Microsoft Azure SQL Database Reviews

SQL Azure is used for the replication of a CRM database. if get information from this database and try to replicate it on other servers and other systems. I'm getting the transactional data information.

The most valuable feature of SQL Azure is centralized authentication because I'm using the domain, user name, and password, for Microsoft 365 account with multifactor authentication and the security has been working well.

I was using a user list for connecting a program in OTF for getting information. The connection in SQL Azure can improve by being easier because at the moment I have to use private certificates for user authentication. I had to do additional configuration to have the connections.

I have been using SQL Azure for approximately six months.

SQL Azure is stable, I have not had any issues.

The scalability of SQL Azure is easy to do.

We have a lot of people in my organization using this solution. We have a large company.

I have not used support.

The initial setup of SQL Azure is difficult and complex. I have to use a lot of certificates, private keys, and public keys to establish a connection.

SQL Azure is a really good tool. I recommend using this solution instead of a normal SQL server, its an improvement,

I rate SQL Azure a nine out of ten.

We use it for benefits management in the healthcare domain. 

It helps us deploy new applications very quickly. We have set up everything on Azure, including SQL Azure. 

It has a lot of out-of-the-box features, which is useful. It is easy to move applications for disaster recovery or availability, and all these features are out of the box.

It is easily scalable, and it is faster than SQL Server. It is also less expensive than using SQL Server. It has the pay-as-you-go model, and the charges are based on the usage.

There are some limitations for cross-database queries and features. The migration of data from older systems should be easier.

For deployment, there are too many options, which sometimes makes it difficult to figure out the best option. There is not enough information to help you to find the best option for deployment. There should be more documentation about this.

I have been using this solution for a couple of years.

It is easily scalable. We have around 60 to 70 users. We'll be increasing its usage. We are gradually moving to SQL Azure for all our requirements.

Their technical support is prompt, but some of our issues have not been addressed, even though the team is trying. We didn't have a good experience with them for a couple of issues, but overall, they have been good.

We got everything ready-made in Azure because our all applications are in the .NET framework and SQL, so we found SQL Azure to be the most suitable option.

It is straightforward, but if you're migrating data from SQL Server, it is quite time-consuming and not so easy.

I am not aware of the exact pricing, but our monthly bill for Azure is around 80,000. It is less expensive than using SQL Server. It has the pay-as-you-go model, and the charges are based on the usage.

If you are migrating from older systems, you should know that CLR is not supported in SQL Azure. Data migration can also be a challenge.

I would rate SQL Azure a nine out of ten.

We offer this solution as part of a bundle to our customers for which we offer technical services. We are aiming to have a centralized marketplace.

We have experience with hybrid, on-premises, and public cloud deployments. We have a complex environment and are slowly transitioning to this solution. Our production environment is the only one that we're putting into Microsoft Azure. For security reasons, we still have some systems on-premises.

The DR for this solution is Active/Active.

This solution offers high availability, and business continuity is in place.

This solution would be improved with the inclusion of better self-service tools.

It needs to be easier for my technical teams to perform support tasks.

This solution is scalable. Multiple tiers and multiple layers are there. 

We are still very early in the process and have not yet had many use cases. However, at this stage, Microsoft is working proactively with us. We have premium-level support.

The initial setup of this solution is usually complex, especially for an enterprise customer. This solution is tailored to specific customers, which is why complexity varies.

The typical deployment takes six months.

Our Total Cost of Operations is cheaper using this solution as compared to an on-premises deployment.

The licensing for this solution is based on subscription. We have an enterprise license, so the price of this solution is high.

I recommend this solution, as long as the cloud environment is suitable.

This is a good solution, but from the angle of security, everything can be breached.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Our core business is to make mathematical models for production and solutions. We don't develop or use software. The data comes with the Excel format stored in SQL and we write complex queries about the data and run it in our models. Our data is not sensitive and it's a matter of having a server for storage. I'm a software engineer.

SQL Azure is efficient and very easy to use. The programming facility is very good and the solution is great at solving problems. 

SQL Azure could offer a lot more services and applications. I'd also like to see some tools that we could use on the SQL Server for data virtualization. That would be an improvement. 

I've been using this solution for 10 years. 

We don't run critical data and haven't had any issues with the stability. 

We have a lot of experience and good programmers and IT administrators in the company, so we haven't needed customer support. 

