SQL Server Reviews

We use the solution to provide the database layer for multiple applications.

We have been using this solution for 10+ years.

I have had issues with SQL Server but Microsoft support has been able to resolve them quickly and most came down to configuration/design errors and not a stability of the product issue.

SQL Server is quick to install < an hour.  Additional features increase the installation time.

The SQL Server pricing model is based on CPU cores that your database server utilises.

To others looking into using a SQL Server, I would say that it goes down to the application that you are developing and what funds you have available to run the total system.

It has all of our data. Our company sells contracts when you buy a car. We sell aftermarket insurance for the tyre, wheel, ding, dent, windshield, etc. When somebody buys a contract, we capture all of that data into a legacy database PostgreSQL, and my task is to incorporate that into our financial platform using T-SQL. So, I write queries, procedures, and views. I use SSIS, and I use SSRS. My job is to get the data into our financial system so that we can process claims, payments, cancellations, and refunds. 

In terms of its version, we're up-to-date. We have version 2019.

This is the heart of the whole company. SQL Server is where all of our financials are. It has all of our data.

I've been using SQL Server for 20 years, and there is nothing that it can't do. It is awesome.

When we are talking about event space architecture, scalability generally comes into play. For example, I might have a hundred thousand transactions a second, and then all of a sudden, I build something that everybody in the world wants. The next thing I know is that I have a million transactions a second. So, to be able to process the throughput, I'd have to scale up, and then when the holidays are over, I'm again down to a hundred thousand transactions, and I want to scale back down. SQL Server is not going to do that. In this way, it is not very scalable. One of the reasons why they want us to use Kafka is so that if we need to, we can do that, but our base program is on SQL Server. So, this is where we would use a Kafka event stack so that if I need more servers, I can just write a command, and I can have more consumers, more brokers, and more producers, and when the holiday season is over, it scales right back down again. SQL Server is not going to do that.

I have been using this solution for 20 years.

We do clustering. If one SQL Server goes down, it automatically goes to another one.

I don't ever need tech support. If it breaks, I can just rebuild it.

They're now using a different database for contracting called Road Runner. I don't know what that is, and how it stores data. I don't know anything about it. 

There is also Postgres. I like SQL Server more than Postgres. That's only because I know SQL Server. I don't know Postgres as well. So, I can't say which one is better because I don't have the same amount of experience in both.

I can bring up a SQL Server in an hour or so and set it up.

In terms of maintenance, the number of people required depends on the need. 
We have a team of DBAs, developers, and UA analysts. We probably have 40 people in our IT area who are maintaining our solution. I'm just the developer. I'm the guy who makes the magic happen, but without other people collecting the information that I need to make the magic happen, I'm stuck. Without the guy who is an expert in permissions, partitioning, and performance tuning, I'm stuck. So, it's definitely a team effort. You can do it all, but you don't want to do it all because then you're running your head off, and you don't really get good at anything. It would be a jack of all trades, master of none type of scenario.

You will seldom find a database that was designed correctly. Just because you got a poor-quality database doesn't mean that you're going to get a better database anywhere else. You rarely get to build a thing on your own. Usually, you inherit somebody else's stuff. So, the challenging thing is working with what you have while trying to implement a better solution. My only advice is to be patient.

I would rate it a nine out of 10. I wouldn't give anything a 10 because I don't have that kind of knowledge, but right now, it does what I need it to do.

We use the solution on FastAutomate, our core product, to store the aggregated data from different nodes. It resides on the server that's handling the agents. We also use it for different organizations for development. Therefore, we use it for development mainly.

Overall, we've been satisfied with the capabilities of the product.

The solution is stable. It works without issue - to the point you rarely need any technical support at all.

The scalability is very good.

It's got an easy initial setup.

The remote access aspect needs to be improved in terms of security. Right now, it's a little bit hard. 

Also, they need to work on the user interface, as it's a little bit old. They need to improve it a little bit. 

The pricing could be lowered a bit.

We've used the solution for a while. 

Its stability has been good. The solution performs well and is reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

We have found the solution to be scalable. If a company needs to expand, it can do so. 

Techni al support is good. That said, it's hard to judge as you don't need support on SQL Server. It's working without trouble or issues. Therefore, it's rare to seek support for SQL Server. You rarely have to deal with them.

I've also used SQL Azure.

