Microsoft Azure SQL Database Reviews

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.

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.

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. 

We are in infrastructure development. We are using this solution with Power BI to consume the data.

We are creating on top of this SQL server. It will be consumed by Power BI for the customers, where they can customize their reports. 

I am delighted to use this solution.

The most valuable feature is the moment of data. It's infused data where we can pull the data and post it immediately.

Also, it can connect to different sources. It's a storage mechanism where you can consume the data and post it into the target systems.

The interface is awesome. It's ready and easy to use.

It is difficult to find any disadvantages when I can only see advantages in using SQL Azure.

When you have a subscription, the subscription itself is not secure. You have to add the user into the directory and you will be able to use it. 

I would like to see integration with Snowflake.

I have been using SQL Azure for a couple of months.

We are using the 2017 version.

It's a stable solution.

It's a scalable product. We have eight members in our organization who are using this solution.

We have plans to continue using this solution.

Technical support is good and always available.

Previously, we did not use another product.

The initial setup is straightforward and the installation is simple.

It only requires you to get a subscription. Once you have downloaded it, you can create it as a resource and you can already use it.

The number of members required to maintain this solution is dependant on the server.

They have standard subscriptions that are not the entire version. If you have a full version of your subscription then you have the entire version that you can download.

When you no longer need it, you can just stop the services. You can reduce the amount you pay, which is an advantage. Essentially, it's a pay and use mechanism.

It's reasonably priced and when you compare it with other products in the cloud environment, it's cheaper.

I would rate SQL Azure a nine out of ten.

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'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. 

We provide managed services using SQL Azure to our end-clients. The price of services is fixed, and we manage the resources according to their needs.

The on-premise SQL Server licenses can be used since it is on Azure, so it's a significant savings for the customers.

SQL Azure's performance monitoring features need to be improved. It has a pricing calculator, but it would be great if we could get a rough estimate of the pricing based on fewer parameters, like the data size and the scale of the company. 

I started working with SQL Azure about six months ago.

I haven't had any stability issues with SQL Azure, but I've heard that there are frequent down times.

SQL Azure is perfectly scalable. 

I haven't had any complications setting up SQL Azure.

Microsoft controls the licensing for SQL Server and even for the other vendors. They don't play fair with AWS. If anyone wants to migrate to AWS RDS, Microsoft won't let anyone reuse the on-premise SQL Server licenses on AWS. You would need to repurchase those licenses. So it's cheaper to migrate to Azure instead if you already have an on-prem SQL Server license. The Azure platform itself is also much cheaper than AWS. So when you factor in the SQL Server licenses, it's as much 10 times cheaper than AWS RDS. I'm talking about the SQL Server RDS.

I rate SQL Azure eight out of 10. To anyone thinking about adopting this solution, I would recommend that they first decide what applications they need to migrate to Azure. Then you need to estimate the cost. All cloud vendors charge for incoming traffic, especially Azure, and it costs a lot. Around 500GB of data might cost a few thousand dollars.

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.