Our implementation was straightforward and carried out internally. We have 10 users of this solution, the majority are in production and engineering, with a couple in software engineering. 

Our license is pay-as-you-go and we pay around €200 per month. You need to keep an eye on this because with scaling the cost can increase quite quickly. 

This solution is more expensive than some others, but not as expensive as Amazon, Google and Oracle, which all have a lot of extra costs involved. 

I recommend this solution and rate it 10 out of 10. 

As consultants, we deploy this solution to our customers both on cloud and on-prem. Most of our clients buy the solution as an application package which requires a database. If they are a "Microsoft shop," I recommend they use SQL Server. I'm the development manager and we are customers of Azure.

I like the reliability of SQL Server and the solution has become easier to use over time, and I believe it will become more popular in the future. It's also reasonably priced. As a competitor, Oracle may have 10% of the features that SQL Server cannot offer but those features are for high-end database and high-end applications. Most clients don't need those extras and shouldn't have to pay for high-end features like the redundancy.

SQL has become more versatile because of features they continue to add. Every new version has new features and it pretty much covers everything in terms of memory, database, the caching, the redundancy, and high availability. I would say MS SQL server fully meets the requirement of 95% of my clients out there.

If you use the solution in the Microsoft environment, it's fine. But if you're using Java then it seems to be out of place. AWS has a new product called Aurora, it's a new database that can deal with both types of workloads: transactional and analytical. That's a big challenge for all the other databases including SQL, because most of the databases out there are designed for either type of workload but the Amazon AWS Aurora does both. With SQL, if they do the BI normally, you then have to replicate the production database to another database which is no longer necessary with Aurora. It's something SQL could include. 

I've been using this solution for several years. 

This is a stable solution. 

I think they still have issues with scalability. For applications requiring scalability, I'd recommend using the database on the cloud and not on-premises. We have up to 200 users for this solution, mainly office workers and generally working in small to medium sized companies. 

Microsoft doesn't provide technical support, the support structure is not good. If you need something, you have to call them and the cost is $499 per incident ticket which is very expensive. The good thing about the SQL Server is that there is a lot of information out there in the community.

I also used Oracle and I think it's a good solution for companies that already use Oracle. It makes sense for them to go with that solution as the database for their application. For a company that has no attachment, I recommend SQL.

The initial setup was quite straightforward.

If our clients are non-Microsoft clients and they have the money, then I recommend Oracle. But for ease of use, scalability, and value for money, I like SQL.

I would rate this solution an eight out of 10. 

• Cloud products reduce the cost of the production of software products
• You do not have to buy the product at the up-front market cost
• You pay for it as you use the product
• You can develop a product on your own premises
• Just give the key to the vendor, so that there are no separate deployment costs.
• You save on travel and meals, as well as housing required for a development team required for deployment and implementation.
• The distance between the client and development team is invisible.
• You may arrange virtual-real trainings/demos based on the affordability of the client’s budget.
• There is no requirement of special hardware, as costs and additional software are bared by the cloud platform. You can spend as you need based on what the client’s needs are and scale hardware and software up to the client’s needs.
• Cost of the platform and the software upgrades are covered under the service contract.

We developed our product with a small team of .NET developers for a client, a law university in Delhi, India.

We received the requirements from conversations of our team with our client, over the phone, and with email.

There was minimal training required for the team to be trained in cloud, as every developer in the team had basic .NET skills.

This product was then intended to be used by law university students for their training in court room sessions as student lawyers debating against each other to deduce lawful judgements of a case under study.

We provided virtual chat rooms for the students and had facilitated a method to share video sessions of their debates in virtual court rooms.

Microsoft has delivered on its promise by providing a free, developer-student (community) edition of Visual Studio.

I have used this for around 6-9 months to develop and implement the product.

There are questions in the developers’ and clients’ minds:

• Since Azure is a pay-by-use product, what is the provision for the future?
• If, for some reason, we lost this provision, what fallback parachute is Microsoft planning for customers?
• What risk planning and hedging should the client do? There is no such possibility, but the concern must be addressed by Microsoft.

Physically owned products are also subject to failure. The hardware on premise also fails and needs to be maintained, so there is expected downtime.

Microsoft provides mirroring of cloud servers. There is a sure provision of backup and restore of the cloud environment.

