Exasol Data Warehouse Reviews

In our company, the primary use case is to store all the data in Exasol. We handle data for three countries: Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil. We have a data warehouse where we store all the information; for that purpose, we store all the data in Exasol.

We have a data warehouse and on top of it, we have reports in Tableau. We pull the data from Exasol database and display it in the Tableau dashboard. Previously, when we were using SQL Server, it took longer to load the reports in Google Chrome browser. But now, after migrating to Exasol, the reports are much faster, and users are not facing any issues because of Exasol's high performance. Even the efficiency of fetching querying data from the Exasol database is much higher.

Our Exasol database is our backend database, and we use Tableau dashboard as the front end. After migrating to Exasol database, the performance of our new gateway dashboard has also increased significantly.

There are very few companies that are using Exasol, but the majority of companies are using SQL Server, Cloud or IBM Db2 Database, or any other databases. Therefore, the resources are limited, which is my only concern.

So if I face any issues, limited resources are available to help me resolve the issue with Exasol. From that perspective, it can be a bit of a struggle for me to find a solution.

In the next release, I would like to see better compatibility issues. Currently, Exasol has limited compatibility with other software like Python and R. For example, If I talk about SQL Server, we can connect it to big data or Python, which is also compatible with different servers.

I have been using it for the past two years. We are currently using the latest version. We are using the on-premises version.

I haven't faced any issues so far, it's pretty stable and the performance is very high. So, I will continue to use the Exasol database in the future as well.

It is easy to scale. There are around one thousand people who are using Exasol.

When we face any issue, we reach out to our internal maintenance team first. If they are not able to answer my queries, then they directly reach out to Exasol consulting.

Previously, we were using SQL Server 2019, but we migrated to the Exasol database two and a half years ago. The performance of Exasol is much better compared to SQL Server. We have a billion rows of data in our database, and previously it took around four to five hours to load the data, but now it only takes half an hour to fully load the data into Exasol.

In my opinion, the performance of Exasol is much higher than Oracle, SQL Server, or any other database. I have not faced any issues so far because the performance is very high compared to other databases.

The initial setup was pretty easy. If a person knows SQL well, then they can easily set up the Exasol database. The syntax of the query in SQL and Exasol is pretty much similar. If a user is working in actual SQL or Oracle, then they can easily migrate their database, so they can implement Exasol very easily.

There is a different team who is responsible for deployment. It took around one to two days. So, the initial deployment can be done very easily within one to two days.

There is an ROI. The query performance is very high, and the computation cost is low right now. In comparison, the computation cost of an SQL Server is very high because it takes a lot of time to fetch data. So, in my opinion, the configuration cost is very low in the case of Exasol. Therefore, the ROI will be very high.

We had two options. We were using a SQL Server and had to decide whether to migrate to Oracle or Exasol database. However, we found that the performance of Exasol was better. If we had moved to Oracle, the data speed would not have improved significantly. In comparison, Exasol had better performance.

I would recommend using the solution because it is highly scalable and stable. However, the only concern I have right now is that it has very limited resources and limited capacity in cloud computing. Therefore, if any user wants to work on an on-premises database, then this would be the best option for them.

Overall, I would rate it a nine out of ten.

The solution is intended as the backend for our reporting solution MicroStrategy. It's also used for ad-hoc analysis or to fuel other tools with data as it's the only place where some of the data points are available within an acceptable SLO.

We used it to decouple ETL and reporting databases. The aggregation capabilities are super impressive, which helps for metrics that need to be calculated on the fly based on user-selected filters.

Its speed is great. It helps us allow users to connect insights defined in the MicroStrategy model and fire the query instead of just looking at cached dashboards.

It's not cloud-native so many maintenance operations require downtime. 

It also doesn't like too many connections at once.

I've used the solution for eight or more years.

The stability is rock solid.

Scalability is within certain limitations, like the number of connections. It's not easy due to not being cloud-native.

I have not had contact with support. 

Neutral

We have used Oracle. We moved to this solution as Oracle was no longer capable of handling intraday ETL and reporting at the same time based on the limited setup we had back then.

The deployment was provided by an internal team to us.

So far, the escalation to the vendor has always solved the issues at hand.

