SQL Server Reviews

The primary use is to maintain my database client.

What I like best about this product is the environment.

The documentation and manuals are very good.

The pricing could be improved.

I would like to have the option to use fewer processors for certain tasks, thus reducing the licensing fee. That would be great.

I have been working with SQL Server for more than 10 years.

I use SQL Server on a daily basis.

The scalability is not very good because when you add processors to the machine, the price of the license goes up. Scaling is very expensive. We have approximately 500 people who are using it.

Technical support is very good.

We used the Oracle Database prior to SQL Server.

The initial setup is simple and the deployment took one day.

We had assistance with our deployment and the experience was very good.

This is an expensive product, especially when you need two servers, or for enterprise solutions. We pay approximately $12,000 USD per month for both the server and the license.

At this time, all of my applications are running on SQL Server. However, in the future, if the application can be migrated to Oracle or another database then I may do that because SQL Server is very expensive.

This is a good product, although my advice is that if a company can afford it then they should use Oracle instead.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for our daily operations.

The solution has provided our clients with some valuable data feeds.

The performance is a very valuable aspect of the solution.

SQL is very easy to manage.

Occasionally the performance, as good as it is, is a bit off. We sometimes experience memory spiking. If they could maybe fix that aspect of the solution, that would be quite helpful for our organization.

We've been using the solution for more than ten years at this point.

The solution is extremely stable. We haven't had issues. We don't really experience bugs or glitches and haven't had the system crash on us before.

The scalability of the solution is very good. A company that needs to expand should be able to do so fairly easily.

We have about ten people using SQL at our organization. Some are in Operations. Some are developers.

The data we have is constantly expanding and growing for us, so we already are increasing the capacity of the SQL server. We'll continue to do so as necessary.

If we have any issues, we contact Microsoft. We only do so if something happens and we can't fix it ourselves. It hasn't happened too many times, and it usually doesn't revert to me to reach out, so although I know we have used them in the past, I myself have no direct experience dealing with them.

It's been about ten years since we started using SQL, which is quite a long time. I don't recall if we used a different solution before that or not. If we did, I don't know what it would have been.

I'm not sure how to answer as to if the solution is straightforward or complex in terms of setup. I didn't handle the deployment, so I'm not the person who would be best equipped to answer these types of questions.

I'm not the person that deals with billing and payments, so I don't know what the cost of the solution is, or if it is monthly or yearly billing. 

I'm not sure if we would have looked at something else or what it might have been. If there was research and a comparison was done, that would have been a decade ago. It's been a long time. 

We are using the 2008 and 2017 versions.

I'd like others to know that SQL is easy to use and easy to manage. It also offers pretty good performance, in my opinion.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. It's not too expensive, or at least that is my understanding, but I am aware there are lots of open source options out there as well companies may want to consider.

There are many, but I would have to say the two most important for me have been SQL Server Profiler -- to run traces and the ability to kill sessions in the enterprise manager tool. This command-based functionality lets you search and sort through processes actively running on the system to find your i/o hog – that is the user that is overloading the database either through a hung query or bad SQL code.

Once the hog user is found, the terminate or “kill” command can be used to shut down the hanging transaction. Similar to how clearing a vehicle crash on the interstate frees up waiting traffic, this kill command gives other users the ability to continue work as normal once the terminated transaction has been killed. This should be used sparingly though since it can cause waiting applications to corrupt data depending on how the application was written, but it is an often used research feature when a system starts to overload or show major signs of slowing.

In an effort to forego a data warehouse purchase, one company I worked with used a second SQL Server instance loaded to separate hardware as a reporting environment avoiding the need to hire additional employees to support a data warehouse. Essentially, the production database was snapshot and copied nightly to the reporting instance where it was restored through automated processes.

All employees who wrote queries and reports against the reporting instance utilized the same knowledge, skillset and tools already used in the OLTP production environment. While it didn’t have all the abilities of a true data warehouse, it was quickly implemented and well served for the desired purpose.