By centralizing these services and products at a central location (datacenter), we are optimizing on services and goods cost and sharing these costs with other cloud dwellers.

By going towards the cloud, we are going towards a virus and spyware free environment.

We are moving away from special, owned hardware and products, to cloud-based datacenters, which exist in the other resource rich, low cost, areas.

This is Platform as a Service of the SOA revolution.

Along with overseas datacenters, we shall promote near shore or local datacenters to capitalize on the cloud advantage. We will also address issues of risk hedging, which will spur job growth in local areas.

We didn’t have any scalability problems.

We did not explore this option, but the response was good for whatever we did request.

We switched due to the advantages I mentioned earlier.

You don’t have to install the product on the cloud platform. You receive a login with pre-pared software installs. Custom requirements need to be implemented or requested.

Every region of a country has cheaper locations that can provide cost advantages, and data center growth must be equally distributed on earth with electricity and resource rich, low cost, areas to keep the cost of the cloud minimal. This will also avert natural and man-made calamities.

The United States and other countries can take this cloud option to the next level of off-shoring without any immigration and terrorism issues, enabling development in impoverished areas of the world.

This can further cut down the cost of software development, other "down-the-line" products, services and goods, and will empower the poor and neglected of the world.

This will also improve trade between the countries. There are always imbalances amongst populations in any country in skills and monetary status. An equalizer could be achieved by allowing more trade, more freedom, and more pollination.

In India, we had to start development using the 3-month free subscription Azure platform .net and SQL . Now as far as I know, vs 2015 community edition is a free download. One can develop software application in it and deploy it with an Azure subscription which is pay as you use. All nitty-gritty development can be done by a development team. That's why Microsoft has delivered their dream cloud promise with the zero cost alternative of community edition.

We considered local cloud and physical install options. These options were expensive and less effective.

Microsoft Cloud is reliable and dependable.

We have HR applications including a lead system and also traveling expenses. We're using SQL for items like that.

The solution offers good plugin capabilities. We're a Microsoft customer, so it fits in with everything else we work with. 

The solution can scale. 

From a user standpoint, there isn't really any need for improvement. 

We'd like the solution to be available on mobile phones. 

The product could be more competitive in terms of features, security, and scalability.

We've been using the solution for around three years. 

The scalability would be a bit better. That said, right now, I am happy with how it can scale. As a user, you always want it to be better; however, as of now, it's not too bad. 

I'm not sure how many people are using the solution in our company at this time. 

I've never used technical support services. I can't speak to how well they respond when a customer has an issue. 

We're a Microsoft customer. 

I'm not part of the development team. I'm not sure which version our company is on. 

I'd rate the solution six out of ten. While it's fine for use online, we'd like it to be more mobile. If it were on mobile, I would rate it higher. 

We like the ease of integrating it with our on-premises environment. We use a hybrid model. We have a SQL Server on-premises, and we have an integration with the cloud version. We do CPU or disk intensive processes on-premises. For accessibility, we offload onto the cloud. When you do a lot of IO and things like that in the cloud, Microsoft charges for the CPU activity.

Price definitely may be a negative point. As for most of cloud based solution, certain cost components as CPU and IO usage may cause extremely hi costs.

It has been a bit over a year.

It is stable.

It is scalable. In fact, it is too easy to scale. It just scales and sends you the invoice. You have to tune it to lock it down, and then it doesn't go too far. These are the kind of things you have to take care of to avoid having bad surprises at the end of the month when they send you the resource usage invoice.

I didn't contact them regarding SQL Server, but I have contacted them for Azure and Office 365 support. They are usually quite good.

It is too easy. Initially, the database engine itself takes an hour, and that's it. Tuning it is another matter, but tuning is anyways a difficult task in itself.

It is quite expensive. I would definitely recommend not using the pay-as-you-go model because this will just mean all your money will go to Microsoft. So, really make sure to control resource usage as much as possible.

I would definitely recommend this solution. It is a very good product, and it is difficult to beat. I haven't got anything that I saw missing in it in terms of features. It is always integrated within Azure and Microsoft Office 365 ecosystems. If there is something that the database can't do, it is quite easy to have another path of the offering to take over. They are almost like AWS. They have so many services that it is really difficult not to be able to achieve things. There is always something or someone. It is just a matter of price. You also have access to the service, documentation, and even the user community.

I would rate SQL Azure an eight out of ten.