We're not charged for the costs. I'm not sure what the ROI would be. 

This infra is provided by an internal team to us. I do not know the exact pricing. 

I was not part of the selection process.

The primary use case is the development process, and we subsequently offer our product to customers.

The automatic optimization feature is highly effective for performance tuning. It handles low-level tasks, allowing me to focus on creating new solutions without getting bogged down in minor details. Its user-friendliness and intuitive design make it a pleasure to work with. Performance is a top priority, and it excels in this aspect. Its robust support for general SQL means I don't have to learn a new system, meaning its essentially a "plug and play" experience. The up-to-date documentation is a significant help, and I genuinely enjoy reading it. If you need a specific feature, you can simply search the help page, saving you the time and effort of hunting for the information you require.

It would be beneficial if the updates would occur more often. Perhaps, they could consider incorporating native support for Titan since it already has some groundwork laid at a lower level. Exasol offers scripting languages within the database, but not everything is pre-installed. In my view, I find Python more appealing than Titan, but it's not included as a default option.

We have been using it for a year now.

Its stability capabilities are highly satisfactory. Even in cases where some nodes stopped working, the remainder continued to function, ensuring a continuous delivery of results to the customers.

It offers good scalability features. The process of adding more nodes is straightforward. I personally took part in this procedure, and it performed exactly as described. All it entailed was following the company's provided guide, and it worked seamlessly.

Their customer support services are quite satisfactory. 

Positive

We previously relied on Microsoft SQL Server, which is still in use. The notion behind our shift was to not exclusively use one tool but to establish an additional environment, essentially a layer atop our standard data warehouse solution. This layer would respond more promptly to business changes. The reason behind this transition was that, before employing this data warehouse, it was stable but somewhat sluggish in terms of responsiveness to changing business needs.

The initial setup was exceptionally straightforward and clear.

During deployment, a member of the infrastructure team with administrative rights is involved, along with someone from our team who knows the necessary procedures. When it comes to upgrades, we usually stop the services in the evening, perform the installation and upgrade during the night, and by the next morning, everything is up and running smoothly. The duration of this process depends on the size of the database. It's not so much about the product itself, but rather about the volume of data and the need to review all the indexes and related aspects after the installation.

Overall, I would rate it seven out of ten.

We use the solution to accelerate BI and reporting features.

The solution works at a high processing speed.

They should improve the solution's security features for MPP processing.

We have been using the solution for three years.

It is a stable solution.

We have about twenty users of the solution in our organization. We can quickly scale the solution as it works on an MPP system.

The solution's initial setup is easy.

The solution's cost is mid-ranged. I rate its pricing as a five.

I advise others to make a purchase decision for the solution based on their use cases. It is a good solution if they want a business analytics platform.

I rate it as an eight.

We implemented our data problem issues from Tableau. We inserted the data into the Exasol database in order to run 10 to 20 reports from Tableau. This was just a small but problematic report for us.

The most valuable feature of Exasol is its speed. With Exasol, you never need to think about indexes because it creates indexes if needed.

You have to use upper-column names in Exasol, which is strange. You have to install Exasol drivers, and it's not easy to find or implement a driver into different systems.

I rate Exasol ten out of ten for stability.

Exasol is easy to scale.

The solution’s initial setup is easy.

Overall, I rate Exasol ten out of ten.

The experience was good. It was really easy to work with, and we had no problems.

The speed was good with the high volume of data. We mainly chose Exasol for its performance reasons, and it was better compared to SAP Hana. However, we decided to go with Snowflake instead of Exasol because the performance was almost equal, but working with the roles was more flexible.

The only area where we found it could improve was in custom role creation and security, and it was difficult to work with.

There were some workarounds to handle situations like row-level security. Still, it was not a standard feature or a configurable role that you could set up for your requirements in Exasol. So, we compared it to existing tools like Synapse SQL and found that it was better supported in handling TB.

I used Exasol six months ago and tested it for two months. I just used the latest version; it was the community version.

It is a scalable solution. The assessment was done among four or five. We didn't scale it.