Multiple operating systems support should improve. The ongoing and newly marketed support for Linux and Unix environments running SQL Server is a big win for Microsoft, in my opinion.

Previous hold back related to open source environments stemmed from admins or management who would not run SQL Server for various reasons which many times boiled down to not liking Microsoft as a company.

Open source and Microsoft have conflicted in the open source world for years, but I think Microsoft is finally starting to turn that tide in an effort to compete with other vendors.

20 years. I began as a Microsoft Access database programmer in 1998 connecting early dynamic intranet websites to Access backend databases.

I later progressed to the SQL Server 2000 environment and have utilized SQL Server ever since then.

Issues encountered with stability were always correctable assuming we as a business were willing to spend money. The two major issues that come to mind were slowing of image files loading to disk using SQL Server and lack of proper indexing.

Images were archived for a 30 year legal period at a rate of at least 12 million per year and we eventually just hit a max depth of data where SQL Server had a hard time returning results. Shortening the physical file path structure of how deep SQL Server had to dig through the hard drive in addition to changing to new and improved disk technologies resolved the problem.

After this drive change occurred, a separate problem started where our database came to a crawl which is when we realized our regularly scheduled database index had not been updated to accommodate the new structure changes. A new index was put in place which is when SQL Server started humming along better than ever.

Microsoft makes life easy to expand your environment through clustering tools and after-hours operational scheduling features. SQL Server is easily suited for small businesses where it found huge popularity, but daily operations can sometimes be overlooked as the business grows causing intermittent operational kinks. I have seen a few small businesses determine that a slowing or overloaded SQL Server environment means they should look at more enterprise level databases, which is simply not the case.

Just like a Windows PC needs basic defragmentation maintenance to run effectively, SQL Server needs its own regular maintenance. There are many options available to improve the performance of SQL Server including the simple add-on clustering features which will balance excess load on the server.

In addition, database indexes need to either be created or re-indexed periodically. A database does not automatically know how an application was designed although it’s very good at trying to guess using built-in scheme mapping software. Creating indexes and related maintenance schedules specific to your environment can make a huge difference in how quickly SQL Server responds to data requests.

Disk partitions are another method for improvement. No matter how well SQL Server software is configured, it is limited by the hardware level. Underlying disk usage grows as data grows meaning the more data you add to the database results in the longer it will take for the database to find data on-disk. That’s when it’s time to either spread data across many independent disk sets or move to more expensive flash drives which save time by avoiding read & write disk operations.

These options, of course, require time, effort, and money, but they have been well worth the costs of doing business based on my experience.

I have only had to call Microsoft support 5 times in my nearly 20-year career, but they were extremely helpful. The one frustrating experience was 10 years ago when I worked over the phone 8 hours straight with 3 separate techs from the India location. Keep in mind, these were days pre-remote support meaning I had to verbally translate every diagnostic error I was seeing on the screen and assume the tech was clear on the meaning. The techs I worked with were extremely nice and tried hard to help, but I reached my frustration level due to the verbal language barrier.

The senior tech, who I spent the most time working with, had an extremely thick accent and was hard to understand. I could tell he had hit a dead-end on his knowledge of the product so I finally asked to be transferred to a specialist in America. Once I found the right person in the US, my problem was resolved within an hour.

In hindsight, I knew the senior tech was lost at the 6-hour mark, so I should have spoken up then, but he never complained and kept trying different solutions, which is good on Microsoft’s part.

My team and I have tried many different technologies including MySQL (cheap but effective), Oracle (expensive and effective), PostgreSQL, and DB2. I never jumped on the PostgreSQL or DB2 train, but could not give you a specific reason why due to my limited knowledge of the products. It usually came down to lack of knowledge for available programmers in our area, meaning we would have to train new hires and take a lot of time getting them familiar with a new database structure. That defaulted us to either Oracle or SQL Server since MySQL was not used in production at the time due to limitations surrounding support.

