Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse vs Oracle Big Data Appliance comparison

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse vs. Oracle Big Data Appliance

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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

Microsoft Parallel Data War...

Ranking in Data Warehouse

9th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Oracle Big Data Appliance

Ranking in Data Warehouse

13th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is 3.2%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Big Data Appliance is 2.7%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Warehouse Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse	3.2%
Oracle Big Data Appliance	2.7%
Other	94.1%

Data Warehouse

Featured Reviews

reviewer2254953

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.

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reviewer1031826

Analytics Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Platinum partnership leverages advanced storage and fosters seamless data integration

Areas of Oracle Big Data Appliance that can be improved include the pricing perspective because nowadays they have competition. We have so many technologies that have come to the market for less than even one-fourth or one-fifth of the Oracle price. For my side, the last time I worked with Oracle was in '21, '22. The price is a challenge that they have to look after. From the storage and data management perspective, I cannot recall anything that they have to improve, but they have to improve the visualization part significantly because they offer Oracle BI, which is an extremely not-matured application.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"These separate database servers were turned into a massively parallel, shared nothing database system that offered incredibly good performance, especially under complex mixed workloads."

"Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse provides good firewall processing in terms of response time."

"It has allowed fast daily loads and analysis of millions of rows of data, which eventually moved to near real-time."

"We are able to monitor daily jobs, so if there is anything that needs to be done then we can do it."

"The most valuable feature is that we can deploy directly to the production environment, rather than having to go through a development environment first."

"SQL Data Warehouse provides our organization with a way to access all corporate data in a uniform way."

"MPP processing gives us the ability to distribute large data sets across nodes."

More Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse pros

"The best thing about the product is that the end-user can build the reports by themselves without really knowing anything about databases."

"The best feature of Oracle Big Data Appliance, from a price perspective for the storage, is because they have technology called the ZFS technology; it offers huge storage with a decent price."

"The most valuable feature is that it can be used in conjunction with Spark memory processing, and our processing time has gone to 20 minutes from what used to be two or three hours on the mainframe."

"Big Data responds to my needs."

"Because Big Data Appliance allows me to have a single source of truth, it means I have clean data that can be monetized and leveraged to gain more insights with real-time reports from the dashboard."

"We could work on large unstructured datasets from different parts of the world on Facebook and Twitter to get better insights."

"This is a comprehensive solution that is easy to deploy."

Cons

"Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is excellent but very expensive. Working on the pricing could make it a better solution."

"More tools to help designers should be included."

"This tool needs a lot of memory for processing."

"The initial setup of this solution is complex and can be improved."

"It could be made more user-friendly for business users which would increase the user base."

"It is expensive. SQL Data Warehouse is not supported by all versions of SQL Server such as the Express version and therefore becomes unavailable to many limiting its acquisition and use."

"When there are many users or many expensive queries, it can be very slow."

"The query is slow if we don't optimize it."

More Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse cons

"From a technical perspective, Big Data Appliance could be improved with more innovation in the AI and machine-learning parts instead of relying on Cloudera."

"We need to display the results on our website. I think there is another product that joins with it to give you the possibility."

"Areas of Oracle Big Data Appliance that can be improved include the pricing perspective because nowadays they have competition; we have so many technologies that have come to the market for less than even one-fourth or one-fifth of the Oracle price."

"The product should be simplified for the average user."

"It seems like the deployment of repositories has become more difficult in later versions of the product rather than easier."

"We had to pursue several performance tuning measures to bring up the system to scale."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Technical support is an additional fee and is expensive."

"They offer an annual subscription. The pricing depends on the size of the environments."

"The solution is cost-effective."

"I think the program is well-priced compared to the other offerings that are out in the market."

"The tool could be expensive if we need to manage a lot of data."

"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 solution's pricing is fairly decent for organizations with huge data sizes."

"Oracle's prices are too high compared to others in the market."

