Microsoft Azure SQL Database Reviews

Our primary use case for Microsoft Azure SQL Database is storage configuration. We store all our connector configurations in the database, ensuring seamless operational integration.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database is easy to use and allows for rapid deployment.

While integrating the AI app with Azure SQL Database is a consideration, it's more for configurations. I believe the next steps should involve exploring search indices and technologies like Fabric.

This solution has had a certain impact on our organization. It has reduced our total cost of ownership because we don't have to spin up an environment just to contain SQL. All our databases now run in Azure, eliminating the need for on-premises instances.

Microsoft SQL Server seamlessly integrates with other Microsoft applications and is the central repository for all our connector configurations.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database has significantly reduced our total cost of ownership by eliminating the need for a dedicated environment to host SQL. Migrating all databases to Azure and removing on-premises instances has resulted in approximately a 70 percent reduction in TCO.

Valuable features of Microsoft Azure SQL Database include its quick deployment capabilities, the ability to spin up an environment easily, and seamless integration with Microsoft products. The transition to Azure SQL has certainly reduced our organization's total cost of ownership as it negates the need for on-premises infrastructure. The recent announcement about Copilot spinning up and creating SQL tables and stored procedures indicates the continuous improvement and added value it brings.

There needs to be a hybrid model for situations where not all customers want a cloud-based SQL solution. This model would facilitate transitions from on-premises instances to cloud-based versions.

I have been using Microsoft Azure SQL Database for about 15 years.

The overall stability is good as it functions smoothly for our organization's needs.

The latency and availability of Microsoft Azure SQL Database can be problematic when connecting to an instance in a geographically distant location. For example, connecting from New York to an instance in Australia can result in network issues. Therefore, it is preferable to provision an instance local to the connection point to optimize performance and minimize latency.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database allows easy scaling up and across without the need for physical infrastructure adjustments.

We did not switch from another solution because we are a Microsoft-oriented company and have seamlessly used Microsoft products for many years.

Azure SQL Database has helped reduce our total cost of ownership because we don't have to spin up an environment just to contain SQL.

I would rate Microsoft Azure SQL Database as a solid eight out of ten due to the room left for improvement. Microsoft has potential areas for enhancement and always seeks growth.

The migration of our database to Microsoft Azure SQL proceeded smoothly without challenges. This strategic business decision to transition from on-premises to Azure SQL was proactively incorporated into our roadmap.

Public Cloud

Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure SQL Database serves as our database after we migrated a database to the cloud and we're checking it out to see if that will be somewhere we want to go with a lot more of our applications.

Managed Instance is the feature of Microsoft Azure SQL Database that I like the most.

I have not yet used Microsoft Azure SQL Database intelligent performance features.

My experience with Microsoft Azure SQL Database automatic tuning is intermediate, but it has definitely helped because it takes a lot of the guesswork out of manually going through and finding what could be causing some bottlenecks.

I assess the effectiveness of Microsoft Azure SQL Database security features in meeting compliance standards as pretty good.

Microsoft Azure Active Directory integration and Microsoft Azure Key Vault have helped me manage data security.

The compatibility with SQL Server for transitioning legacy systems to Microsoft Azure SQL Database is very important because it gives us assurance that what we experience today, we can get the same performance on the other side.

One example of how these features have benefited my organization is backup and recovery, which is almost identical to how we do it because as DBAs, your most important job is to make sure the data is available.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database could improve by providing more support for Availability Groups within Managed Instance.

We have been using Microsoft Azure SQL Database for eight months now.

One challenge we faced deploying Microsoft Azure SQL Database was refreshing the databases because we keep copies of them and refresh them to other environments.

I would describe my experience with customer service and technical support as excellent, from the few times we have had to reach out.

Positive

We were using a similar solution previously, which was SQL Server on-premise.

Latency and how strong support would be if something goes wrong stood out in my evaluation process before selecting Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

We have seen a return on investment.

I would say I am at a basic experience level with the pricing, setup costs and licensing because while I am the administrator for the service, I do not provision the services and worry about the cost.

When it comes to licensing costs, it is a lot cheaper when you have Managed Instance versus a standalone SQL server.