Oracle owns MySQL these days and they, of course, would prefer you run full fledged Oracle database for support needs. Oracle’s supremely expensive licensing has normally pushed me and coworkers to Microsoft SQL Server although every organization I have worked with pays for some form of Oracle even though SQL Server is primarily touching end users.

I personally feel Oracle is a great database but also think Microsoft SQL Server can be configured to run just as well as Oracle in most cases. The problem I normally find is that many bloated applications run SQL Server where more streamlined (and many times less functional) applications run Oracle. For that reason primarily, Oracle has had a better reputation in the pre-Amazon world.

This could all change in the years to come as Microsoft starts to fight Amazon and Google in cloud processing.

Creating a SQL Server instance using the pre-installed GUI setup screen available in either Visual Studio or Enterprise Manager can be very simple to create and maintain database “instances” making it a prime choice for small startup businesses.

In addition, Microsoft has added loads of training videos on their website along with step-by-step instructions for creating and maintaining servers. The user can get as complex as desired in SQL Server by learning all the behind-the-scenes commands the GUI is using. You will start researching commands quickly once the first SQL Server error occurs and the GUI doesn’t know how to resolve it.

For the most part, what you see is what you get with Microsoft’s licensing website. I sat through many hours of negotiations with many database and application vendors. Some application vendors try negotiating a better deal based on their licensed volume, but only twice have I seen Microsoft cater to lower licensing and it was because they wanted to make long-term wins with the customer knowing they had the possibility of gaining market share.

That said, Microsoft is still usually cheaper than Oracle who will sometimes look cheaper to start with but add the possibility of higher long term rates. Asking for a discount can never hurt.

MySQL (now owned by Oracle) is sometimes used internally for dynamic website needs, but Oracle is the only competitor evaluated for SQL Server.

Start in the cloud if feasibly possible and if it makes sense for your business. I have mostly worked with organizations that still don’t trust the cloud for security and legal reasons, but Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are releasing promising products in the cloud that are leaps and bounds ahead of processing power for local servers assuming your organization is willing to pay what it takes. I have priced cloud services enough to know they’re expensive, but they could replace a lot of unknowns for growing businesses or those starting from scratch; mainly network security, redundancy and technical skillset of employees.

Cloud services have full-time employees focusing on those niches meaning you as an employer will have less headaches at night.

According to CNBC and Synergy Research Group as of this writing, Amazon AWS leads 33% of global cloud market share. That may sound like a small number, but it’s by far the majority of customers since Amazon’s AWS cloud revenue is more than the next five providers combined. Two of those 5 providers are Microsoft and Google.

And for those of you new to the cloud, you do have the ability to run Microsoft products, including Microsoft SQL Server, in the AWS cloud.

We do backups or restore or query tables to create the views, create some triggers to send the attachment report files, and to report on data.

It makes managing the database easy. Backups are very quick.

Sometimes we experience issues with its stability.

I have experience with SQL Server for 3-4 years. 

Sometimes we experience issues with its stability.

Five thousand users are using the solution. 

The initial setup is easy. Fifteen twenty minutes required for deployment. 

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

SQL Server is our primary database for identity access management.

What I find most useful in SQL Server is that it's easier to manage and to query. Its databases are well-designed. It's easy to do any changes, and it's easy to query the database through reports and whatever information you need.

There is always room for improvements. In SQL Server, the databases should be able to deal with more data in a faster way. Sometimes, when you have a lot of information running on the SQL databases, the system hangs. Though there are always improvements being done to SQL Server, there's still a lack of speed in being able to process so much information, so the performance of this solution still needs to be improved.

