Microsoft Azure SQL Database Reviews

• 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.

We use this product to implement solutions for clients, so the use case can vary. For example, we built a web-based application for a government environmental protection agency. They issue permits to prospective applicants looking to site factories and other business facilities.

The solution allows us to bring automation to previously manual processes. Payment for permits is made online which eliminates discretion and fraud, and the wider process is streamlined. 

Because the solution is cloud-based it's highly manageable, it makes maintenance of logs, space, storage, and backups much easier compared to a traditional SQL server installation.

If the product could support applications requiring an SQL server for installation, by using SQL Azure as a backend, that would be useful.  

The solution is highly stable.

The product is absolutely scalable.

I was satisfied by the interaction with technical support for this solution. 

Positive

The solution is very easy to set up.

With one being expensive and five being competitive, I would give the product a four out of five as it's relatively competitive. It is also important to note that pricing is based on usage.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We use a relational database management system and 90% of the projects I've worked with have used SQL Server. We are partners with SQL Azure. 

The main valuable feature is the auto scaling. In addition, the security features they've implemented on cloud make it a little easier compared to on-prem SQL, they're great. It enables added scalability, and costing can be tweaked and made more reliable, flexible and cost effective.

I think SQL could be improved in terms of ease of use for developers when it comes to performance. For example, enabling suggestions or auto-tune performances, providing results which are higher level recommendations. I know there are tools that performance analyze, but I personally find it to be overly complicated. If they look at performance assistance, add-ons or plugins that might help the developer, focus can be on business logic rather than performance. This is an ongoing issue for me and I'd like to see developers given the flexibility to change those recommendations, it would simplify things. 

I've been using this solution for 20 years. 

SQL's stability is dependent on where it's hosted. 

If you're going into a cluster with multiple width or multiple SQL Servers, deployment becomes a little more tricky. In general, though, the initial setup is relatively easy. 

I recommend this solution and I rate it an eight out of 10. 

The flexibility with regards to licensing is the most valuable aspect of the solution. 

Customers can benefit from a lot of cost savings if they go for Azure.

The implementation process needs to be improved.

Support isn't that great. They need to work on this aspect of their service. It can be challenging to reach them.

The solution needs to be more flexible overall.

It would help if there were better reporting features on offer.

I've been using the solution for a few years at this point.

The solution is quite stable. We don't have any problems with it in that sense. There aren't bugs. It doesn't glitch on us or freeze.

The solution can scale quite well. It's very easy to scale, for example, on AWS.

We typically work with big enterprise clients such as banks and utilities. The projects are quite sizeable.

We're only partly satisfied with technical support. They could work harder to improve themselves. They can be difficult to reach. They need to respond faster and be much more flexible.

The implementation process only takes a few hours with Azure, however, they do need to make the process a bit better. The upside is you don't have to scroll through everything manually as you do with an on-premises deployment. It's not overly complex.

The cost of the solution isn't too high. It's pretty reasonable.

We're a partner. We have a business relationship with the client.

I use a few different versions of the solution, depending on my clients, and have worked with both the 2016 and 2019 versions, for example.

I would recommend the product.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I'd rate it at an eight.

I have used SQL Azure for the backend tier application. If the customer has the flow change application with an application service, they will use the backend. I always suggest using SQL Server and Azure.

The backup solution in Azure is great, the firewall settings in SQL are very easy to use and work very well. Additionally, the turning process is very good and has improved the SQL services and queries.

SQL Azure could improve by adding more features.

I have used SQL Azure within the past 12 months.

I have found SQL Azure to be stable.

The scalability of SQL Azure is very good.

The support of SQL Azure is very good.

The implementation of SQL Azure is simple.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate SQL Azure a nine out of ten.

Azure has multiple use cases. Organizations can use it for hosting infrastructure, for example. There are cloud services that you can utilize. The main purpose of the cloud is that you don't need to set up your own data center, and then you can just use the cloud platforms provided by Azure or AWS, or any other cloud. They all serve the same purpose.

The solution is a stable product. It has a lot of out-of-the-box services. It provides a lot of services that we would typically have to provision on-premise. 

It's easy to use in terms of their portal, which is very nicely organized.

It's a good platform all in all.

The solution has proven to be quite scalable.

We've found the solution to be stable. 

Technical support from Microsoft is very good.

The solution should start covering more regions in Gulf countries and other regions. This is due to the fact that other cloud providers are not locally available. Yet this is what people require here. Their availability in the Middle East and Asia regions needs to improve.

I've been using the solution for a couple of years at this point. It's been a while.

We've found the solution to be very stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze.

The solution is quite scalable. If a company needs to expand it, it can do so with relative ease.

I'm from a technology provider. We provision these services and provide them to other clients. One of the infrastructure environments which we are provisioning on Azure would be used by probably approximately 8,000 to 10,000 users.

In terms of if we plan to continue usage or not, we are just building it on Azure right now. So it will be live in a year or two, something like this.

Technical support is really good. Microsoft support is pretty knowledgeable and responsive. We are happy with the level of service we receive from them.

The solution is a cloud product. You don't need to install anything. There is no installation process to deal with.  

All products are licensed. The cost depends on someone's usage space. The more you use it, the more you pay. Some are billed in terms of fixed cost. For example, if I provision some work with a machine that I pay for it, even if I don't use it. There are multiple ways you could potentially pay.

We are partners.

We are working on the latest version of the solution.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

I would recommend the solution. There are not many cloud providers. Azure and AWS are some of the top providers. These are the two which compete with each other, and both of them have good services. That said, I would recommend Azure for sure.

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.

• 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