The recommendation is based on the use case. It depends on what use case the customer will need. If they don't have the capacity to manage their own Server, I would recommend Azure, as it's managed. Therefore, you don't have to worry about the management and administration.

The main difference between the two is, in some data types it is not available on SQL Azure while it's available on SQL Server or vice versa. There's a version of SQL Server with a little bit of limited functionality. That said, the difference is not huge. You can go back and forth between them if you want.

The initial setup is very easy. It's even easier than before, in fact. A company shouldn't have any problems with the implementation. 

The price could be less.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten. If the price was a bit less or the remote access was better, I would rate it tighter.

In general, I've been happy with the product.

We use Microsoft SQL Server as our main database. We implement our solutions to the client site, providing the machines and the SQL Server license depending on their requirements.

The SQL Server is being deployed on-prem. Most of our clients are from the pharmaceutical industry. If there is a physical database, they want a self-hosted server always on-premises. However, the market is slowly adapting to cloud servers. Scalability and security have increased, so now people are going with cloud servers like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. Most of our clients are hosted on-premises and they have their own server, so we don't go with any cloud server. However, we are planning to move ahead with cloud servers for many of our clients.

The replication feature, user interface, reporting services, and notification services are really good. They are providing SQL Profiler and sqlcmd as their integrated software, so we don't find it difficult to integrate any of our third-party applications with MS SQL because all of them support MS SQL very clearly. As a part of optimization, it is good for processing huge amounts of data.

Performance could be improved. There could be more support toward PHP-based websites and toward providing direct plugins for connections, and the related services or application services could be improved. The user interface could be improved so that someone with less knowledge could easily integrate and use that particular module software.

In the next release, I would like to see a separate tool provided to schedule backup or implement backup solutions on any of the servers that Microsoft has installed. This would be a small utility which I could open and point out the backup parts as well as the type of backup I want. Once I decide the time and set it up, it should be able to connect everything and then accordingly run that back up on an automated basis. 

Right now, people are making their own utilities to do that same thing, but it would be helpful if we could get it directly from Microsoft. Apart from this, it would be helpful to have small plugins or API-based connections, which could be used for integrating MS SQL with different platforms.

I have been using MS SQL Server for 11 years, from the very first day of my job. MS SQL is widely used because its compatibility is good, especially with the .NET Framework because most are Microsoft products. The integration and the response are good, especially if you have huge amounts of data.

Now in the market, there are NoSQL options like MongoDB and Hadoop. Previously, there were pretty much three main databases: MS SQL, Oracle, and MySQL. MySQL was mostly used for small software, but many enterprise software were using MySQL because of the configuration, the compatibility, and the performance.

If you're using platforms like ASP.NET and C#, then you will want MS SQL Server because enterprise-level Microsoft provides many features like analytics services, reporting services, notification services, and now they're providing Microsoft Azure integration services.

MS SQL is very stable. However, the corruption of databases needs to be handled more accurately. If I'm using MS SQL Server and my server accidentally restarts or one of my machines restarts accidentally, then usually the MDB or the MDF file is corrupted. That corruption of files should be handled more efficiently because the client loses most of the data. Of course, the backup plan should be more efficient, putting less load on the server. That needs to be improved and more optimized.

Scalability is good. We have worked on almost 25 loads of data and 35 loads of records in a month. Most were working fine, but after time the process slows down a bit. In MS SQL, the initial 70% would work fine, but when the database starts and the load gets full, it causes slow processing. But considering the cost, features, and compatibility with Microsoft, it's a very stable database.

I have not been in a situation where I required help directly from MS SQL Server because we have our own service team that handles those issues.

Initial setup was a bit complex, but it's doable because it has improved a lot. Previously, it was very hard to install MS SQL. If I had the 2016 version already installed, it allowed me to install 2018 as well. The report features were distributed between two services, and that's where it causes problems.

We implement our solutions to the client site.

For personal websites and personal software that isn't used by more than 100 people, I will always go for MySQL for two reasons: MySQL is free and the enterprise is very low in cost.

Oracle Enterprise is another option, but the cost is high when you consider that MySQL is free.

I would rate this solution 7 out of 10. 

Microsoft's modules are really good. The syntax used for running the query is really easy. Their options for concurrency and locking are good, as well as their prices. They have created separate models such as distribution services and replication services. They are really good options so that if I want to take that service, I pay for it. If I don't want to, then I don't install it and I don't use it. Modular installation is something that I like about MS SQL Server.

