IBM Db2 Warehouse vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics comparison

IBM Db2 Warehouse vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

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Categories and Ranking

IBM Db2 Warehouse

Average Rating

7.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Warehouse (11th)

Microsoft Azure Synapse Ana...

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Data Warehouse (2nd)

Featured Reviews

Josef Kraus

Owner at S.K. Consulting Services GmbH

Mar 27, 2024

Useful for ETL process and has good documentation

The tool's most beneficial feature for our data management tasks has been the ETL process. Additionally, we utilized Windows and Linux. IBM Db2 Warehouse's scalability has significantly impacted our data storage capabilities. We needed to order new disks for storage every week within this hosting…

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Sunil Gidwani

Cloud Solution Development Manager at Stryker Corporation

May 29, 2022

No competitors provide the entire solution to one place

I rate Azure Synapse Analytics eight out of 10. No competitors provide the entire solution to one place like Synapse. For example, a database just focuses moving and manipulating data, etc. But Synapse is like an all-inclusive workspace. I advise other people to go with Databricks Notebook if you need a computation engine. It has a solid SQL storage procedure. Suppose you are dealing with complex transformation logic and manipulation of run-time data flows. In that case, it's better to use Databricks than any Microsoft ADF. DataBricks looks more promising in terms of computing in memory, so we integrated Databricks in Synapse.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The standout feature of IBM Db2 Warehouse, which is particularly valuable for large enterprises, is its ability to handle big data."

"It can be mounted on the cloud, which is a huge plus. If the client, for example, starts small with on-premise deployment and then it rapidly needs to grow, we can transfer this to the cloud easily."

"Provides good security and reliability."

"I think it scales really well and as long as you take enough time to learn a little bit about it, it works really well."

"It can scale effectively as long as resources are available."

"The solution is stable."

"Some of the best features are stored procedures, parallelism, and different indexing strategies."

"The analytics engine is not bad at forecasting predictions."

"The product works well with other Azure products."

"The integrated workspace in Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics where everything comes together, such as Power BI and Data Factory, is very good. Additionally, the ability to do dedicated SQL pooling is a benefit."

"What I found most valuable in Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is that it's native only for Azure, so you get better performance and there's no issue. To explain further, many different types of data come, in particular, structured and unstructured data. For audit purposes, there's also unstructured data, so the most important aspect is that with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, you have the capability of using both technologies, meaning that you can use or mix structured and unstructured data which is important. This can also be done in Hadoop, and on other platforms, so you have everything in one place. You don't have to worry about how to manage both structured and unstructured data and where to store information. With Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, you can take care of everything, particularly in Azure. The solution also provides you with many features apart from analytics, for example, storage which makes it better."

"I like its performance. It is well-structured and offers a lot of practical options. Because of the visual design of the product, it is very easy to find icons and other visual elements. It took me more than two weeks to understand how it works. I had an intensive training session to understand it, which was enough. It was not hard to understand how it works."

"The fact that we can ingest from different types of sources, whether they are internal systems or external sources."

"Can capture all the transactional data throughout a company."

"The solution can scale."

"We use Azure Synapse Analytics in many different areas and industries, so I like that you can administrate and create pipelines for difference sources of data and later integrate and deploy it to other internal areas, such as separate dashboards for financials, and so on."

More Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics pros

Cons

"In terms of improvement, IBM Db2 Warehouse should be more scalable."

"Lacks sufficient documentation and particularly in Spanish."

"There were some initial challenges with IBM Db2 Warehouse about eight months ago when I worked in this environment. When I coordinated with IBM support, they mentioned that the memory was insufficient for our needs. Our business environment required significantly more memory than the previous cluster could provide. Consequently, we have worked closely with on-site IBM technical personnel to address this issue."

"IBM Db2 Warehouse needs to improve its interface."

"The areas of the solution that is needing the most improvement are separating compute from storage, elasticity, which means scaling up and then retracting."

"There should be more material available for training and training should be free."

"Responding to support tickets takes a lot of time. It can range from two to four days, even for critical issues."

"The biggest problems we have is when the backup solution is failing or slow and we run out of log space, which has happened probably a couple of times in the last four years."

More IBM Db2 Warehouse cons

"Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics could improve its compatibility with Visual Studio. One of the challenges for people moving from an on-premise to a cloud solution, such as Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, is that you're constantly working in a browser. There are people that have been working for decades on desktop applications. For them to start working in a browser, it's quite a change. Allowing people to work and do their work inside Visual Studio than in the browser, would be a large advantage."

"Microsoft should develop an interface to make it easier to shift from on-premise to the cloud."

"From an infrastructure standpoint, I believe it can be more secure in terms of availability."

"Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics's overall integration within the Azure ecosystem could improve. The native Microsoft solution versus another solution, such as Databricks, there are areas where there could be some improvements."

"The initial setup is complex."

"One potential area for improvement could be the availability of an on-premises data lake implementation, as the product is currently only implemented in a cloud environment."

"There is a limit on the number of concurrent queries to around 125 for Azure Synapse."

"I am a researcher. For people to be able to research a solution, there should be at least a free trial. Just advertising a product or saying that this product is better doesn't work. I would strongly recommend providing a lot of free trials and trainings. This will also help Microsoft in having more users or customers. Oracle provides some free trials. You can just go for a free trial and use your database online, which is very good."

More Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In a traditional on-prem database, in a data warehouse, the solution is probably on the expensive side."

"The solution is subscription-based. You can also pay to use the product as you go."

"The costs are billed such that we pay for what we use, which is a good thing."

"Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics can be costly, however, a cost-effective approach would be to purchase it in advance through reservation for either one or three years. This will significantly reduce the overall expenses incurred."

"It's very difficult to price unless you know exactly how the customer is using it."

"All of the prices are available online."

"I'm not sure of the exact cost, however, it is around $100,000 a year."

"The pricing is okay. You can pay as you go."

"I would rate the ROI a nine out of ten, where one is zero value and ten is 100% value."

More Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics pricing and cost advice

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814,763 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

58%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Educational Organization

43%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Db2 Warehouse?

The standout feature of IBM Db2 Warehouse, which is particularly valuable for large enterprises, is its ability to handle big data.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Db2 Warehouse?

Db2 Warehouse or IBM products are pretty expensive. There are cheaper tools on the market. However, if the client is satisfied with paying for the Db2 Warehouse license, especially for cloud-based ...

What needs improvement with IBM Db2 Warehouse?

Responding to support tickets takes a lot of time. It can range from two to four days, even for critical issues. The technical support quality is good, but the response time needs improvement.

How does Amazon Redshift compare with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?

Amazon Redshift is very fast, has a very good response time, and is very user-friendly. The initial setup is very straightforward. This solution can merge and integrate well with many different dat...

What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?

The product is easy to use, and anybody can easily migrate to advanced DB.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?

The cost is reasonable for our company. There is no license cost; we pay only for Azure Compute's costs. It is important to manage the cost efficiently on a daily basis.

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Comparisons

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Teradata vs IBM Db2 Warehouse

Compared 15% of the time

Amazon Redshift vs IBM Db2 Warehouse

Compared 12% of the time

IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud vs IBM Db2 Warehouse

Compared 11% of the time

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Azure Data Factory vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

Compared 11% of the time

Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

Compared 11% of the time

Teradata vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

Compared 11% of the time

More Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Competitors

Product Reports

IBM Db2 Warehouse

Download IBM Db2 Warehouse product report

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

Download Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics product report

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics report

Also Known As

InfoSphere Warehouse, IBM InfoSphere Warehouse

Azure Synapse Analytics, Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Microsoft Azure SQL DW, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, MS Azure Synapse Analytics

Learn More

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IBM

Microsoft

Overview

InfoSphere Warehouse is a suite of products that combines the strength of DB2 with a data warehousing infrastructure from IBM. You can use InfoSphere Warehouse to build a complete data warehousing solution that includes a highly scalable relational database, data access capabilities, and front-end analysis tools.

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is an end-to-end analytics solution that successfully combines analytical services to merge big data analytics and enterprise data warehouses into a single unified platform. The solution can run intelligent distributed queries among nodes, and provides the ability to query both relational and non-relational data.

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is built with these 4 components:

Synapse SQL
Spark
Synapse Pipeline
Studio

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Features

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics has many valuable key features, including:

Cloud Data Service: WIth Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics you can operate services (data analytics, machine learning, data warehousing, dashboarding, etc.) in a single workspace via the cloud.
Structured and unstructured data: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics supports both structured and unstructured data and allows you to manage relational and non-relational data - unlike data warehouses and lakes that tend to store them respectively.
Effective data storage: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics offers next-level data storage with high availability and different tiers.
Responsive data engine: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics uses Massive Parallel Processing (MPP) and is designed to handle large volumes of data and analytical workloads efficiently without any problems.
Several scripting languages: The solution provides language compatibility and supports different programming languages, such as Python, Java, Spark SQL, and Scala.
Query optimization: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics works well to facilitate limitless concurrency and performance optimization. It also simplifies workload management.

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Benefits

Some of the benefits of using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics include:

Database templates: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics offers industry-specific database templates that make it easy to combine and shape data.
Better business insights: With Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics you can expand discovery of insights from all your data and apply machine learning models to all your intelligent apps.
Reduce project development time: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics makes it possible to have a unified experience for developing end-to-end analytics, which reduces project development time significantly.
Eliminate data barriers: By using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, you can perform analytics on operational and business apps data without data movement.
Advanced security: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics provides both advanced security and privacy features to ensure data protection.
Machine Learning: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics integrates Azure Machine Learning, Azure Cognitive Services, and Power BI.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics users who are currently using the solution.

PeerSpot user Jael S., who is an Information Architect at Systems Analysis & Design Engineering, comments on her experience using the product, saying that it is “Scalable, intuitive, facilitates compliance and keeps your data secure”. She also says "We also like governance. It looks at what the requirements are for the company to identify the best way to ensure compliance is met when you move to the cloud."

Michel T., CHTO at Timp-iT, mentions that "the features most valuable are the simplicity, how easy it is to create a dashboard from different information systems."

A Senior Teradata Consultant at a tech services company says, "Microsoft provides both the platform and the data center, so you don't have to look for a cloud vendor. It saves you from having to deal with two vendors for the same task."

Sample Customers

Alameda County Social Services Agency, Sui Southern Gas Company Limited

Toshiba, Carnival, LG Electronics, Jet.com, Adobe,

IBM Db2 Warehouse vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics