Microsoft Azure SQL Database Reviews

I work for a service-based company that helps businesses migrate their applications to the cloud. So, we're implementers. We help with the migration process. 

We primarily use Azure SQL when migrating data from legacy systems to the cloud based on customer preferences. If customers are looking for an Azure solution, we often recommend a Dedicated SQL pool based on their specific requirements. This allows them to store their data in cloud storage services and access it easily through the database.

Specifically for Azure SQL, I appreciate the detailed information available for different formats and the high data availability.

The data availability and speed are impressive, especially compared to legacy systems. The loading speeds are much faster on Azure SQL.

And for other Azure databases like Snowflake, the various features are helpful for development and testing. They allow us to create environments easily and with minimal cost, while maintaining high availability.

The user interface (UI) could be more flexible. It's not that the data access or storage format is bad, but the UI feels clunky and isn't up to par with other tools.

I've been using Azure SQL and Synapse for the past two years. It's also known as a dedicated SQL pool. That's the one we're using for data warehouse support.

For the past two years, I've been using both Azure Synapse Analytics and Dedicated SQL pool, writing code, and utilizing other Azure services. But these two are the ones primarily related to data warehouses and databases.

Stability is high. We haven't faced any outages or downtime during my time using it. So, I'd give it a nine out of ten for stability.

We did have some issues with data backups. Unlike traditional systems where backups were routine, with SQL Azure, managing data backups became an additional task. So, there have been issues with replication. But apart from that, scalability has been good.

I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten. We have enterprise businesses as our clients. 

I also use Snowflake, which is an individual cloud database. I have experience with other cloud data warehouses like Azure Data Factory, Azure Synapse Analytics, and SQL databases. I use Synapse and upload SQL code to it.

I would rate my initial setup a nine out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy. So, the setup is easy. 

Deployment took an hour. 

My clients have seen an ROI.

Compared to other providers, it's definitely on the affordable side. 

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

We use SQL Azure to store our relational data. Whenever I have complex relational data with consistency requirements, I use SQL Azure Database.

I'm currently working in a small startup. There are just two people using this solution now: a developer and myself. I'm working as a technical consultant and an architect.

Microsoft recently added a JSON feature. I use all the features in a normal relational database, and they're very helpful. I prefer using Microsoft SQL Server because I like the experience and the way Microsoft handles the query tuning and security. These are really good features for database experts.

One of the nice features in Microsoft SQL Server is the SQL Server CLR, which we sometimes need to protect our procedures using C# or CLR. This feature isn't available in the SQL Azure database. It's available in the Managed Instance in the Azure Database.

You can create SOAR procedures using C# and can get user-defined functions using C#. You can extend the database and the data files using CLR files. This feature isn't available on the Microsoft Azure SQL Database. I understand they can't add it because it's a managed service, and having CLR probably doesn't work for them, but it would be nice if they could add this feature.

I have used this solution for almost six years.

I would rate the stability as eight out of ten.

It is very scalable, depending on how much you're willing to pay. We can have up to 4,000 DTUs, but we haven't needed that much scalability.

We had an instance where we weren't able to deploy Cosmos DB on a UAE data center, and Microsoft helped us. We haven't had any issues so far with technical support.

Setup is straightforward. You just create an SQL Server instance account on Azure, and then you can create SQL databases. It's very easy to create tables and procedures. I mainly use the SQL data buckets inside Visual Studio. From there, I deploy databases to Azure from Visual Studio.

It's easy to do the deployment in-house. Visual Studio provides a lot of functionality to make deploying solutions to Azure simple and easy.

Using SQL Server database with all the features will provide a good return on investment. Once you move to Azure, you remove all the capital expenses by having to acquire the license and deploy it on-premises.

When you go with SQL Azure Database, you can create a small database, which is around $4 to $5 per month for development purposes. It's very cheap in that respect. I think it's a little bit expensive compared to other services that Microsoft offers on Azure. PostgreSQL, MySQL, and MariaDB are a bit cheaper than SQL Server.

If the price were lower, I think it would become more attractive for developers to use.

I would rate this solution as eight out of ten. 

