Microsoft Azure SQL Database Reviews

My main use case for Microsoft Azure SQL Database is to connect source data for our APIs and hydrate different things for that.

I appreciate Microsoft Azure SQL Database because I enjoy SQL. It works well out of the box, and I know what I'm getting. The product functions as expected without requiring much maintenance.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database benefits my company on a day-to-day basis as it serves as an excellent place to store our database and data. I would appreciate the ability for all teams to operate on one database instead of several different systems. Microsoft Azure SQL Database is one of those solutions that helps consolidate our infrastructure, though unfortunately it is not the only solution we use.

I think Microsoft Azure SQL Database can be improved, but I do not use it frequently enough to identify significant pain points.

In my area of expertise, I have been working for about three years, and in my current position, I have been using Microsoft Azure SQL Database for only about one year.

Regarding reliability, I would generally consider Microsoft Azure SQL Database quite reliable in maintaining uptime and availability.

My impressions of Microsoft Azure SQL Database's ability to scale workloads are positive. I think it works very well with no complaints.

Microsoft's expertise in SQL Server is very good when considering cloud database options. I have not used the support myself, but the documentation is very up-to-date. If I ever need to look something up, it is quite easy to find.

Positive

We have different solutions implemented across our organization. I know that we have some relational and some non-relational options, which is probably part of the reason for having multiple systems. The main differences between those solutions and SQL would be the relational versus non-relational aspect. We use a lot of legacy software, so that probably plays into some compatibility aspect. Beyond that, I am not certain about other differences.

Other than the relational versus non-relational distinctions, I am not entirely clear on why we maintain these different solutions.

The migration and deployment process of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is quite straightforward. If I ever encounter issues, Copilot is quite helpful, as is the documentation. I would not say it is very complicated.

From my point of view, the biggest return on investment with Microsoft Azure SQL Database is that it is great to store our customer data and everything for our different products and be able to access that easily as we want to. I do not know what we put into it, so I am not certain what that looks like from an ROI perspective. However, it works smoothly, I have no complaints, and it is a good database solution.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database has probably helped reduce my company's total cost of ownership.

I have never looked at the pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

I am not considering switching away from Microsoft Azure SQL Database or conducting a proof of concept of another solution.

I would rate Microsoft Azure SQL Database as a five on a scale from one to five in terms of ease of use.

I assess Microsoft Azure SQL Database's ability to integrate with other Microsoft applications as excellent, with no complaints.

I have not had hands-on experience with Microsoft Azure SQL Database working with AI. I know that functionality exists, and part of what I am trying to focus on at Ignite this year is learning how I can integrate different AI solutions and workflows with Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

I am not using the automatic tuning feature in Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

I do not know what impact Microsoft Azure SQL Database's security features have on my data protection strategies, if any.

I am not using the data encryption feature on Microsoft Azure SQL Database, or at least not knowingly.

I have not used the backup and restore functionalities of Microsoft Azure SQL Database. Our database engineers have touched that before, but I have never used it. It seems to work as intended.

We are still using other solutions alongside Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

My advice for other companies that are considering Microsoft Azure SQL Database is to go for it, especially if you are using other Microsoft products. It seems to integrate with everything very well, and it just works.

I have rated this review a nine out of ten overall.

We primarily use SQL on Azure for reporting and incident situation awareness around our area. It's utilized for public information dissemination regarding different safety programs, ensuring nothing too complicated or in-depth.

Azure SQL is easy to integrate and simplifies things from a licensing perspective. We're comfortable with SQL versus other types of databases, so we feel better talking to Microsoft.

Reporting and incident situation awareness around our area and just reporting public information. The database seamlessly integrates with other Microsoft applications like SharePoint Online, PowerApps, and PowerFlow. We don't have to worry about maintenance, such as patching the servers. Leveraging other Microsoft technologies outside of our network is a lot easier.

It's a lot easier to create databases. There are some limitations in terms of permissions, but you can create databases by clicking a few buttons. You only need to provide the user authentication, and that's it.

Adding users to Azure SQL could be easier. You need to script it out, but it would be nice if it had a UI where you can click and add them. It's not a major thing because we script things all the time, but it would be a minor thing that helps us.

I have been using SQL on Azure for about ten years.

I haven't encountered any real latency issues. Our internal database is heavily utilized, but externally on the Azure SQL, we don’t push it to its limit.

Based on our limited use cases, Azure SQL appears highly scalable without any issues.

It's really a non-factor at this point, as we are comfortable with the system's ease of use.

Positive

I've used MySQL and other databases before, but our organization decided to go with Microsoft, and it felt natural due to my background as a .NET developer.

The initial setup was straightforward, and the integration process has become much easier over time.

I rate Microsoft Azure SQL Database nine out of 10. 

The primary use cases for Microsoft Azure SQL Database are to establish relational databases in the cloud and database-focused applications that are cloud-ready.