The idea was to use and test successfully and to check the performance, and we did it successfully. But we did not use it because of this challenge of implementation of security and rules. We didn't go beyond that. We didn't put it into production mode. We didn't even do any development in this. We only used it for the test purpose, for POC, for about two months, and that's it. Then we closed it.

We have been in touch with sales and the tech team for Exasol, and that's how we could make it work in Exasol for those roles. But, of course, every product has its own development cycle, and the requirement that we had at that time was in the roadmap of Exasol. I'm sure they will get it in the future, but it wasn't present at the moment, about a year ago.

The pricing was reasonable compared to any other cloud platform, and it wasn't that high.

We mainly chose Exasol for its performance reasons, and it was better compared to SAP Hana. However, we chose Snowflake instead of Exasol because the performance was almost equal, but working with the roles was more flexible.

Therefore, it was just a collective agreement to choose Snowflake.

Overall, I would rate the solution a seven out of ten because of the role creation security issues.

The areas that I explored, like the creation of the tables and the speed, were pretty good, and I may not have discovered or used all the features, so I may not be able to give my rating based on all the features. It is based on what I have used and what I've experienced. There might be more features of Exasol that I have not discovered, but I would not comment on that.

Our primary use case of this product is as a data warehouse. I'm a data architect and we are customers of Exasol. 

This solution is extremely fast and very stable. I like that it's hands-off; you set it up and put your data on it and as long as it's structured, it self-tunes queries and doesn't require a database administrator. I think it's a great tool and a great platform. 

I'd like to see this solution as a full, cloud-based platform, where there's no hardware at all to worry about, virtual or otherwise. The price is quite expensive relative to other similar solutions, it could be more accessible in that sense. 

The company has been using Exasol for about 5 years. 

This solution is very stable, we pretty much just spun it and forgot about it. 

With any on-premise solution, the limit on scalability is about the hardware. If it was a cloud-based solution, there would be better scalability. The scalability currently has some restrictions. If you go over a certain amount you'll require multiple nodes. We have a systems administrator who manages the solution for us but there's no real maintenance involved other than database updates. 

I was able to speak with their sales team, deployment engineer, a database engineer, and they were all very knowledgeable and very helpful.

The deployment was pretty straightforward, it hooked right into our Azure environment and we were able to create it pretty quickly. Loading the data into it was very fast and very efficient. The deployment took a few hours and I had an Exasol engineer, who was very easy to work with, on the call with me. It was pretty much just point and click. There really wasn't much configuration to do so anyone should be able to do it.

We're currently using the community edition which is free. We were looking to go to the paid version, which provides more storage space, but as far as what the actual cost will be, we don't know yet.

Exasol is a smaller company, so they want your business and are happy to provide service. I reached out to Exasol and Microsoft pretty much on the same day, and I'm already done with my Exasol proof of concept and Microsoft hasn't even started yet, which pretty much says it all.

The primary use case to have performance in our reporting system. Wherever we see an issue of performance when we are looking at UAE data, then we use this solution.

We are using the on-premise model.

The speed is very good compared to other databases, like SQL Server or Oracle.

The problem with Exasol is that they are not recognized worldwide. I think they are a German company. So, they will be acquired by someone someday, probably a big giant. They're are not big in internationally.

They don't talk very well to with other products when it comes to connectivity. Integration is lacking.

They are missing an ETL tool.

Whatever functionality is there, it is stable. There are some small things which are not supported by Exasol and are missing. Whatever they have provided, we are good with that. There are no bugs in the supplemented functionality.

They recommend to have multiple servers so we can pull servers in to scale if required in the future. The scalability is quite good.

We have about 30 to 40 users who are business people.

The technical support is good.

My previous experience was with Oracle and SQL Server.

It was a complex setup.

Deployment took around one to two months.

We get support directly from the vendor.

We decided to go with this solution for the short-term. We are still evaluating solutions for the long-term. We are looking at Snowflake as an option as well.

Anyone who is looking for a solution like this should do a PoC. They should see if the solution is the best fit to their requirements. In my experience, many companies come for pre-sale activities and people are always nice. Sometimes this is a trap, but sometimes it is good as well. There should be a good evaluation, which should not be rushed. You should spend the quality time doing the evaluation and see what is best for your business. Then, you should decide internally what to do or what program to choose.

The product is good.