Microsoft Azure SQL Database Reviews

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.

I use SQL Azure strictly for active data rescue.

All of my work is stored in the Microsoft Azure Cloud.

I am working on a special product with another person — it's a secret product, so, unfortunately, I can't talk about it.

I am very happy with this solution; right now, I don't think there is anything I would change.

More power should be included between the upgrades. We started with a less costly service but we needed more power. We paid a lot and upgraded but we still needed more power. The power should increase more between each upgrade.

I have been using SQL Azure for three years.

SQL Azure is both very stable and scalable.

I have never had to contact customer support. There are several educational sites that I pay for that supply me with help.

The initial setup was very straightforward. It's online, so I didn't need to install anything. I just had to choose options and activate them. 

How much we pay is determined by how much we upgrade or downgrade our services. If you downgrade the service you pay less if you upgrade the services you pay more.

Microsoft has a cheap license for developers. Still, it was expensive for us because we are not a company, and we don't use crowdfunding, we used our own money to pay for the license.

I would recommend SQL Azure to others.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of ten.

Right now, with Azure, we have everything we need. The only problem we have with Azure is regarding the price.

I'm an end-user. I'm a business analyst, so I'm using SQL Azure to do analysis.

Emergency mode is quite useful.

I haven't explored SQL Azure's features much, but I would like to see some better integration with Python. 

I've been using SQL Azure for approximately two years.

SQL Azure is stable.

I think SQL Azure is scalable. Almost 200 people are using it in the commercial department.

I can't say much about Microsoft support because the IT people are the ones who deal with the Microsoft support team. Whenever we have an issue, we put our IT team on it and leave everything to them. They try to handle it if they can or they might bring in some consultants from the Microsoft team. 

I previously used Oracle, but I didn't spend much time with it, so I really can't say. I don't think Oracle has any capabilities that SQL Azure lacks, and it's not used in as many companies and institutions.

Setting up SQL Azure isn't complex.

I rate SQL Azure seven out of 10. 

I am a consultant and some of my clients use this solution for their database.

SQL Azure is a platform, as opposed to a product. You do not select a specific version. It has very little administrative ability, such as the ability to back it up, but it offers much more comfort for the user.

This solution has all of the advantages that are available in a normal SQL server, except it is presented in an online environment that can be used from everywhere. It provides fast access to data because the SQL server can calculate where the data is. It is a complexity of order one. So, it does not depend on the size of the table. This is why SQL servers are the favorite data source for any website.

This solution provides more comfort to the end-user compared to a normal SQL server.

This solution suffers from the same problems that come about in a normal SQL server. One issue is the optimization of function-heavy evaluations. If you define your own functions, the execution plan of the SQL server performs sub-passes of the execution path, which makes the process very slow. Even if there are very easy means to optimize them, it is still slow. The server should perform automatic function optimization. This is a problem in any implementation, Azure or otherwise.

The management is entirely controlled by Microsoft, so there are some restrictions.

The solution is as stable as any SQL server. I agree with others who say that SQL is more stable than the Microsoft operating systems.

This is a scalable solution.

If you have a support contract then it is excellent. They will work at the problem until it has been resolved. The support is very professional.

Our customer in Luxembourg is using an Oracle server, rather than SQL Azure because it was a specification of the project. I am not the one who decides which database technology will be used by my clients.

This is the best product that Microsoft has. It is the same product as a normal SQL server but built on Azure. The management is different, depending on the hoster of the cloud.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

There is significant abstraction from beginner to intermediate database administration responsibilities. In this way, I can focus on my business objectives, as opposed to heavy upfront cost of ownership when compared to on-premises or IaaS alternatives.

It provides faster turnaround time to getting solutions customer facing.

It could have closer parity to on-premises capabilities. Introduce a graph database engine component.

I have been using Azure since its inception.

Historically, SQL Azure has tended to choke at databases larger than 50GB, and in some cases, as small as 20GB. Granted, this starts becoming a function of database design.

Caveat: It's been a while since I last attempted to put larger sets of data into a single SQL Azure database. Now, if you don't use resilient connection tolerance practices (or technologies), then it may feel unstable. Here again, it becomes a function of design.

In other words, if you simply choose to use on-premises traditional designs and principles when interacting with SQL Azure, then there is a higher probability of it "feeling" unstable.

I've seen and experienced some amazing service and then I've endured appalling interactions, too.

This becomes a function of your SQL engine skill, the diligence and appropriateness of your design, the support tier you purchased, and some luck if you connected with a support engineer who not only spoke your language, but also carried an attitude of chasing down a solution.

The setup is super straightforward. I don't really find that question useful, or at least as useful as, "What is it like incrementally adjusting the design of the database?"

This is where Microsoft's eco-system further outshines the alternatives. Again, this is a much longer discussion, but it's folly to choose a platform, and even a technology, without considering the lifecycle of changes.