SQL has been a game changer for many of the organizations I have worked for. It is very easy to implement, manage, and offers great insights into what is happening inside the engine. 

Microsoft Azure SQL Database is integrated into other Azure capabilities and has a great foundation being on SQL Server with a long history of security, performance, and usability from a DBA perspective. 

Once you've set up a server, adding databases is easy. There's a minor challenge with having data in separate databases that you want to connect like we do on premises.

I'm looking forward to using some of these new AI-driven functions that have come out around vectorization. Having the data closer to my transactional databases or data makes it easy to augment and enhance the Database and applications I currently use.

It's great that Azure SQL now seamlessly integrates with Microsoft Fabric. It's a first-tier service in the cloud that connects to web applications and other databases. The data transformation orchestration capabilities within Database Factory and similar capabilities make it effortless to move that stuff forward.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database could improve by having better tooling in terms of connecting to other database platforms and better capabilities around programmable interfaces. There should be more fine-tuning on the storage layer. I would like to see T-SQL improvements to automatically translate features from other database platforms for easier migration, as well as some improvements around column store and native capabilities like those in Iceberg and PowerK built into the SQL Server product.

I have used Microsoft Azure SQL Database for about seven years.

The latency in the cloud is great, but it increases for hybrid applications. I hope this will improve over time, potentially due to changes in the networking stack in Azure

Microsoft Azure SQL Database scales well within paid limits, but once size restrictions and top-tier thresholds are hit, transitioning becomes difficult. It would be beneficial if it could scale without a difficult transition process.

The expertise and support from Microsoft, especially at conferences and through documentation on their website, are valuable. They have invested significantly, although there is room for more investment in training materials to ensure our people are well-trained and have information readily available for managing the solution.

It is much better than the other database platforms that we have used.

Migrating our data and that of our customers from on-premises to the cloud was seamless. Azure Hybrid Benefit helped make the transition straightforward, particularly in like-to-like scenarios.

We had some trouble with SQL Agent and maintenance capabilities. It was difficult to transition those into the cloud, so we had to reinvent a couple of things because they weren't available in the cloud. There was a cost, and there was some confusion a number of times about what the expectation should be when it goes into the cloud.

SQL Server has helped to significantly reduce the total cost of ownership. In one company that I led, we reduced costs from $20 million to about $5 million per year.

Azure Hybrid Benefit reduced costs by facilitating an easy transition of on-premises databases to the cloud. Licensing discussions were straightforward, minimizing the challenges of moving data to the cloud.

I would rate the overall solution between eight and nine, as it covers the majority of our needs and competes better than most other databases we use.

Currently, SQL is our main database repository within the bank. All of our client data is stored on the SQL database, and it's the main database we use in the field. Most of our critical systems are on SQL databases.

Our migration to Azure for most databases has increased our organization's efficiency and reduced the maintenance required to manage on-premises infrastructure. With on-premises infrastructure, you have to build and maintain your setup. It has reduced our downtime. We've improved our productivity because we can automate database deployments and script execution within the database.

SQL is easy to use and easily integrates with many systems. There aren't many code changes needed when you're using SQL databases. Integrating Azure SQL with other Microsoft applications is instant because they're all Microsoft solutions. 

There isn't any new improvement that I can think of at the moment. We have different deployment choices, such as running SQL on an Azure VM or deploying SQL-managed instances. The managed instance is a significant improvement over running SQL in an Azure VM.

I have used Azure SQL for about four years.

Initially, we had latency issues with SQL databases because we hadn't optimized the platform. Over time, we overcame these challenges with support, and now we no longer experience latency issues. We can't tell the difference between running on-prem or Azure because we no longer have those latency issues.

Azure SQL databases allow easy scaling. Microsoft manages the underlying infrastructure in a managed instance environment, so all you consume is the database. Resources like storage automatically scale up without any manual intervention.

We have an enterprise agreement with Microsoft, which provides us with excellent support. Microsoft played a significant role, even from a training perspective, and provided resources that directed us toward the right deployment path.

Positive

Deploying Azure SQL is straightforward. We had a few challenges, but Microsoft offers an excellent training program. They ensured we got the training to understand the deployment. For example, we wanted to deploy the traditional framework clusters, but Microsoft pointed us in the right direction to raise our resources.

It's hard to quantify because we didn't calculate the costs when we were on-premises, but it may have lowered the total cost of ownership because you only purchase the storage you need and pay for what you're using. If you're managing your own data center, you always have to overprovision your systems and pay for storage space you're not using. I think it's cost-efficient.

I would rate the overall solution an eight out of ten.

Our primary use case for Microsoft Azure SQL Database is to bring up our products and run them on Azure as we have our own TCX products. We have been using AWS in the back end, but we are now expanding to Microsoft Azure.

