you have while trying to implement a better solution. My only advice is to be patient.

I would rate it a nine out of 10. I wouldn't give anything a 10 because I don't have that kind of knowledge, but right now, it does what I need it to do.