Use the tools that Microsoft provides to assess your current environment if you are considering using Microsoft Azure SQL Database. I would rate this overall review as a nine.

Public Cloud

Microsoft Azure

My main use case for Microsoft Azure SQL Database is hosting an in-house application to serve different business streams.

The feature I like the most in Microsoft Azure SQL Database is the recovery point of time to recover the database when needed.

These features have benefited my organization by improving response time in seconds and milliseconds, and this will improve customer experience and satisfy the commercial team as well.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database can be improved by getting recent recommendations from Microsoft's side to be applied on a quarter basis, such as the latest batch update.

In a POC, I have been using Microsoft Azure SQL Database for one or two years.

What worked with Microsoft Azure SQL Database is good, but the challenge I faced is that it does not fit for a large-scale or tier-one business application.

I would evaluate customer service and technical support for Microsoft Azure SQL Database as very good.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate service and technical support an eight because it needs improvement, especially for accelerating support or solving a problem immediately or having expertise available around the clock, because there might be a mid-tier experience from the support team, and in some cases, we need to involve an expert immediately to solve our cases.

Positive

Prior to adopting Microsoft Azure SQL Database, I was using another solution such as PostgreSQL and Oracle databases in place, and we have open sources as well in place, such as Mongo SQL or Mongo database.

I would describe my experience with deploying Microsoft Azure SQL Database as good.

I have seen a return on investment with Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

The return on investment I can share is that it improves customer experience, and improving customer experience means getting more customer base to use our products, and this is ROI for using such products.

Before selecting Microsoft Azure SQL Database, I considered other solutions such as Oracle and PostgreSQL.

I have not yet used Microsoft Azure SQL Database's intelligent performance features.

My experience with Microsoft Azure SQL Database's automatic tuning is that the database should be optimized and tuned very well, either by doing something to enhance the performance or by consulting support teams to give advice to be applied, such as the latest patch set, or to analyze queries to get optimizer feedback to be applied immediately in order to get applications tuned all the time.

I assess the effectiveness of Microsoft Azure SQL Database's security features in meeting compliance standards as compliant with our security rules.

I have not seen Azure Active Directory integration and Azure Key Vault help manage data security.

The capability with SQL Server for transitioning legacy systems to SQL Databases is important to me as we depend on a famous database technology such as Oracle, but we need to mix and match our technologies in terms of databases and SQL as well, such as Azure SQL, in order to have heterogeneous environments, not depending on one solo vendor. We are trying to move a mid-tier or a small tier to Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

My advice to other organizations considering Microsoft Azure SQL Database is to move a mid-tier or a small team to Microsoft Azure SQL Database. I give this review an overall rating of seven.

Public Cloud

Microsoft Azure

My main use cases for Microsoft Azure SQL Database are third-party applications.

The features of Microsoft Azure SQL Database that I appreciate the most are Availability Groups.

My organization benefits from consolidation efforts with these features.

Active Directory integration and Azure Key Vault have helped manage data security.

User permissions authentication to Microsoft Azure SQL Database is something that has been helpful.

I have no comments at the moment on how Microsoft Azure SQL Database can be improved.

I have no comments on additional features that I would like to see released in the next release.

I do not have any comments at this time.

I have been using Microsoft Azure SQL Database for less than a year.

I have not used Microsoft Azure SQL Database intelligence features.

Regarding my experience with SQL Database Automatic Tuning, I have not used it yet.

I have not raised any issues regarding customer service and technical support.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate customer service technical support a seven.

I would probably give that rating based on my previous history opening up other support cases with Microsoft.

Positive

Prior to adopting Microsoft Azure SQL Database, I was using on-premises SQL Server environments to address similar needs.

The adoption of more Azure services led me to consider a change.

I have no comments describing my experience with deploying Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

I faced no challenges, but it was seamless because I already had Microsoft Entra and Active Directory set up with seamless permissions and an established environment.

Before selecting Microsoft Azure SQL Database, I considered Postgres.

What stood out to me in my evaluation process was the ease of getting the third-party application to support SQL Server.