The native SQL runs great on Microsoft, and the integration with Microsoft applications like Office makes it seamless.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database significantly reduces our operational overhead, freeing us from backup worries and allowing us to focus on other priorities. Additionally, SQL Managed Instance provides clear usage visibility and enables on-demand scaling to meet our evolving needs.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database is our go-to database for our products, such as SQL or Oracle. The usability, ease of use, and fine-tuning are beneficial, especially for our IO-intensive application. It empowers us by running our availability through the product side.

Provisioning the instance, connecting to it, and deploying full-stack applications end-to-end on Azure is much easier than AWS. 

Azure SQL provides built-in security and useful troubleshooting tools for identifying and taking action whenever issues arise.

We need improvement in the latency between availability zones. The managed SQL MI does not allow us to control the zone it runs in, which affects latency. It's crucial for us that customers should not be concerned about which availability zone it's running as long as the response time and latency are consistent.

I've been using Microsoft Azure SQL Database for approximately three months.

We experience some latency issues.

We are working on a scalability performance test for SQL MI and comparing it with AWS.

We are expanding our cloud infrastructure from AWS to include Microsoft Azure. Azure's managed database services eliminate the operational overhead of running our own database, allowing us to quickly deploy and connect to pre-configured instances without manual tuning or backups.

The setup is straightforward, being a managed service, so operational overhead is minimized.

We anticipate seeing savings as we start using Microsoft Azure SQL more extensively.

I would rate Microsoft Azure SQL Database eight out of ten. Our experience has been good overall, except for the latency issue. If latency issues are resolved in future releases, I would rate it higher.

Microsoft's expertise in SQL Server is a significant advantage. Their resources are beneficial, and a primary reason for choosing SQL MI is the reduced operational overhead. By eliminating the need for a dedicated database administration team, we can avoid the costs and complexities associated with managing and distributing the database. This is a crucial factor in our decision-making process.

We use nearly all of Azure's services, including virtual machines, application gateways, firewalls, load balancers, and SQL Managed Instances. Our projects involve a comprehensive engagement with the Azure platform.

We're a healthcare organization hosting EHR systems like NextGen, Allscripts, Athena, and ECW, which require an SQL back end. We have a lot of NextGen clients who need a production SQL Server, a reporting server, and maybe a test server. We set up AO clusters if they have enterprise licensing, and we also do physical servers, depending on the client. 

We use Nutanix infrastructure and are moving more to Azure and AWS. We integrate SQL Servers for our clients, matching set-ups with their financial capacity and licensing. 

Overall, Azure SQL has been great. The ease of deployment and scalability are significant reasons we push our larger clients to Azure. We could throw the kitchen sink at the thing if we wanted. 

We use Azure Hybrid Benefit, depending on the client. We work with many nonprofits, and we always make reservations because you save tons of money. Normally, when we do our initial deployment, the first month's bill is sky-high. We build out the environment and servers, then we do the reservations. Of course, we will enable the hybrid licensing depending on the client. It saves time because everything is in one pane of glass it just simplifies the deployment of things. 

Azure SQL has improved our productivity. We try to customize with alerts to gain visibility into SQL. We have dedicated DBAs to do the SQL coding work, especially when it comes to specific EHRs or client-specific.

The deployment was straightforward, and the overall experience was very positive. I feel like I could do SQL migrations blindfolded. We onboard a lot of clients that have as many as 1,500 users. We're migrating from our private cloud to Azure or AWS, so it all goes hand in hand. I'm typically not involved with deployment. Once they set up the SQL clusters, I ensure everything runs like it did before. 

We're starting to implement more AI solutions. For example, we have a custom dev team that does live archiving. If the EHR system goes down, they have another way to access patient records and images. We have another new product called ChartAI that's integrated with AI to do dictation and handle things involving charts. It saves the practitioners and doctors time by automating processes and simplifying things. We integrate with multiple platforms across the board, and we've never had any issues. It's pretty seamless. 

Microsoft is at the forefront of databases, and everyone uses SQL. It's a reliable, solid platform.

Improvement could be made in the performance tools, offering a better overview of core issues like process activity and latency, as we currently rely on third-party tools and SQL jobs for monitoring and alerts. A comprehensive built-in solution for performance analysis would also be beneficial.

I have used SQL databases for around 20 years, and I have worked with my current organization for five years.

The latency and availability of Microsoft Azure SQL have been great. It's always been reliable. The only issue we've had has been connectivity between sites like the SonicWall locking up. SQL never crashes or suddenly becomes unavailable.

It's easy to scale Azure SQL. Scalability is critical because we can only scale so much in our private cloud. Our clients choose to have physical SQL clusters. Scalability is big for our large clients because we can always increase. 

We haven't had needed to open a ticket to customer service, but the great thing is that there's so much information online that you can troubleshoot your issues without getting support involved.

