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IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud vs Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (16th)
Microsoft Parallel Data War...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (9th)
 

Featured Reviews

FM
Database Engineer at Meezan Bank
Enhancing analytics with seamless data dumping and reliable support
Our primary use case is data storage and analytics The organization has decided to purchase a full stack solution from IBM due to positive responses, which helped them upgrade from the previous version. The data dumping into the raw zone and the feature of BigQuery is quite attractive. There…
reviewer2254953 - PeerSpot reviewer
Service Desk Administrator at a real estate/law firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Virtual machines have handled large data and supported growth but pricing still needs improvement
I believe the product is pretty fast. When I have used it, it is handy. The integration with other Azure products is good and integrates well. Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse's security measures help ensure our sensitive data protection during analysis through measures such as encryption. Its scalability is impressive as it scales up and down really well. We go from a couple of users to tons of users all the time, and it scales and handles things really well. One of the major benefits with this product is that it's Microsoft, which is one of the best ones, and it's just plug and play.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"DashDB is a good product to work with and the extra cost you spend on performance, technical support and tools to work with is worth it."
"The performance is okay as long as the volume of queries is not too high."
"It will be MPP, so performance should improve."
"I like that the dashDB solution is built on DB2 technology, which means that you can use all the features of a DB2 database while outsourcing all the hardware and software maintenance."
"It is stable when there is support from IBM."
"Ease of migration from Netezza DB; IBM ported over all Netezza's functionality and made the warehouse DB/dashDB the best of breed of the two."
"One of the most amazing features of dashDB is how it uses compression to get results in lighting speed."
"The way that it scales will help a lot of customers that are stuck with Netezza boxes that can't grow any larger.​"
"The solution's integration is good."
"The most valuable features are the performance and usability."
"With PDW’s Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) design, queries run in minutes instead of hours, and in seconds instead of minutes in comparison to Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) databases."
"It is very strong, scalable, and has tons of features."
"We are using PDW as an EDW solution."
"It performs very well overall."
"I'm very pro Microsoft because I think Microsoft products are highly intuitive and are widely used."
"The data transmissions between the data models is the most valuable feature."
 

Cons

"I would like to see improvements in backup and authentication. It needs the ability to increase the number of retained backups to more than 2 days."
"Containers get corrupted very easily. Restoring them using GPFS can result in a lot of issues."
"Db2 is not a solution that I recommend. We have a lot of experience and we are not satisfied with the product or the support that we received."
"The support channels need to improve."
"There are some limitations in adding data files to table spaces, and improvements are needed for regional support."
"Ultimately, the product itself has challenges and we are not currently satisfied with the support, either."
"I would rate the level of dashDB support 3.5/5. While they are very knowledgeable in many areas, you can still struggle to get the correct resolution."
"Right now, we are implementing on ESX VMware 6.0. Support for this platform is poor. Also, one of the backup/recovery options is broken and IBM is not addressing the issue."
"We have to take the time and resources to build our own business intelligence when other products already incorporate such solutions."
"I would like the ability to do more real-time type updates instead of batch-oriented updates."
"We'd like to see it be a bit more compatible with other solutions."
"The reporting for certain types of data needs to be improved."
"The product must provide more frequent updates."
"The product scalability needs improvement."
"I would like to see better visualization features."
"The query is slow if we don't optimize it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If your going to go with warehouse DB/dashDB, use the cloud or Sailfish version."
"Technical support is an additional fee and is expensive."
"I think the program is well-priced compared to the other offerings that are out in the market."
"The solution's pricing is fairly decent for organizations with huge data sizes."
"The solution is cost-effective."
"All the features that we use do not require any additional subscription or yearly fees."
"Microsoft has an agreement with the government in our country, so our customers get their licensing costs from the Ministry. Whenever we work with any government, company, or government institute, which is mainly what we are doing, that license comes directly from the Ministry of Technology and Information."
"The tool could be expensive if we need to manage a lot of data."
"They offer an annual subscription. The pricing depends on the size of the environments."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
9%
Construction Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise22
 

Questions from the Community

What advice do you have for others considering IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud?
Organizations of all sizes, especially those who are in need of powerful and elastic cloud data warehouse solutions that can help administrators maximize the efficiency of their data-based operatio...
What needs improvement with IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud?
There are some limitations in adding data files to table spaces, and improvements are needed for regional support.
What is your primary use case for IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud?
Our primary use case is data storage and analytics.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?
The pricing could be better; I think it actually just went up.
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?
The basic use case for us is virtual machines. In real estate, we use it for our operations. They handle large data sets well, and the performance is good during those times.
 

Also Known As

IBM dashDB
Microsoft PDW, SQL Server Data Warehouse, Microsoft SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse, MS Parallel Data Warehouse
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Copenhagen Business School, BPM Northwest, GameStop
Auckland Transport, Erste Bank Group, Urban Software Institute, NJVC, Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, Tata Steel Europe
Find out what your peers are saying about Snowflake Computing, Teradata, Oracle and others in Data Warehouse. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.