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Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse vs Oracle Exadata comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.9
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse offers significant ROI by efficiently managing large data volumes and integrating with existing tools.
Sentiment score
6.6
Oracle Exadata offers up to 300% ROI with significant cost savings and efficiencies, despite a learning curve.
The investment is good, which is why people choose this hardware.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.8
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse support receives mixed reviews, praised for expertise but needing faster responses and improved Azure-related assistance.
Sentiment score
6.6
Oracle Exadata customer service is praised for improvements but faces challenges with response times and support system navigation.
Exadata comes with a platinum gateway and comprehensive support, which often gets immediate attention with severity one cases.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse scales well but requires SQL expertise; performance varies compared to alternatives like Snowflake.
Sentiment score
7.6
Oracle Exadata provides scalable solutions with efficient resource management, though some users face challenges with cross-generation upgrades.
I give the scalability an eight out of ten, indicating it scales well for our needs.
Within a site, scalability is excellent.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is praised for stability and reliability, handling large data volumes with minor concerns about processing speed.
Sentiment score
7.8
Oracle Exadata is highly stable and reliable, with minimal downtime and high-availability features praised by users.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is stable for us because it is built on SQL Server.
Once installed, Exadata is very stable.
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse needs enhancements in speed, scalability, compatibility, cost efficiency, and error messaging for better performance.
Oracle Exadata's high cost, licensing complexity, and technical issues reduce appeal, with users seeking better integration and support.
When there are many users or many expensive queries, it can be very slow.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is excellent but very expensive.
The ETL designing process could be optimized for better efficiency.
I cannot create an extended rack cluster with one node on one site and another node on a different site.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is cost-effective for large enterprises, but costs vary by data size, performance, and support.
High costs reflect Oracle Exadata's performance benefits; enterprises value integrated components and negotiate discounts for large-scale deployments.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is very expensive.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse offers accelerated performance, seamless integration, and scalability, excelling in data management and business intelligence.
Oracle Exadata enhances performance and efficiency with features like Smart Scan and Flash Cache, offering high availability and scalability.
The columnstore index enhances data query performance by using less space and achieving faster performance than general indexing.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is used in the logistics area for optimizing SQL queries related to the loading and unloading of trucks.
The interface is very user-friendly.
It also offers high backend speed between self-storage units and servers, which is beneficial for processing.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Parallel Data War...
Ranking in Data Warehouse
10th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Oracle Exadata
Ranking in Data Warehouse
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
127
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is 0.8%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Exadata is 17.9%, down from 19.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Warehouse
 

Q&A Highlights

it_user104457 - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 13, 2014
 

Featured Reviews

StevenLai - PeerSpot reviewer
Strong scalable solution with streamlined metadata warehousing
We use it to build our data warehouse and databases, and everything in the back end It helps streamline our metadata warehousing process. As it is our only type of data warehouse and database, it serves as our source, destination, and staging area. This product has many features which are useful…
Anand_Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
A solid data warehouse for transactional data that needs to be priced more competitively
Since the product is an appliance, it is very costly. And in the current age, people are cautious about spending this amount of money on any of these types of backend products. Some use cases are in real-time, where all other databases are much faster, but if you talk about the data warehouse, business intelligence, and all other perspectives in the transactional world, Oracle has to reduce the cost. Otherwise, a customer wouldn't want to continue this. If the same thing can be done at half or one-third of the cost, why would people stay with Oracle? Oracle Exadata would not have great value in front of a CFO. Other solutions can guard your data and address security concerns. Security, volumetrics, and so on are also provided by other databases, which are not that costly. Apart from Exadata, Oracle has other tools for business intelligence and other things, which they add on top of Exadata when they're selling a general license. For example, the Vertica database, an HP data warehouse. They have come up with their own analytic engine within the database, which gives an edge for the client to use the data analytics engine as a part of their database. Exadata does not have an analytic engine. Even MySQL has some statistical tools within it. If Exadata integrates analytical tools, it will be good for them.
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Answers from the Community

it_user104457 - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 13, 2014
Apr 13, 2014
I think hands down it's Exadata since for the front end apps it's just another Oracle database which means everything under the sun is compatible with it.
2 out of 3 answers
it_user89046 - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 10, 2014
Given we partner with many or all of the above, or can get to them as we access all data, I have the following opinion - InfoBright is very new and probable to be sold long term. It is also an expensive subscription so presents highest risk to me. Exidata is Oracle - if you like Oracle and their style, it maybe ok, but then it is Oracle. Microsoft is Microsoft - tends to be cheap to acquire and expensive to implement and maintain. Teradata is pricey but of the group presents the least risk and the greatest number of front end partners. The product I represent is unique as it is designed for high complexity large numbers of users and data and runs inside Teradata taking better advantage of the architecture. Disclosure: I work for Information Builders
it_user3309 - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 10, 2014
You are asking about front end tools but you do not mention which ones. What you have are "database backends" and each has different features. The utilization will depend on what kind of expertise you have available else you will end up trying to implement say, Teradata on Exadata which may not give you the best solution. What are your criteria for success? Based on these you will have to evaluate each solution -- I am sure each vendor will be happy to set up the environment and work with your set of sampl,e data to show you have they evaluate against your criteria.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
30%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Insurance Company
9%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
32%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse provides good firewall processing in terms of response time.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is excellent but very expensive. Working on the pricing could make it a better solution.
What do you like most about Oracle Exadata?
It is the best solution for OLTP and data warehousing.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Exadata?
The pricing of Exadata is high. It is more expensive than usual, making it suitable only for big enterprises or businesses that can afford it.
What needs improvement with Oracle Exadata?
Also considered an advantage, the main drawback is the inability to cluster two Exadata systems across sites. For example, with one node on one site and another node on a different site, I cannot c...
 

Also Known As

Microsoft PDW, SQL Server Data Warehouse, Microsoft SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse, MS Parallel Data Warehouse
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Auckland Transport, Erste Bank Group, Urban Software Institute, NJVC, Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, Tata Steel Europe
PayPal, EBS, Organic Food Retailer, Garmin, University of Minnesota, Major Semiconductor Company, Deutsche Bank, Starwood, Ziraat Bank, SK Telecom, and P&G.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse vs. Oracle Exadata and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.