Databricks and Azure Stream Analytics are prominent products in the data analytics space, offering unique features for businesses looking to optimize data processing and analytics processes. Databricks appears to have an edge with its flexibility and comprehensive feature set, while Azure Stream Analytics is preferred for seamless integration within the Microsoft ecosystem.
Features:Databricks impresses with its robust analytics capabilities, supporting diverse programming languages like Python and SQL. It offers flexible batch and real-time processing and is known for its scalability and machine learning libraries. Azure Stream Analytics focuses on real-time analytics, especially for IoT, providing seamless integration within the Microsoft ecosystem and optimizing resource management.
Room for Improvement:Databricks could enhance its visualization tools and predictive analytics features. Integration with third-party solutions and more detailed error messages are desired, with debugging and data management seen as challenging. Azure Stream Analytics could improve in scalability and customization for complex tasks, with its cloud specificity limiting integration outside Azure. Improvements in user-friendliness and reporting for cost management are required.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service:Databricks offers extensive deployment options and solid documentation, easily integrating across cloud environments. Users find its support responsive, though some note slow response times. Azure Stream Analytics benefits from Microsoft's support infrastructure, making setup in Azure environments straightforward, though customization can be challenging. Databricks provides varied support experiences, while Azure leverages Microsoft's resources, sometimes causing delays.
Pricing and ROI:Databricks can be costly, with prices varying based on usage and cluster size, yet offers potential cost efficiency with effective use. It is seen to provide high ROI due to its comprehensive features and scalability. Azure Stream Analytics generally offers more favorable pricing for small-scale operations and lower upfront costs. Azure's pricing model is seen as more straightforward for entry-level use.
For a lot of different tasks, including machine learning, it is a nice solution.
When it comes to big data processing, I prefer Databricks over other solutions.
There is a big communication gap due to lack of understanding of local scenarios and language barriers.
They've managed to answer all my questions and provide help in a timely manner.
The support on critical issues depends on the level of subscription that you have with Microsoft itself.
Whenever we reach out, they respond promptly.
As of now, we are raising issues and they are providing solutions without any problems.
I rate the technical support as fine because they have levels of technical support available, especially partners who get really good support from Databricks on new features.
Maintenance requires a couple of people, however, it's not a full-time endeavor.
Azure Stream Analytics is scalable, and I would rate it seven out of ten.
The patches have sometimes caused issues leading to our jobs being paused for about six hours.
Databricks is an easily scalable platform.
I would rate the scalability of this solution as very high, about nine out of ten.
They require significant effort and fine-tuning to function effectively.
They release patches that sometimes break our code.
Although it is too early to definitively state the platform's stability, we have not encountered any issues so far.
Databricks is definitely a very stable product and reliable.
A cost comparison between products is also not straightforward.
There's setup time required to get it integrated with different services such as Power BI, so it's not a straight out-of-the-box configuration.
There is a lack of technical support from Microsoft's local office, particularly in Taiwan.
Adjusting features like worker nodes and node utilization during cluster creation could mitigate these failures.
We prefer using a small to mid-sized cluster for many jobs to keep costs low, but this sometimes doesn't support our operations properly.
We use MLflow for managing MLOps, however, further improvement would be beneficial, especially for large language models and related tools.
From my point of view, it should be cheaper now, considering the years since its release.
We sell the data analytics value and operational value to customers, focusing on productivity and efficiency from the cloud.
Regarding the cost of Azure Stream Analytics, I believe the price is reasonable for the tool.
It is not a cheap solution.
It's very accurate and uses existing technologies in terms of writing queries, utilizing standard query languages such as SQL, Spark, and others to provide information.
It is quite easy for my technicians to understand, and the learning curve is not steep.
Clients can choose and subscribe to the service items they need, making it more flexible than IBM solutions, especially in data analytics or data governance.
Databricks' capability to process data in parallel enhances data processing speed.
The platform allows us to leverage cloud advantages effectively, enhancing our AI and ML projects.
The Unity Catalog is for data governance, and the Delta Lake is to build the lakehouse.
Azure Stream Analytics is a robust real-time analytics service that has been designed for critical business workloads. Users are able to build an end-to-end serverless streaming pipeline in minutes. Utilizing SQL, users are able to go from zero to production with a few clicks, all easily extensible with unique code and automatic machine learning abilities for the most advanced scenarios.
Azure Stream Analytics has the ability to analyze and accurately process exorbitant volumes of high-speed streaming data from numerous sources at the same time. Patterns and scenarios are quickly identified and information is gathered from various input sources, such as social media feeds, applications, clickstreams, sensors, and devices. These patterns can then be implemented to trigger actions and launch workflows, such as feeding data to a reporting tool, storing data for later use, or creating alerts. Azure Stream Analytics is also offered on Azure IoT Edge runtime, so the data can be processed on IoT devices.
Top Benefits
Reviews from Real Users
“Azure Stream Analytics is something that you can use to test out streaming scenarios very quickly in the general sense and it is useful for IoT scenarios. If I was to do a project with IoT and I needed a streaming solution, Azure Stream Analytics would be a top choice. The most valuable features of Azure Stream Analytics are the ease of provisioning and the interface is not terribly complex.” - Olubisi A., Team Lead at a tech services company.
“It's used primarily for data and mining - everything from the telemetry data side of things. It's great for streaming and makes everything easy to handle. The streaming from the IoT hub and the messaging are aspects I like a lot.” - Sudhendra U., Technical Architect at Infosys
Databricks is utilized for advanced analytics, big data processing, machine learning models, ETL operations, data engineering, streaming analytics, and integrating multiple data sources.
Organizations leverage Databricks for predictive analysis, data pipelines, data science, and unifying data architectures. It is also used for consulting projects, financial reporting, and creating APIs. Industries like insurance, retail, manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals use Databricks for data management and analytics due to its user-friendly interface, built-in machine learning libraries, support for multiple programming languages, scalability, and fast processing.
What are the key features of Databricks?
What are the benefits or ROI to look for in Databricks reviews?
Databricks is implemented in insurance for risk analysis and claims processing; in retail for customer analytics and inventory management; in manufacturing for predictive maintenance and supply chain optimization; and in pharmaceuticals for drug discovery and patient data analysis. Users value its scalability, machine learning support, collaboration tools, and Delta Lake performance but seek improvements in visualization, pricing, and integration with BI tools.
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