Another area for improvement in SQL Server is its front end, in terms of running the queries, e.g. it would be better if it could give suggestions. For example: When you write something, this solution could have a feature similar to a dictionary's intelligence that will tell you what to write such as the one you have in Word, or in PowerPoint, for example, you'll have the design suggestions for it. An improvement I'd like to see in SQL Server is for it to suggest what you put next when you are writing SQL codes or queries.

We've been dealing with SQL Server for four years now.

SQL Server is a very stable product.

SQL Server is a product you can scale. You can add and remove modules as needed.

SQL Server is expensive if you use the advanced SQL version. If you use the standard version, it's not expensive, because it's included in Windows, in Microsoft. It's very expensive if you use the advanced version. We're using both. For IBM, we're using the advanced version, but then we use the basic SQL Server for the other platforms.

You just pay for the SQL Server license. There's no additional cost as everything's already included.

We currently don't have any issues with SQL Server. There's nothing that we couldn't solve internally, so I haven't had the chance to contact their technical support team.

I'm giving SQL Server an eight out of ten rating.

I can recommend this solution for medium and large enterprises. For small enterprises, it depends: if they use the standard, free one on Windows, yes. If they don't, I wouldn't recommend the investment.

I love the developer version. Microsoft tells you about all the cool things they provided for everybody. You can develop and do anything with it. It's really good to learn. Oracle will not give you that much freedom, and Microsoft really kills it. 

You don't do anything with it but develop, learn, break, and push it to its limits. If there are problems, you show Microsoft or ask them, "what's going on here?" There is good community support for the developer edition, and that's what I really appreciate. You can teach people about it without limitations. You can have small databases created. You can keep it for a year and then work on it. It's a good thing for learners and developers.

The price could be better. It costs a lot, and competing databases like Postgres are free.

I have been using SQL Server for about ten years.

There are problems in all systems, and I don't see any difference between open source and proprietary solutions. SQL Server, Postgres, and Oracle are all vulnerable. There are no known issues per se, but any system can be broken. There is nothing special about this database.

SQL Servers and other databases are all scalable. I just don't see any problem with scalability.

Whenever we have issues, we talk directly with Microsoft. They are responsive, and they help.

I'm more into open source solutions, and I love Postgres. I've worked as a database administrator as well. But I really hate all the tools used to manage performance or backup or just any of those disaster, recovery, and availability solutions. I hate them. They really impose a lot of overhead in a demonstration and aren't really flexible. When you're in the cloud, you don't have to worry about most of those things. 

Some of them still exist, but the cloud providers do provide them and you stick to that. You enhance them or add some more features, but really the most hated feature is, making sure that your database really can recover from many kinds of disasters. Resiliency, the most important part and when that is really managed by the cloud online, the overhead costs  are removed. The rest is really easy. Performance is okay, and there are indicated spots for data because I work with financial data and a lot of it is our important critical data. So, the cloud is really the best thing that happened to us.

When it comes to the initial setup, most of them can be automated. For example, most setup settings for progressions, management, disaster and recovery, failover, and failback. Most of those things can be automated and provisioned into one kind of pipeline. Connecting that data to an application and even provisioning from the code repository through Jenkins. Those things are really easy to automate.

It costs a lot.

I would advise potential users to use SQL Server with Microsoft Azure. I don't recommend managing it locally.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give SQL Server a seven.

There are certain shortcomings in the scalability of the product, making it an area where improvements are required.

From an improvement perspective, the price of the product needs to be reduced.

I have been using SQL Server for more than ten years. My company is a gold partner of Microsoft.

It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a seven or eight out of ten.

It is quite a scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

My company's clients who use the solution are mostly enterprise businesses.

I rate the technical support a seven out of ten.

Neutral

I am using Amazon Cognito for the first time in my company.

I rate the product's initial setup phase a seven to eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is difficult, and ten is easy.

The solution is deployed on the cloud and on-premises models.

The solution can be deployed in a few minutes.

The product is expensive.

In our company's daily operations, we use SQL Server for our enterprise applications.