I am currently looking into transitioning legacy systems to Microsoft Azure SQL Database to perform an on-premises migration from SQL infrastructure to Azure SQL.

In this particular use case with Microsoft Azure SQL Database, it actually moves many of the hurdles away. Hosting these types of databases on-premises can be challenging, but if you have the ability to do it on Azure, that is beneficial, and it also removes security obstacles as well.

I have no comments on anything they can improve on, change, or any additional release I would like to see.

I would rate this review an eight overall.

On-premises

Microsoft Azure

The primary use case is working for a government client that receives a lot of data and information from all the states. They process these documents using Azure and Power Virtual Agents to retrieve information and store it in Azure SQL. Previously, we used it for .NET applications, and some of our core applications involved SharePoint, which has an SQL back end. The solution has a broad range. 

Due to the continuous influx of data, we chose Azure SQL for faster processing. SQL Server has significantly improved organizational operations. Previously, managers had to manually review and manage thousands of records weekly, which is a slow process. 

SQL Server's ability to automate data processing and validation through virtual agents and integration with other Microsoft applications like Power Virtual Agents and Azure SQL has dramatically improved efficiency. It has expedited the data processing and validation, allowing managers to focus on strategic tasks.

The Power Virtual Agents help us go through documents and load data into SQL.

The next stage is to create chatbots for customers to send us information. This automation has been a fantastic improvement over previous manual processes

The document storage is primarily relational, which is not ideally suited for SQL. If there were better integration with SharePoint for document handling in SQL, it would greatly benefit the organization. Moreover, the current on-premise limitations prevent direct file pulling, limiting certain capabilities.

We have used Azure SQL for around four years.

One reason we chose Azure SQL was its scalability. We started with a few gigabytes of data, but we anticipate growth once we integrate chatbots and AI features, making Azure's scalability features like Elasticity essential.

We had a positive experience with Microsoft support during implementation.

Positive

The installation was smooth. We faced a few minor challenges on the government level with opening the firewalls for SQL to communicate with our applications. The cloud implementation is straightforward. 

The Microsoft FastTrack team played an integral role in the implementation, providing valuable guidance and expertise.

Data from SQL was previously pulled for different applications built on Java by creating APIs. We also prefer SQL because we have existing enterprise licenses with the government.

I would rate Microsoft Azure SQL Database nine out of 10.

I provision the database, perform all the necessary security checks, and then provide access to the application teams that will consume it.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database is effective for availability, scalability, and security. The Software as a Service model is more effective and easier to access in terms of security, as Azure provides security at the security layer, reducing the risk of breach. Autoscaling is fantastic, automatically scaling up or down depending on usage parameters set. The database's security features depend on the pricing tiers chosen.

Pricing could be improved to make Microsoft Azure SQL Database more accessible. A reduction in price might encourage more users and bring more profit. Instead of a 20% or 30% reduction immediately, a gradual reduction could attract more users.

I have worked with Microsoft Azure SQL Database for approximately six years.

I haven't encountered any downtime issues. Changing parameters automatically scales up or down the database without any interruptions.

I have never encountered any challenges regarding stability. The database is very stable and straightforward.

The database is extremely scalable, allowing seamless scaling up or down with a simple change in parameters. It's a perfect ten out of ten in terms of scalability.

During my years of experience, I've never encountered an issue with Microsoft Azure SQL Database that I couldn't resolve, so I haven't needed to contact customer support.

Positive

The initial setup is very easy, given that all parameters and requirements from the application units are in place.

The pricing of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is not cheap, affecting user uptake. A gradual reduction in price could improve accessibility and user numbers, making it easier for users to adopt the solution.

I have previous experience with 3PAR and StoreOnce from HPE.

I advise users to adopt Microsoft Azure SQL Database, as it simplifies life for users and applications. Applications can connect from anywhere, and it reduces headaches for administrators and infrastructure teams. The disaster recovery plan and backup features are easily enabled. The overall rating is nine out of ten, considering pricing concerns.

Public Cloud

Microsoft Azure

Our primary use case for Microsoft Azure SQL Database is storing customer data and information for user accounts.