Positive

I have the deployment down to a science. We cut everything over and build it from scratch on the other side. We use Nutanix Move to move SQL databases between data centers if needed and set up the core databases or the support server. The day of the cutover, we back it up, stop the database, and restore it. From there, we're putting all the SQL logins back in and doing the maintenance jobs. 

I've seen significant cost savings due to hybrid licensing and reservations. Initially, the costs might be high, but savings occur once everything is in place and reservations are applied.

It greatly reduces the total cost of ownership through efficient licensing depending on the client, the cost savings, and hybrid benefits. We aim for a blend of organizational and client-owned licensing.

I rate Microsoft Azure SQL 10 out of 10.

We use Microsoft Azure SQL Database mainly for the backend of the transaction of data. It is used for various sectors like healthcare, patient data, and ERP.

Azure SQL's user interface makes it easy to provision a database. It integrates well on the back end with our functions and logic apps. While Azure SQL is probably not a good fit for running AI-based applications on top of it, AI might provide better performance monitoring or bottleneck analysis. AI can help the SQL server operate better. 

There is a need for dynamic scaling support without losing current transactions. That should be part of the standard offering to SKUs. It doesn't have Auto SQL. We have HyperSQL, but there are limitations on the Elastic Pool. It only allows 25 databases. It would help if we could automatically analyze and optimize long-running queries instead of handling these tasks manually. 

We have been using Azure SQL Database for about 10 years.

For our solution, Microsoft Azure SQL Database has been accessible, though there are performance bottlenecks related to old code and long-running or poorly optimized queries.

Scaling is primarily manual unless using Elastic Pool. Automatic scaling without transaction loss is a desired feature. Scalability could be improved with auto scale options.

Our interaction with Microsoft has been limited as our team is experienced. However, we recently worked with Microsoft on the new database watcher feature and confirmed limits for the hyperscale with Elastic Pool.

Positive

Our solution was initially built for an on-premises data center using SQL Server as the backend. Moving to Azure, we continued with Azure SQL Database because it supports the majority of needed functionalities.

We used managed instances and standard offerings to manage the transition from on-prem data hosting to Azure, given the lack of auto-scaling.

Our internal DBA team handled the implementation, leveraging their expertise to ensure a smooth process.

Our main savings come from using Elastic Pool, which reduces costs by 30 to 40 percent for multiple databases and 10 percent from vCore provisioning. The serverless feature should save a lot, but the database is rarely paused or parked, so we don't save as much as we should. 

We do not use Azure Hybrid Benefits because of company policy. Hence, all licensing costs are associated with Azure SQL licensing rather than bringing on-prem licenses to Azure.

Options like Cosmos DB and vector databases are considered for AI applications. However, we stay with Azure SQL for transactional data stores.

I rate Microsoft Azure SQL Database nine out of 10. It's still missing some features, so I deducted one point. 

We use Microsoft Azure SQL Database to extract HR-related data from SAP and Dayforce, like salaries and employee information. This also involves maintaining different environments for previous ERP systems like AX Dynamics and transitioning to SAP in 2022. We have development databases for unvalidated or unapproved data, as well as production databases.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database has significantly improved our operations by allowing us to extract data and generate comprehensive reports in Power BI. This enables a high-level overview of our operations, which helps us look at the entire picture instead of analyzing individual orders line by line. This increased accessibility to data enhances productivity.

The ability to maintain different environments, such as development and production databases, is valuable. The ability to use the same interface when connecting to on-premises databases or data lakes is very convenient. It's easy to use Azure SQL. Writing queries is the same as on-prem SQL. 

Azure SQL's ability to power next-generation AI applications is pretty nice. They're doing previews now for all that stuff in Fabric, so I could take all the data from there instead of Power BI reports. We don't use that for machine learning.

Azure SQL integrates very well with other Microsoft applications. We have to take date from on-prem servers and forklift it into the cloud, which is pretty simple once you have it all set up. After that, it's copy and paste.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database could be improved by offering an easier way to view all existing roles in the database without needing complex queries found online.

The company has used Azure SQL for three or four years, while I have used the solution for around two years.

Overall, the stability is satisfactory. Even with a large amount of data, performance is generally quick. Adding an index resolves any speed issues that might arise.

Azure SQL's scalability is excellent, particularly when using Azure Data Factory for data transfer. Despite mainly storing the database, it is efficient for transactional purposes.

Migration isn't simple when doing some things in the cloud, like importing Excel data or workbooks. It's a lot easier with on-prem stuff than in the cloud. That would be a bigger hoop to jump through now. After you do it once, you understand what you need to do the next time.

The use of Microsoft Azure SQL Database has not significantly reduced total cost of ownership due to the manual process required for moving data out of SAP. However, it enhances productivity by allowing power users to manage data independently.

I rate Azure SQL Database eight out of 10.