Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Reviews

We are using the solution to process a large volume of data. We are taking advantage of the MTPP functionality feature in Azure Synapse Analytics and connecting our reporting dashboard to its dedicated support tool. These are the two primary use cases we are currently leveraging.

Generally, people have differing opinions on whether to use Azure Synapse Analytics or Azure Databricks. These are two different services from Microsoft, and customers often struggle to decide which is best suited for their particular use case. Both services have some features in common and some that are exclusive to one or the other. It is a trade-off and ultimately depends on the use case that best serves the organization. Incorporating the features of both Azure Synapse Analytics and Azure Databricks would meet most use-case scenarios.

The cost of the solution has room for improvement.

Azure Database has a very good Unity Catalog functionality, which is a form of governance within Azure Databricks. Similarly, for Azure Analytics, having a governance product would be great. However, Microsoft already has Azure Purview, which is meant for governance, but it would be nice to have that functionality built into Azure Synapse Analytics.

I have been using the solution for seven years.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable. Generally, the development team of around 20 people uses Azure Synapse Analytics directly. Otherwise, a Power BI dashboard accesses the Azure Synapse Analytics database, and the end user uses the Power BI reports, not being directly exposed to Azure Synapse Analytics. Only the development and software development teams use Azure Synapse Analytics.

We are always in contact with the Microsoft team. We keep up to date with our Microsoft reference architecture and other related matters through our communication with the Microsoft team members.

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward. We can have the dedicated SQL up and running within 15 minutes.

The implementation is completed in-house.

The cost of the solution depends on the type of license we choose, such as pay-as-you-go, one-year reserve, or three-year reserve. The cost varies depending on the options selected and can be very expensive.

I give the solution a nine out of ten.

Depending on the organization's use case, there are multiple options available. For example, if the workload is medium, there are different products available such as Azure SQL Database for small or medium-sized data, and Azure Synapse Analytics for extremely large volumes of data. Ultimately, it is the use case of the organization that will determine the need for these particular services.

We primarily use the solution for our cloud data warehouse. 

The usability has been excellent. 

It offers good integration. 

The product works well with other Azure products.

The initial setup is very convenient.

It is scalable.

We have found the solution to be stable. 

The security is fine.

We'd like the solution to have more analytics capability.

We would like more detail on reports so that they are easy to understand in terms of usage of data and services. It could be improved.

I've been using the solution for one year. 

It's a stable product. It is reliable. The performance is good. It doesn't crash or freeze. There aren't bugs or glitches. 

We can scale the product up and down according to our needs.

We have around 100 people using the solution right now. 

My customer uses it on a daily basis.

We are satisfied with technical support. I haven't used them too much.

Neutral

I've also used Snowflake. 

Azure Synapse is a more integrated platform. With Snowflake, you need to buy it separately and run it off Microsoft. Snowflake, however, has better cost control. Snowflake is comparatively cost-efficient.

It is a straightforward setup. It's easy and not overly complex. I have not measured how long it actually takes; however, I can say the implementation is convenient. My administrator handled the setup. I did not handle it directly myself. 

The solution can get expensive, and it's hard to monitor the costs. It does depend on how you utilize it. You can configure it in a certain way.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. 

The use case depends on different things. For example, for banking, it would be risk management, fraud, and anti-money laundering. For retail, it would be an omnichannel customer experience. For sales, it could be upsell, cross-sell, retention. It's different for every industry.

The solution is like a marketplace in that it's easy to consume. 

It's scalable; you can scale up and scale down.

The standard things that you see from any cloud perspective make it very attractive.

It is easy to set up.

We'd, of course, always like to pay less for the service if we can.

I've been using the solution for a few years. 

The solution is stable. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

I work for Accenture, so there are hundreds and thousands of customers on Microsoft.

The solution scales very well. You can scale up or down as required. It's very easy.

I don't really interact with technical support, so I can't really comment on their level of service.

I don't think it's very complex to implement. We have our own expertise. We have our own IPs to set it up and therefore it's not really complex. It takes a week to ten days to have everything up and running. 

Typically, a pool of six or seven people should be good enough in terms of handling deployment and maintenance. Usually, it's comprised of a mix of managers, admins, engineers, and/or developers.

Maybe it takes over a period of two or three years to see an ROI of maybe 50% to 70%. 

I don't deal with the licensing aspect of the solution. 

I'd recommend this solution to other users. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

We use the product to transform the data from the on-premise environment to the cloud. It is a flexible platform and integrates with multiple data sources.

The platform has multiple valuable use cases. They include performance, compatibility, flexibility, and cost.

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics's pricing could be reduced.

We have been using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics for five years.

I rate the platform's stability a seven or eight out of ten. It could be improved.

We manage four to five Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics customers in our environment. It is a scalable software.

The initial setup is easy using the infrastructure code. The deployment takes a maximum of a day to complete as we conduct a POC enrollment before the setup. It helps us understand the process. Later, we develop it in the production environment.

We need assistance from a third-party vendor for product implementation.

I am evaluating Oracle GoldenGate. However, it is a licensed software that induces extra costs. Instead, I want to utilize Microsoft cloud services to their full potential and avoid additional licensing costs. By doing so, I aim to reduce reliance on Oracle software throughout the migration journey, opting for cloud-native solutions that align with the goals of cost-effectiveness.