It's a very easy solution. Microsoft also has Data Explore. The entire Microsoft environment makes things easy for developers. It's very easy to set up SQL on Azure. I highly recommend it. I really like it, and I've been working with SQL Server since 2000.

We have a web application that we deploy on Azure, and we use SQL Azure as a database to store the data.

Since SQL Azure is a stable solution, you do not need to spend time to maintain it.

The solution’s pricing needs improvement because it is too high.

I have been using SQL Azure for less than three years.

I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.

Less than 100 users use the solution in our organization.

I rate the solution a seven or eight out of ten for scalability.

Microsoft provides good and quick technical support.

The solution's initial setup is easy and takes less than one hour.

SQL Azure is an expensive solution.

We use the solution to store not really big data, and the database is less than one gigabyte. The solution's integration with other Azure services is easy because it just needs a connection string to connect. SQL Azure is deployed on the cloud.

Users who can afford its price should use SQL Azure because it reduces setup time. Since it is a stable solution, you do not need to spend time to maintain it.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

About 25 people in my office use SQL Azure. Including customers, there are about 400-500 people.

We have multiple applications running for our customers that we can integrate into Azure SQL.

Scalability is an issue because we can't upgrade to new versions due to hardware limitations. 

I've been using SQL Azure for a couple of years.

I rate SQL Azure nine out of 10 for stability because we haven't faced any major issues.

I rate SQL Azure six out of 10 for scalability.

We haven't used technical support because we haven't faced any major challenges, but I would rate their documentation and knowledge base eight out of 10. 

Positive

I rate SQL Azure eight out of 10 for ease of setup. In the worst-case scenario, deployment takes a few days. A couple of employees could do it easily. Usually, it's an admin and a developer. 

I rate SQL Azure six out of 10 for ROI. We've seen a 40-50% ROI

I rate SQL Azure eight out of 10 for affordability. I live in a developing country where cost is always an issue. The price should be negotiable, and there should be more discounts.

I rate SQL Azure eight out of 10. I recommend it because we haven't faced any major issues. 

I'm using SQL Azure mostly for database purposes, including data modeling, data architecture for business applications, and also for Data Lake.

What I like about SQL Azure is that it's similar to your on-premises SQL databases. It's not much different, so it's easy to start quickly on the solution if you know Microsoft SQL. I find its ease of use most valuable, and I also like that SQL Azure is also easily integrated with the Azure Cloud platform.

What would make SQL Azure better is users having the capability of managing the database solution from the cloud, instead of having to do it from an actual machine because currently, database management via SQL Azure is done on a virtual machine or a PC. The solution should have the data functionality of managing SQL databases inside the cloud.

I've been using SQL Azure for almost six years now.

SQL Azure is a stable solution.

SQL Azure is a scalable solution.

The technical support for SQL Azure is pretty good because it's from Microsoft. Based on the subscription you have, support would be included, and if you have a premium subscription with Microsoft, you can get all the support you need.

SQL Azure is easy to set up because it's already part of your cloud infrastructure. You don't need to do any installation.

Your return on investment from SQL Azure would depend on your business applications. The solution will give you more scalability, and more functionality, and would reduce costs from on-premises to cloud databases, so there are a lot of cost reductions. As SQL Azure is pay-per-use, you can control your cost, so in terms of the return on investment, it's more centrally managed in the cloud, which means you don't need so many data warehouses to be managed separately in the infrastructure. You can reduce your infrastructure costs through SQL Azure as Microsoft has taken care of the infrastructure costs.

In terms of the cost, SQL Azure is a pay-per-use solution, particularly because it's a cloud subscription, so you pay as much as you use it, but I cannot give a number because I don't manage the cost or the price for this solution.

My company is using the cloud version of SQL Azure, so it's always the latest version.

There are thousands of people using the solution for business applications. My client is a big company with at least one thousand users of SQL Azure.

In terms of maintaining the solution, it's already managed as a Microsoft-managed product, so in that sense, you don't need people to maintain SQL Azure, but for the application database, you need one person for maintenance.

My advice to others looking into implementing the product is that if you are building a solution on Microsoft Cloud, you should choose SQL Azure for your data warehouse, database for your application, and your enterprise Data Lake needs.

My rating for SQL Azure is nine out of ten.