If you have a lot of knowledge about MS SQL Server, you will be able to handle huge amounts of data very efficiently. However, you should make sure that you have regular backup protection. 

The servers which you have to purchase for installing, implementing, or managing MS SQL Server need to be optimized in a better way so that you get optimized performance from MS SQL.

We have hundreds of databases that are using SEL Server and there may be other capabilities.

It's a standard product that is used with standard applications, which is why we use it.

There is no lack of features.

There are newer models that are available on the market. The agility of the non-SQL-based features is relevant on the market.

Integration is one thing but it's making use of all the iterations or the new cloud data result.

Today's architectures are in many different directions. Not always via SQL relational databases, but also NoSQL databases, and they have a pretty good Java database as well.

We have been using SQL Server in our organization for 10 years, but I am not a day-to-day user.

We use a couple of the versions. We have used the 2016 version and most likely have used some newer versions as well.

SQL Server is a stable product.

We don't have any issues with the scalability of SQL Server.

We have hundreds of thousands of applications using this solution.

We have a dedicated Microsoft account team and we have also dedicated support conditions.

Areas in our organization use AWS Lambda.

We use other relational databases. The most important product besides SQL Server is Oracle. We use SQL Server and Oracle equally.

I am not a patient person with installations, but there are no issues with the installation of this solution.

We have a database team to maintain this solution along with an engineering team, an operational team and we have eternal resources.

The enterprise-level license agreement is very complicated. It's complex, not only with SQL server but with a number of products.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I would rate SQL Server an eight out of ten.

We are using SQL Server for the backend of our SAP and are planning on moving to a cloud version soon.

This solution has helped our organization by providing a backbone for our SAP. We would not be able to operate without it.

We have found the solution valuable because we are able to easily create a query, shrink, backup, and make new tables.

We are using an older version of SQL Server and the migration to a newer version could be made easier.

If you are a new user then this solution could be difficult, they could improve by making the overall usage easier.

In an upcoming release, they could improve the ability to customize the solution.

I have been using SQL Server for approximately ten years.

We have not experienced any problems with the stability of this solution.

SQL Server is scalable.

We have not used the support from Microsoft. However, we did have freelance support a few times.

The installation is very easy. We did not have any challenges.

The price of the solution is very expensive. If I went with the cloud version of SQL a license would cost me approximately 11,000 Riyals per month.

We have a team that has evaluated other solutions before we chose SQL Server, such as Oracle.

I would recommend this solution. However, Oracle has a good reputation for quality that might be a better choice.

I rate SQL Server an eight out of ten.

We use SQL Server to query our database for specific reports we need to write for our clients.

The solution's most valuable feature is that we can set up redundant databases and replication in the databases. SQL Server has very good integration capabilities.

The solution’s pricing is high.

I have been using SQL Server for ten years.

SQL Server is a very stable solution,

I rate the solution’s stability a nine out of ten.

The solution’s scalability is quite good. Around 30 users use the solution in our organization. Currently, I use SQL Server about once a week.

I rate the solution an eight out of ten for scalability.

On a scale from one to ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy, I rate the solution's initial setup a nine out of ten.

The solution was implemented by an in-house team in a couple of hours.

SQL Server has dramatically improved our ROI. We couldn't do without it, and it's been a very valuable tool.

On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten.

I would recommend the solution to users looking for any form of transactional database or commercial database.

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

We use the solution for continuous integration, including CI/CD integration.

Support could be improved.

I have been using SQL Server since 1992. I’ve used AWS and Azure for two and three years, respectively.

The stability is fine, especially if you're hosting it on AWS or Azure. You can get up to 99.99% stability on AWS.

I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.

You can scale to any extent. You need to increase your EC2 or your app server.

Six team sites with 50 users each are using this solution.

Sometimes the response time was high.

The initial setup is straightforward. Depending on the complexity, setting up the infrastructure can take a while. You can work on MVP. To deploy on AWS, select SQL Server along with several calls and CPU.

The solution was deployed in-house.

You receive other products, like free usage, depending on the number of product shares.

You can use a Cloudflare or web application layer that controls security. Furthermore, you can implement SQL reverse proxy practices for in-house environments and beyond.

To ensure the security of my SQL server, we typically set up a configuration where an API communicates with the SQL Server, and there's a front-end interface. This setup prevents direct access to the database.

Four people are required for the solution’s maintenance, but it depends on the complexity of the solution. You can put one senior and three trainees.

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