Many customers prefer using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics. It allows them to develop applications in Java and .NET. It provides security, flexibility, and efficient UI as well. It enables the ease of configuring APIs and overall configurability. As a certified cloud specialist, I advise others to consider use cases and requirements while purchasing.

I rate the product an eight out of ten.

We are a marketing company so we help our customers with marketing strategies. The marketing is based on the final customers, and we use Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics for CDP.

The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is the pipeline that is the ETL tool. It's very well designed and is overall very good. We usually don't use the ETL tool in Databricks, but we use the ETL tool in this solution.

The SQL features in the solution are very good.

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics could improve the section in the solution where you can implement the Python Spark pipelines, it's not the same as in Databricks which would be better.

The data visualization in Microsoft Azure is provided by Power BI, it's not needed to have something in Synapse. The data governance tool is outside Synapse, but there is a data governance tool that is called Purview in Microsoft Azure. They need to improve the Spark part of the solution then it would be complete. 

I have been using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics for approximately two years.

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is highly stable because it's based on SQL Server technology. It's a very old technology, which is solid.

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is scalable.

I did not use another solution similar to Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics.

The initial setup of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is simple. It's a managed service in Microsoft Azure, you only need to search for it and install it.

You have to be very careful with one specific service inside Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics which is called the Sequel Data Warehouse Dedicated. It is very reliable and performs well, but it's expensive. You need to define the tier well because you can choose between several tiers and you have to define which suits your needs and not overperform the tier because it's quite expensive.

Once a service is managed as a service in a cloud platform, the maintenance is very easy. You have to monitor it, but the maintenance infrastructure is extremely easy.

This solution is very easy once you have a Microsoft Azure subscription to go straight to Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics because it's native. However, there are other kinds of technologies one can use. I would suggest before using this solution, look at other solutions, such as Databricks or Snowflake, and not stop at the first solution that you can receive in Microsoft Azure.

I rate Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics an eight out of ten.

Our company includes 50 analysts who use the solution on a daily basis to predict customer behavior. 

The solution's best feature is its predictive analytics. 

Integration with other vendors has limitations and could be improved. 

Integration of process analytics would be a nice addition that allows us to analyze efficiency. 

I have been using the solution for six months. 

The solution is stable. 

The solution is a web data warehousing and analytical platform built for enterprise environments, so it is definitely scalable. 

Technical support is very responsive and knowledgeable. 

I rate support an eight out of ten. 

Positive

We do not use other solutions because we operate in a Microsoft environment that is not expected to go to AWS.

The initial setup is complex and I rate it a four out of ten. 

The solution was implemented through a third-party vendor team. 

The solution has helped to predict sales and focus attention on enhancements that have improved the bottom line. 

I rate the ROI a six out of ten. 

I don't know specifics about pricing but I hear that it is quite expensive. For example, Power BI is not as expensive as this solution.  

The solution has superior modeling and predictive analytical abilities in comparison to Power BI. There isn't really an expectation that you would get these superior abilities in Power BI because the solutions have different purposes and use cases. 

I rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

We use Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics for a combination of a data warehouse with some advanced capabilities, to allow us to run some machine learning models on top of it. 

The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is the capabilities, and the integration with other Azure resources, such as Data Factory, Databricks, and Spark for data processing. The overall ability to compose the solution with other Azure resources is valuable.

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics could improve in usability. I have found the same issue with all Microsoft solutions.

I have been using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics for approximately 10 months.

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is stable.

The scalability of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is very good.

We have approximately 40 people using the solution. We have plans to increase our usage in the future.

I rate the support from Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics a three out of five.

Neutral

I did not use another solution prior to using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics.

The initial setup of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is straightforward. The full process took a couple of weeks when we started and finished.

We did the implementation of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics in-house.

We have a cloud services team with approximately three or four people and they take care of everything we need to support Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics.

It's difficult to compute a return on investment in data analytics.

The price of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics can vary. Other solutions are typically fixed prices and a fixed cost regardless of usage, but this solution is based on usage or consumption.

The best comparison for Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics would be with or against Snowflake. The only difference is that Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is more modular. If you want to build something very complex, you can. However, if you want to do something simple, you could stick with easy-to-use, more integrated platforms, such as Snowflake.

My advice to others is they should leverage other Azure components if they can. If they are looking for an integrated solution that's easy to use, they should look at competitors.

I rate Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics an eight out of ten.

We primarily use it for data transformation purposes, as well as for storing data. Additionally, we use it to connect to Power BI for reporting purposes.

We find the serverless tool the most valuable feature we're currently exploring.

One area for improvement could be better integration with Power BI, as well as data integration with BW. If we could find a connector or process to export data from BW into Azure, that would be helpful.

I have been using the solution for two years. I'm currently using the latest version.

We are just building the solutions, it's like the solution is very much immature. We are setting up those things. So as of now, it's not stable.

I would rate the stability a five out of ten.

The solution is very scalable. We are a medium-sized enterprise, and there are almost 4000 end-users.

We are getting good support from Microsoft.

Positive

I would rate the initial setup a seven out of ten. The initial setup was good.

We are currently working with around five or six people for the deployment. Moreover, about four or five people are needed for maintenance.

I would rate it a four out of ten, where ten is for most expensive.

I would recommend using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics because it includes everything from integration to transformation and storage.

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten.