Microsoft Azure SQL Database Reviews

I primarily use the solution for continuous integration and continuous delivery.

Azure DevOps is the feature that is the most valuable aspect of the solution for us.

I need Microsoft to allow their network to access open source technologies.

The solution is very stable. Microsoft is one of the most stable platforms. It offers 100% stability.

I would rate scalability as ten out of ten.

We have been satisfied with technical support. We're a big Azure customer. I don't know if a normal customer or a start-up would get the same support from Microsoft but we are a big customer and we've paid a lot of money for the solution, so we have a good amount of attention from support.

Previously we used open-source solutions and relied on the abilities of our techs. But now we're paying to have a big organization that can help manage and handle our projects.

The initial setup is very easy. It's extremely straightforward.

The pricing is okay. It's not too expensive.

The solution is very user-friendly. I would recommend the solution. It's very easy to understand.

I would rate this solution ten out of ten.

I primarily use the solution to study SQL.

It provides regular database functionality

The solution needs to improve its customer network, including its online support.

In the next release, I'd like to see Azure SQL improve user rights management and user rights control management.

The solution is very stable.

The solution offers up options for scalability. Right now, in our organization, only one person is using Azure SQL and they are using it daily.

Technical support is okay.

The initial setup was straightforward. Deployment takes about one hour.

I implemented the solution myself.

We are using the free version. It's free of charge for one developer.

In terms of advice to others, I would suggest that they make sure they keep the system stable and to not add complexity.

I would rate this solution eight out of ten.

What is really helpful about the Azure SQL is that when we have a problem with a query, we can trade information about what indexes we should create on tables. It's really helpful for admin and for developers.

I need something which is in one place so I can automate the Azure data factory, but it's a different tool. It's not easy and in one place, so I can't switch to the other tool and do something there, automate everything there in the on-prem infrastructure, and then have everything in the agent. I can just pick one packet and use it. However, I want to be able to click it and run it. 

We could definitely use something which can automate the work. For example, I know there are a lot of tips like what indexes you should use, or what security features you should look at with your current SQL server. The acquired performance is assured, so some more statistics about acquired performance would be really valuable for the developer and also the administrators who use it. That would be really valuable, but we also need something which automates the work in particular SQL agents. I'm disappointed that it is not in the simple plan and I have to buy a higher plan.

I didn't notice any problems with the performance of this product. It's pretty stable. Computing is working as it should, so it's really good. It's stable, and the performance is really very good. That's what I really like about Azure SQL.

It's very scalable. That's why we like cloud solutions. You just add on every time you need some more performance pages. I just change the plan and it works.

To be honest I have never had a problem that called for technical support. I never had a chance to contact support because it works without any problems. It's the same thing with clients because we work very closely with our customers. Every time they have some problems we get a call from them and can solve the problem for them.

The initial implementation is straightforward. There are a few click-throughs and you have ready to use infrastructure. It usually takes five to ten minutes. Even less.

We use a few different versions. It depends on the project. We use the S-1, 2, and 3, depending on the customer's requirements.

If we compare, for example, the cloud infrastructure and on-prem infrastructure, there are lots of good things about cloud infrastructure because we can scale the product so that every single time when we need more performance, more computing, more storage we can just reach to the higher plan, and we can use it. There is obviously cost reduction because although we still need an on-prem trader for SQL parts, it's not hard like it was in SQL brand because we also had to care about the infrastructure too. Right now, we are concentrating on the software which is good and saves us money. 

I would rate this solution nine out of ten because it offers a lot, including statistics and other things which are very hard to get from Azure. However, you have to specify what you actually would like to monitor, which is not straightforward.

• Memory-optimized tables
• Elastic scale
• Azure portal management tools

Some customers' applications require very large tables (large number of records). Here are examples of how this solution helped them:

• Performance of memory-optimized tables in SQL Azure exceeds that of an on premise SQL Server
• Microsoft adds new features, including bug fixing, to SQL Azure every fortnight on the average.
• Performance benchmark: There is a benchmark suite that is relevant, Azure SQL Database Benchmark (ASDB). This benchmark includes metrics in plans for the three-service tiers, Basic, Standard and Premium. (In-Memory OLTP support is only available in Premium tier plans.)

The main reason for the business case of using SQL Azure for a few large tables for our customer was as follows:

• Most of the tables in the data model (DM) for the application are small enough to have required performance in a Standard Edition of an on premise SQL Server instance. Only four tables are large enough and have peaks of concurrent transactions per minute that are large enough to require in-memory OLTP support.
• We needed to compare TCO for an Enterprise on premise SQL Server instance for the entire DM (that would be mainly under-utilized) versus TCO of a Standard on-premises for most of the DM + TCO of SQL Database with in-memory OLTP support for these four tables. (TCO for this scenario includes an estimate of changes in the design of the application.)
• This TCO comparison was calculated for a period of two years. That is the time between a given version of on premise SQL Server and the next version.
• The end result was a lower TCO for the second scenario. The first scenario implies paying an Enterprise instance up-front at the start of the two year period.
• In the second scenario, the application would have two data repositories. Transactional control for the app is the reason why I mentioned the limitation of the SQL database. It only supports distributed transactions between instances of SQL Azure. That was a technical problem to solve. This was one of the main reasons for the changes in the app in the second scenario.
• We had to make some changes to the app to separate transactions and their contexts for the two repositories.
• In this case, it would be an improvement if Microsoft were to provide support of distributed transactions between SQL Azure instances. We would also like to see support for other kinds of services for Microsoft and other vendors who support standard distributed transactions.

SQL Azure only supports distributed transactions with other instances of SQL Azure. This has been an obstacle for us.

I have been using this product for almost four years.

You can deploy your solution to a SQL Azure database directly from SQL Server Management Studio (the same tool used to manage solutions for On Premises SQL Server editions), so, the transition from SQL Server On Prem deployment to SQL Azure deploy presents no issues.

There have been no issues with stability.

There have been no issues with scalability. This is a strong feature of the product.

Microsoft has very good customer service, both free and paid customer service (by free customer service I mean customer service on free cloud solutions like Outlook.com)

Microsoft has very good technical support for this service and product, as usual. Regarding SQL Azure, the amount of free online resources for developers is huge and relevant.

For some customers' applications, we switched from memory optimized tables with on premise instances to SQL Azure instances. The switch happened under the same SQL Server umbrella.

It takes some time to get accustomed to the Azure portal and to navigate through its tools and options. You can also connect directly from the SQL Server Management Studio. It is fairly easy to configure the proper parameters for connection. Once you are connected, it is transparent for any experienced SQL Server DBA or SQL developer.

Even if you are an experienced SQL Server DBA, there is some learning to do to be able to develop, deploy and manage SQL Azure solutions. At Microsoft Virtual Academy there is a set of free courses to learn all this.

You can use a free SQL Azure account to do some of the required practice while learning (bear in mind that the free account for all Azure tools, including SQL Azure, requires that you provide credit card information), but you will also need to license a SQL Azure plan for actual deployment and use of the solution: Basic plans, Standard Plans, Premium Plans.

You can choose a plan according to the amount of resources used by your solution (storage required, number of transactions, etc.), such that the hourly rate of the chosen plan is tied to the range of resources used.

The main setup cost that we have experienced is basically time required to do the training, and payment of a plan during the development and testing of the solution.

I did not evaluate anything else. I started using SQL Azure through teaching some MOC courses that included it, in early 2013. I had the chance to get to really know the product and the service.

For any potential customer who is considering migrating an app to SQL Azure, my advice is:

• Spend enough time analyzing if SQL Azure offers you a viable business case for the said app. It may or may not offer this to you!
• It is very important that you have a thorough understanding of the performance details and issues of the current app from a standpoint of the database engine. This is mainly with DMVs and DMFs, if you are using an on premise SQL Server.

There is significant abstraction from beginner to intermediate database administration responsibilities. In this way, I can focus on my business objectives, as opposed to heavy upfront cost of ownership when compared to on-premises or IaaS alternatives.

It provides faster turnaround time to getting solutions customer facing.

It could have closer parity to on-premises capabilities. Introduce a graph database engine component.

I have been using Azure since its inception.