It has significantly streamlined our disaster recovery plans, making it much more straightforward to spin up new instances as opposed to setting up a new VM with all necessary packages. The normal cost of our VMs with storage has been significantly reduced.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database is fairly easy to use and set up for our DBA teams, who use it for various applications and tools like RabbitMQ. It's easier than standing up an individual VM or installing SQL directly on a machine. We spend less time spinning up the infrastructure. 

While we don't use GenAI, I think it would integrate well with Azure SQL Database because it works well with other Azure applications, but I don't think it would impact us much.

We've had many concurrency issues with it, particularly with applications that do a lot of parallel processing. We noticed that sometimes the Azure SQL databases would spike and peak their CPU units, causing some performance issues for us. It would be helpful if CPU performance were not pinned to the amount of storage you're using, and we could scale different properties of the Azure SQL database independently.

I have been using Microsoft Azure SQL Database for three years.

While latency and availability are fine, we've faced constraints with compute capacity unable to handle our required IOPS.

I think Azure SQL is on the right track. It works well, but we've had issues scaling when parallel processes hit the same database. Large datasets with hundreds of terabytes have caused issues.

We haven't required much support due to our familiarity with Azure SQL Database, aside from a couple of hardware issues.

Neutral

Our biggest challenge is connecting developers to the database. A lot of them weren't familiar with Azure networking, so we had to work a lot with that.

We've reduced costs by about 20 percent after two or three years. We've saved on licenses and also storage costs.

I rate Microsoft Azure SQL Database seven out of 10. It streamlines technical work significantly, reducing turnaround time for standing up a new database from six hours to 30 minutes. Training for developers is crucial when implementing this solution.

Public Cloud

Microsoft Azure

We primarily use Microsoft Azure SQL Database for application databases for web applications and sometimes native iOS and Android platforms. We also employ it for the backend and analytics, often migrating data over to Fabric and One Lake for Power BI analytics.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database is quite impactful as we use it for most projects. 

I like that Microsoft Azure SQL Database is almost identical to an on-premise SQL Server except for a few things, like how you edit rows and some jobs that you can't run. It has some useful features and integrations, like Microsoft Fabric.

They could improve Azure SQL by adding some of the features available on-prem, such as cross-database queries and the ability to run particular jobs. We need to migrate those to something else, like a function or logic app. 

Data transformation units are also confusing to sell to our clients because they're these weird, nebulous things. Do you need five or 50? 

I have been using Microsoft Azure SQL Database since it first started in 2009.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database does not seem to have any significant latency issues and handles millions of rows well.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database scales well, allowing us to increase our compute level or add more instances as required.

The learning resources and documentation provided by Microsoft are very helpful. There are many free learning segments and videos available to guide users through various aspects of Azure SQL Database.

Positive

I worked with SQL Server since version 6.5 in the late nineties and have continued to use it through various versions. I have also used other database platforms like ADB and MongoDB, but I prefer SQL Server due to its superior tools and features. I've used Cosmos DB for a few things, and we use Azure AI Search, a cognitive search pronounced by a different name. So use that, you know, Azure AI services. 

Azure SQL and Cosmos DB are our main solutions unless the client wants to use Oracle, Postgres, or MySQL. We will use whatever they want to use. On the analytics side, we use Fabric and One Lake, and we do the analytics of Power BI.

If we use a smaller or free-sized Microsoft Azure SQL Database, it is extremely cost-effective and much cheaper than on-premise enterprise licenses, which are expensive.

Other database solutions I have used include Cosmos DB for certain AI applications, as well as Oracle, Postgres, and MySQL when clients prefer those solutions.

I started working with SQL at SQL Server six point five in the late nineties. So, I mean, I went to SQL seven, two thousand, and then, you know, just been using it ever since. I've used other platforms, like I said, with ADB and, like, even with MongoDB and DevOps. It's just kinda my favorite one. I like the tools the best. Yeah. Seeking Server Management Studio is probably the best IDE out there for databases. All the other ones, are a little bit slow and clunky. Okay. So

I would rate Microsoft Azure SQL Database a nine out of 10.

Public Cloud

Microsoft Azure