Speaking about how SQL Server played a critical role in a recent project, I would say that in my company, we used it for full management since we had a three-tier architecture and an enterprise application.

SQL Server was beneficial for data management needs, considering the fact that it was used as a part of SSIS packages, which was helpful for importing the data from legacy software.

The performance of the solution was good.

Though I can't elaborate on the valuable security features, I can say that I did not face any security concerns when using the product.

In SQL Server, I manage data recovery and backup with the help of database mirroring.

I recommend the product to those who plan to use it since it is easy to use.

I rate the tool a seven out of ten.

SQL Server is used to establish secure storage and protect databases from potential vulnerabilities, including those originating from Slack.

The most valuable aspect is the ability to use jobs and various functions to accomplish specific tasks, which cannot be achieved with standard procedures alone. This allows for a combination of features and functionalities to be employed.

I have experience working with SQL Server 2016 and older versions, including handling JSON data. Initially, I found the JSON capabilities to be less helpful, but over time, they have greatly improved. 

SQL Server now offers extensive capabilities for working with various forms of data, particularly when communicating with text, such as in JSON format. 

I particularly prefer working with these features on Azure, as it provides numerous possibilities, especially in the field of business intelligence (BI). Additionally, the serverless platform offered by Azure is highly beneficial and makes tasks easier to manage.

I have not seen significant returns thus far, but I am eager to enhance my experience by transitioning to work in Azure. This shift to Azure is something I am motivated to improve upon.

I have been working with SQL Server since 2018.

We have not had any issues with the stability of SQL Server.

Scalability is dependent on memory.

The matter at hand pertains to whether we are discussing an issue in general or specifically in the context of on-premises environments. However, it is clear that memory and capacity are significant factors in both scenarios. 

Proper management of memory and capacity is essential to ensure smooth system operation and prevent any performance or stability issues. 

As a result, it is essential to handle these issues completely and appropriately in order to meet the system's requirements.

I have not contacted technical support.

The installation process is not complex, but it requires attention to detail in terms of selecting the necessary services and configuring the Cisco server. 

This ensures a proper setup and a tangible model for effective management. While it may not be complicated, it is important to choose the appropriate features during installation. 

Working with ID was not my primary focus; however, I have had the opportunity to work with it for several companies.

It can take an hour to an hour and a half to deploy.

Maintaining it is more challenging than the initial setup. One of the main concerns is ensuring sufficient memory allocation. The default capacity is typically set around sixty, but it can be increased if needed. If there is insufficient memory, it can lead to server downtime and cancellation of transactions, as exceeding the memory limit poses a risk. Therefore, it becomes crucial to address this issue by allocating more memory resources. Additionally, backups and restores play a significant role in ensuring data safety and recovery in case of any issues.

For a brief period, approximately one year before 2018, I had experience working with the open-source version of SQL Server. During that time, I found SQL Server to be the preferred choice, in my opinion.

I developed an application for specific purposes related to McDonough. Using Microsoft SQL Server, I constructed the entire database and implemented supporting stored procedures. This application was commissioned by the European Union to enhance government institutions and similar entities.

Additionally, I worked on financial-related stored procedures specifically related to Serbia Card, as part of a project for the USA.

We acted as a subcontractor for S&P within your company. I have extensive experience in SQL Server, particularly within the Microsoft environment.

They should think twice before they do anything and double-check. Definitely.

I have explored different options such as SonicWall and open-source solutions, but my preference lies with SQL Server. I find SQL Server to be fantastic, as it provides comprehensive functionality and makes tasks incredibly easy. 

Working with Postgres is also simpler compared to other databases like Oracle. Perhaps my familiarity with Excel has made SQL Server more intuitive for me. While I understand that Oracle is known for its complexity, I appreciate that its code and syntax bear similarities. 

Overall, I have a strong affinity for Microsoft products.

I would rate SQL Server a ten out of ten.