Historically, SQL Azure has tended to choke at databases larger than 50GB, and in some cases, as small as 20GB. Granted, this starts becoming a function of database design.

Caveat: It's been a while since I last attempted to put larger sets of data into a single SQL Azure database. Now, if you don't use resilient connection tolerance practices (or technologies), then it may feel unstable. Here again, it becomes a function of design.

In other words, if you simply choose to use on-premises traditional designs and principles when interacting with SQL Azure, then there is a higher probability of it "feeling" unstable.

I've seen and experienced some amazing service and then I've endured appalling interactions, too.

This becomes a function of your SQL engine skill, the diligence and appropriateness of your design, the support tier you purchased, and some luck if you connected with a support engineer who not only spoke your language, but also carried an attitude of chasing down a solution.

The setup is super straightforward. I don't really find that question useful, or at least as useful as, "What is it like incrementally adjusting the design of the database?"

This is where Microsoft's eco-system further outshines the alternatives. Again, this is a much longer discussion, but it's folly to choose a platform, and even a technology, without considering the lifecycle of changes.

In an agile world, you have to ask how you are going to get that data tier to respond efficiently and within business requirements and tolerances.

It's an elastic service, at least in its simplest definition, and a proactive one with some reactive capability. Therefore, there is value in monitoring usage and adjusting proactively to gain optimal savings.

Alternatives tended to be IaaS offerings hammered or butchered to be PaaS. So, frankly, the answer is that I don't know of other PaaS alternatives.

SQL Azure is a good option for maintaining structured data, especially for smaller databases (0 - 25GB).

My solutions today leverage a plethora of structured and unstructured data. Therefore, having this service in close proximity to the resource groups I use for the other services is beneficial.

It does tend to constrain me to the Azure platform, as I've yet to find a vendor who can give me the RDBMS PaaS offering. Constrain makes it sound like “suck up some pain”. However, I have yet to find the Azure platform limiting.

Here is some context or insight. I was previously on the product team that heavily influenced the direction and feature set of SQL Server, both box (on-premises) and cloud. My focus and specialty is related to scaling the RDBMS tier to support high-demand applications.

To that end, SQL Azure was very useful for a certain set of business problems. At the time, I certainly would not have recommended anything larger than 50GB residing in a SQL Azure database.

I also felt strongly that a significant value proposition of cloud-based RDBMS solutions lay in the as yet untapped elastic-scale possibilities.

To that end, I developed a framework for customers to leverage, which found its way (in a crippled form) into what is today's SQL Azure elastic feature. What I'm trying to say is that true elastic-scale and distributed scale of SQL Azure is hobbled. That frustrates me.

The value proposition of using SQL Azure for mobile and web app solutions is also significant, and it remains as strong as ever. This is especially the case for solutions that enjoy the benefits of structured data.

The on-going improvements of SQL Azure reaching parity with an on-premises feature set is making SQL Azure a viable option for many applications that previously couldn't even begin to look at cloud-based, non-IaaS, therefore PaaS, offerings.

In my current role, I consider SQL Azure the leader for cloud-based RDBMS solutions, far ahead of any other cloud-based RBMS offering. Where I have structured data, SQL Azure is my de facto storage tier.

• Cloud products reduce the cost of the production of software products
• You do not have to buy the product at the up-front market cost
• You pay for it as you use the product
• You can develop a product on your own premises
• Just give the key to the vendor, so that there are no separate deployment costs.
• You save on travel and meals, as well as housing required for a development team required for deployment and implementation.
• The distance between the client and development team is invisible.
• You may arrange virtual-real trainings/demos based on the affordability of the client’s budget.
• There is no requirement of special hardware, as costs and additional software are bared by the cloud platform. You can spend as you need based on what the client’s needs are and scale hardware and software up to the client’s needs.
• Cost of the platform and the software upgrades are covered under the service contract.

We developed our product with a small team of .NET developers for a client, a law university in Delhi, India.

We received the requirements from conversations of our team with our client, over the phone, and with email.

There was minimal training required for the team to be trained in cloud, as every developer in the team had basic .NET skills.

This product was then intended to be used by law university students for their training in court room sessions as student lawyers debating against each other to deduce lawful judgements of a case under study.