In an agile world, you have to ask how you are going to get that data tier to respond efficiently and within business requirements and tolerances.

It's an elastic service, at least in its simplest definition, and a proactive one with some reactive capability. Therefore, there is value in monitoring usage and adjusting proactively to gain optimal savings.

Alternatives tended to be IaaS offerings hammered or butchered to be PaaS. So, frankly, the answer is that I don't know of other PaaS alternatives.

SQL Azure is a good option for maintaining structured data, especially for smaller databases (0 - 25GB).

My solutions today leverage a plethora of structured and unstructured data. Therefore, having this service in close proximity to the resource groups I use for the other services is beneficial.

It does tend to constrain me to the Azure platform, as I've yet to find a vendor who can give me the RDBMS PaaS offering. Constrain makes it sound like “suck up some pain”. However, I have yet to find the Azure platform limiting.

Here is some context or insight. I was previously on the product team that heavily influenced the direction and feature set of SQL Server, both box (on-premises) and cloud. My focus and specialty is related to scaling the RDBMS tier to support high-demand applications.

To that end, SQL Azure was very useful for a certain set of business problems. At the time, I certainly would not have recommended anything larger than 50GB residing in a SQL Azure database.

I also felt strongly that a significant value proposition of cloud-based RDBMS solutions lay in the as yet untapped elastic-scale possibilities.

To that end, I developed a framework for customers to leverage, which found its way (in a crippled form) into what is today's SQL Azure elastic feature. What I'm trying to say is that true elastic-scale and distributed scale of SQL Azure is hobbled. That frustrates me.

The value proposition of using SQL Azure for mobile and web app solutions is also significant, and it remains as strong as ever. This is especially the case for solutions that enjoy the benefits of structured data.

The on-going improvements of SQL Azure reaching parity with an on-premises feature set is making SQL Azure a viable option for many applications that previously couldn't even begin to look at cloud-based, non-IaaS, therefore PaaS, offerings.

In my current role, I consider SQL Azure the leader for cloud-based RDBMS solutions, far ahead of any other cloud-based RBMS offering. Where I have structured data, SQL Azure is my de facto storage tier.

The most valuable feature of SQL Azure is the user-friendly VMs.

The solution’s visibility could be improved.

The solution's stability is good, and we haven't faced any issues so far.

I rate SQL Azure a nine out of ten for stability.

SQL Azure is a scalable solution. Around ten users are regularly using SQL Azure in our organization.

The solution’s initial setup is straightforward.

The solution’s deployment takes hardly a day.

Overall, I rate SQL Azure ten out of ten.

I primarily use it for accounting and ERP solutions.

I have an old SQL server, and it's not stable. I have two choices, to renew the server or move the data to Azure. So I decided to move everything to the cloud. The database has since become more stable, and I have less troubleshooting, which saves time and money.

The solution could be less expensive. They need to work on their pricing model.

The solution is very stable. I haven't faced any issues up to this point.

It's scalable. I worked sales and marketing for Microsoft and I know it's scalable. You can increase and decrease the specs for the server on demand. When it comes to physical hardware, you can increase the specs if you get the wrong machine. With software, you have to pay more money. You can also easily scale down and decrease the specs and save some money if you like.

I've used technical support for other Microsoft solutions, and I've found them to be very fast in their response time. They'll call you and help you fix the problem.

I've never worked with another cloud solution. This is my first.

The initial setup was straightforward. It took less than one day for deployment. I have a lot of experience, so it might take others three or four days to complete a setup. You only need one person for deployment and maintenance.

I did the implementation myself.

We pay less than $1000 monthly in licensing fees. There are no additional costs. When you start to use the cloud, you can move other services to the cloud as well. So I think we will pay more in the future when we move other services over. But right now we only use the ERP system with SQL Cloud. 

I didn't really evaluate Amazon or Google. I just read up on them as Microsoft competitors. 

I'm currently moving my system onto the cloud. I'm using a hybrid version of the solution.

My advice to anyone looking to switch to the cloud is to stabilize the technology and to consider Amazon, Azure, and Google. If you don't have experience in the cloud, you have to consider all solutions and pick the best one for your company. I decided to go with Microsoft Azure because of my past experience. So if you don't have the experience to fall back on, consider all technologies as well as their cost, money, and features.

I would rate the solution eight out of ten because of the cost. I'd like it to be cheaper so we can afford to move more of our services to the cloud.

The solution is used to manage our databases in the cloud.

The hardware is all managed by Microsoft.

The pricing plans when using multiple Microsoft solutions are complex and have room for improvement.

I am currently using the solution.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable.

The technical support is good.

The initial setup depends on the requirements but is easier than the on-prem SQL.

I have seen a return on investment.

The pricing is flexible and can be adapted based on our requirements but the pricing options are complex especially if we are using a VM.

I give the solution a nine out of ten.

Maintenance is minimal and can easily be done.

I suggest researching the solution on Microsoft.com where there is a good learning platform before using the solution.