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913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

23%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Outsourcing Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

19%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Outsourcing Company

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	22

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	1
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	7

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is very expensive.

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.

What needs improvement with Oracle Big Data Appliance?

What is your primary use case for Oracle Big Data Appliance?

The typical use case for Oracle Big Data Appliance, which my clients use, is usually that the customer who has an Oracle application uses it because they can leverage the storage part. I don't need...

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Product Reports

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse

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Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse report

Data Warehouse

Download Oracle Big Data Appliance product report

Also Known As

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

No data available

Overview

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse offers high performance and usability with seamless SQL Server integration, handling large data efficiently with a user-friendly interface. Known for its cost-effectiveness and robust security, it excels in integrating data across Microsoft ecosystem.

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse efficiently manages large datasets from diverse sources, supporting a unified data approach. Its integration with SQL Server and compatibility with tools like Qlik enhances data management and decision-making capabilities. With impressive scalability and security features, it is widely used in sectors such as finance, healthcare, and logistics for analytics and reporting. However, users seek improvements in integration with non-Microsoft layers, memory usage, SQL configuration, and scalability.

What are the key features of Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?

Clustered Columnstore Index: Boosts performance for complex queries.
SQL Server Integration: Seamless connectivity with Microsoft's database solutions.
Data Volume Handling: Efficient management of large datasets.
Cost Management: Ability to pause operations for cost savings.
Security Measures: Ensures robust data protection.

What benefits do users expect when evaluating Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?

Performance Efficiency: High-speed data processing capabilities.
Cost-Effectiveness: Suitable pricing model in specific scenarios.
Scalability: Ability to grow with business needs.
Integration Capabilities: Compatibility with Microsoft products and SQL Server.

In industries like finance, healthcare, and logistics, Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse supports analytics, reporting, and decision-making processes. Organizations utilize it to maintain historical data, develop business intelligence models, and create actionable dashboards, benefiting from its integration with key tools and efficient data management.

Microsoft

Oracle Big Data Appliance offers a comprehensive platform integrating ZFS technology and supporting Spark, designed to boost performance with Hadoop distributions, ensuring data security and accessibility across multiple languages.

Oracle Big Data Appliance presents an adaptable solution facilitating data consolidation with robust storage technology, crucial for central data repositories. Its Spark in-memory processing significantly reduces time through seamless integration with Hadoop distributions like Hortonworks and Cloudera. Role-based security enhances organizational data access, while multi-language support meets diverse processing requirements. Although challenges exist in AI capabilities and visualization tool efficiency, the platform remains valuable for entity-wide deployment.

What key features does Oracle Big Data Appliance offer?

Drag-and-Drop Interface: Enables non-technical users to build reports effortlessly.
ZFS Technology: Provides cost-effective storage solutions.
Spark on YARN Support: Enhances Hadoop performance with faster processing.
Security Roles: Ensures data access alignment with user privileges.
Multi-Language Support: Assists in handling diverse language processing needs.

What benefits should users look for when evaluating Oracle Big Data Appliance?

Centralized Data Management: Avoids the need for additional data warehouses.
Regulatory Reporting Facilitation: Eases compliance processes in sectors like Medicare.
Role-Based Reporting: Empowers end-users to create reports based on specific needs.
Consultation Integrations: Supports seamless data management when coupled with external services.

Oracle Big Data Appliance is predominantly used in healthcare and financial services, where data consolidation and regulatory compliance are crucial. Entities leverage Oracle's storage capabilities to maintain centralized repositories, expediting regulatory reporting and claim management processes, particularly benefiting sectors like Medicare. Consulting services frequently integrate Oracle platforms to enhance data management efficiency, especially for organizations utilizing Oracle applications.

Oracle

Sample Customers

Auckland Transport, Erste Bank Group, Urban Software Institute, NJVC, Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, Tata Steel Europe

Caixa Bank

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse vs. Oracle Big Data Appliance