My company is a service company, so it's a partner, a customer, and a reseller.

We are using this solution for analytics and business intelligence.

The solution is deployed on-prem and on cloud. The cloud provider is Microsoft.

There are tens of thousands of users. In my market in Poland, there are maybe 1,000 using the application based on the solution.

It's user-friendly. Compared to other solutions, it's based more on clicks, not on scripts. It's easy to manage.

There could be more collaboration with other tools like Data Factory and Databricks.

I have been using this solution for 20 years.

It's stable.

It's scalable, but it could be better.

I don't use support because the documentation is very good, and the solution is easy to manage.

In Azure, deployment takes minutes. It's easy.

The cost is around $2,000 per month.

I would rate this solution 8 out of 10.

My advice is to read the documentation and blogs.

Our primary use case is for content management and publishing offsite for external users. We also use it as the intranet to get the largest professional view of the SharePoint version.

In SQL we tend to do normal queries. The features we use quite a bit are the backup and monitoring and also the export and import tools for data. We use all of these on a daily basis.

We're still discovering aspects of the solution. We haven't yet deployed all of the components, so I'm not sure of what additional features we'd like to see.

The stability is good and the performance is fantastic. Even when we try to do an inquiry into issues we can do it easily. The administration of the tool itself is perfect and the performance is good. On the safety level, we have layers of a firewall. I think this makes it more secure, to help secure the level of encryption and the encryption of the data itself. 

We deploy the solution on four machines and are using VMware. We can continue to add on top of this as much as we like. Scalability isn't a problem at all.

We have many layers of technical support, starting with us and our own team. The vendor of our region also provides support if we need it.

The initial setup is complex.

We had to do some data collecting and we had issues with having redundant databases, meaning we had to do some synchronization between the databases. We did the integration of the networks and handled the clustering on top of the components of SQL. At the beginning we faced some issues, especially getting the servers to talk to each other. We needed to do some workarounds, but ultimately we were successful.

We did the implementation ourselves. 

We have a three-year contract. The cost was somewhere around $70-80,000 for the original deployment, which was about two years ago. In the future, we may need to expand our license to include more company employees.

We did a survey for seeing what technologies were in the market. We ended up with Microsoft because of the general business requirements. Also, we could add the components to the solution for product management. We could add document management, for example, and many other alternatives that covered various business requirements. We ended up with this solution because of the ability to utilize the components. We also had the flexibility of using other plug-ins that helped with the commercial aspects of the business.

We use the private cloud version of the solution.

I would rate the solution nine out of ten. I would recommend it.

I am using SQL Azure for migrating existing SQL Databases into the cloud. 

The most valuable features of SQL Azure are its reliability and quick scalability.

SQL Azure could improve the feature set. They are catching up to Microsoft SQL Server.

I have used SQL Azure for approximately nine years.

SQL Azure is highly reliable and stable. I have not had a problem.

I rate the stability of SQL Azure a ten out of ten.

The solution is highly scalable.

SQL Azure offers a large number of scalability targets, such as memory and CPUs, and the disc given is highly configurable. The speed it takes to scale from one level to the next is fast.

We have approximately 100 people using the solution, which are mostly virtual developers.

We plan to increase our usage, we are migrating Google databases to SQL Databases.

I rate the scalability of SQL Azure a nine out of ten.

The support is good, but sometimes it takes a while to receive the resolution.

I rate the support of SQL Azure an eight out of ten.

Positive

I was previously using SQL Server.

You are responsible for managing SQL Server on your own. Furthermore, although you have paid for the SQL Server license, it is now based on the number of cores and can be quite costly. However, it has more features than SQL Azure.

The initial setup of SQL Azure is simple because it is in the cloud. There is not a lot to set up. If you do it manually, it can take five minutes. If it is done through DevOps pipelines, such as TerraForm, then it could take twenty seconds.

I rate the initial setup of SQL Azure a nine out of ten.

The price of the solution is reasonable.

The affordability of the solution allows for the swift and effortless creation of proof of concept projects to determine if it is suitable for their needs.

SQL Azure has all the enterprise features I need. To create enterprise solutions for a fairly good price point.

I rate SQL Azure a nine out of ten.