We provided virtual chat rooms for the students and had facilitated a method to share video sessions of their debates in virtual court rooms.

Microsoft has delivered on its promise by providing a free, developer-student (community) edition of Visual Studio.

I have used this for around 6-9 months to develop and implement the product.

There are questions in the developers’ and clients’ minds:

• Since Azure is a pay-by-use product, what is the provision for the future?
• If, for some reason, we lost this provision, what fallback parachute is Microsoft planning for customers?
• What risk planning and hedging should the client do? There is no such possibility, but the concern must be addressed by Microsoft.

Physically owned products are also subject to failure. The hardware on premise also fails and needs to be maintained, so there is expected downtime.

Microsoft provides mirroring of cloud servers. There is a sure provision of backup and restore of the cloud environment.

By centralizing these services and products at a central location (datacenter), we are optimizing on services and goods cost and sharing these costs with other cloud dwellers.

By going towards the cloud, we are going towards a virus and spyware free environment.

We are moving away from special, owned hardware and products, to cloud-based datacenters, which exist in the other resource rich, low cost, areas.

This is Platform as a Service of the SOA revolution.

Along with overseas datacenters, we shall promote near shore or local datacenters to capitalize on the cloud advantage. We will also address issues of risk hedging, which will spur job growth in local areas.

We didn’t have any scalability problems.

We did not explore this option, but the response was good for whatever we did request.

We switched due to the advantages I mentioned earlier.

You don’t have to install the product on the cloud platform. You receive a login with pre-pared software installs. Custom requirements need to be implemented or requested.

Every region of a country has cheaper locations that can provide cost advantages, and data center growth must be equally distributed on earth with electricity and resource rich, low cost, areas to keep the cost of the cloud minimal. This will also avert natural and man-made calamities.

The United States and other countries can take this cloud option to the next level of off-shoring without any immigration and terrorism issues, enabling development in impoverished areas of the world.

This can further cut down the cost of software development, other "down-the-line" products, services and goods, and will empower the poor and neglected of the world.

This will also improve trade between the countries. There are always imbalances amongst populations in any country in skills and monetary status. An equalizer could be achieved by allowing more trade, more freedom, and more pollination.

In India, we had to start development using the 3-month free subscription Azure platform .net and SQL . Now as far as I know, vs 2015 community edition is a free download. One can develop software application in it and deploy it with an Azure subscription which is pay as you use. All nitty-gritty development can be done by a development team. That's why Microsoft has delivered their dream cloud promise with the zero cost alternative of community edition.

We considered local cloud and physical install options. These options were expensive and less effective.

Microsoft Cloud is reliable and dependable.

• Availability and scalability
• Ability to understand the application and not necessarily the structure of your database
• Natural replication of the SaaS service provides efficient availability
• You can choose the geographical replication: Simply open a map and tag the new location of a replication
• Scale tab: You can change the plan of the service in terms of DTUs, point of restore, and auditing

We have configured this solution into a worldwide application based on Microsoft SQL with SQL Azure and with SQL Azure elastic pool.

Maybe the portal should have a more detailed and granular way to query data. You can use API for this purpose.

Azure is working on the query engine in order to give you the ability to analyze a query for performance with insight to improve the load or the time of a query.

I have used SQL Azure for one year along with the other Azure services.

I had no issues during our work.

It is very flexible. In the case of a heavy load period, you don’t see any difference in terms of performance. The advantage with a SaaS service is the normal scalability.

If you don't have Premium support, you need to wait for 24 hours to receive support.

Other databases like PostgreSQL and SQL Server were evaluated. We decided to switch because our .NET application works well with Microsoft solutions.

The configuration was straightforward.

You need to be careful about the size of your database or pool in order to fit it exactly within your budget.

We did not evaluate any other options.

The best use of this product is the combination with other SaaS services. Evaluate communication on premise if you need to.

• It works perfectly in the cloud.
• It made our back-end service scalable.

In many cases we use Azure as a service platform.

When larger data is collected by continuous business operations and will be processed for further analysis, we use SQL Azure.

• Scalability
• Cost efficiency
• Business continuity