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IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud vs Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse comparison

 

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 (11th)
 

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…
HassanFatemi - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at Smart Data-Driven Solutions
Has handled large volumes of data effectively but still needs cost flexibility
There could be improvements on the cost side of Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse because it is still considered to be quite expensive by a lot of users, and many companies are not interested in solutions with parallel data warehousing due to this expense. Addressing the cost would be the number one area for improvement. Additionally, I have not worked recently with it, so I don't know if this feature already exists, but if it doesn't, having an elastic feature that adjusts the service's power dynamically based on the workload would be beneficial instead of fixing the power at a specific level.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It will be MPP, so performance should improve."
"The performance is okay as long as the volume of queries is not too high."
"Since my company is an IBM partner, it has enabled us to offer cloud data warehouse solutions on a 100% IBM stack."
"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."
"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."
"It is stable when there is support from IBM."
"The way that it scales will help a lot of customers that are stuck with Netezza boxes that can't grow any larger.​"
"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."
"This is a solution that has good performance and I recommend it."
"The most valuable feature for me is querying."
"SQL Data Warehouse provides our organization with a way to access all corporate data in a uniform way."
"It performs very well overall."
"Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse provides good firewall processing in terms of response time."
"The most valuable feature is that we can deploy directly to the production environment, rather than having to go through a development environment first."
"It is very strong, scalable, and has tons of features."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is performance."
 

Cons

"The support channels need to improve."
"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."
"Ultimately, the product itself has challenges and we are not currently satisfied with the support, either."
"Tech support for dashDB is awful. We usually have tickets open for three to four weeks."
"There are some limitations in adding data files to table spaces, and improvements are needed for regional support."
"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."
"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."
"With dashDB, scalability and uptime need more improvement."
"There were scalability issues in that there is a limit to 32 concurrent queries."
"The product scalability needs improvement."
"​Concurrent queries are limited to 32, making it more of a data storage mechanism instead of an active DWH solution."
"It needs more compatibility with common BI tools."
"I would like to see better visualization features."
"This tool needs a lot of memory for processing."
"It requires significant infrastructure expertise to implement."
"Unlike other MPPs, such as Netezza, this requires excellent expertise in SQL to reap the benefits of using it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If your going to go with warehouse DB/dashDB, use the cloud or Sailfish version."
"The tool could be expensive if we need to manage a lot of data."
"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 solution is cost-effective."
"All the features that we use do not require any additional subscription or yearly fees."
"The solution's pricing is fairly decent for organizations with huge data sizes."
"They offer an annual subscription. The pricing depends on the size of the environments."
"I think the program is well-priced compared to the other offerings that are out in the market."
"Technical support is an additional fee and is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Construction Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Educational Organization
7%
Construction Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Marketing Services Firm
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, Oracle, Teradata and others in Data Warehouse. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.