Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Reviews

It's used for business case analysis and bandwidth utilization, etc. 

We are using its latest version.

It's feature-rich. It has a wide range of features. 

It's stable, but its stability could be better. However, we understand that it's in production, and new features are getting added and upgraded, so you do get hiccups sometimes.

I've been using this solution for more than four years.

It's quite stable. I'd rate it an eight out of ten in terms of stability. There are very few outages or errors during the configuration.

It's scalable. I'd rate it an eight out of ten in terms of scalability. Our clients are enterprises. 

I haven't contacted them, but it should be fairly good. I haven't had many issues with it.

I'd rate it a nine out of ten in terms of the setup. It has a GUI, which is awesome. Its deployment duration varies based on the case to case. We have quite a few SMEs for deployment. 

It doesn't require many people for maintenance.

It has been good so far. I'd recommend it to others. I'd rate it an eight out of ten.

I mainly use Synapse Analytics to gather data, do aggregations, and generate reports.

Synapse Analytics' best features are notebooks, pipelines, and monitoring.

An improvement to Azure Synapse would be more templates for specific domains. 

I've been using Synapse Analytics for four months.

Synapse Analytics is generally stable, but its performance can be slow when performing very large datasets.

Synapse Analytics is definitely scalable.

Microsoft's technical support is fast and responsive.

Previously, we used Databricks.

The initial setup was straightforward, and I would rate the experience as 4.5 out of 5.

We're getting a good ROI from Synapse Analytics.

I understand that Synapse Analytics' pricing is lower than Informatica's.

I also evaluated Informatica Cloud Integrations but felt that Synapse was more straightforward.

I would give Synapse Analytics a rating of nine out of ten.

I am the Associate Director of a company that is a partner of Synapse.

The solution offers strong scalability opportunities.

I would like to see more ready-to-use products from Synapse. Right now, everything seems a bit futuristic without much modern use.

The solution is scalable.

Price is dependent of the use case of the customer. Customers are not likely to only use this as an individual platform/database, they are likely to bundle it with the Azure stack.

Snowflake is a solution that is much more ahead of the game. There are many gaps in Synapse that Snowflake has fulfilled (i.e. usage, and storage).

Be sure to be clear about the ideal pipeline for Synapse, differentiate your needs, and validate based on use-case.

I would rate this solution a six out of ten overall.

We have been using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics as our proof of concept in our data warehouse. As for the analytics part, we have not used it because we do not have any SQL pools. We think it is a bit more than we need because our data is not implicated and the data sets are not very large. It is mostly been used for the detection functions and to link up the sources.

The most valuable features of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics are how easy and quick it is to set up the linked services.

When I was trying to link services to an SFTP site it was not able to do all the possible encryption that I needed. They can improve by adding more encryption options.

I have been using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics for approximately six months.

The solution is incredibly stable. 

The only thing that has not been stable are the pipelines that we are using runtime integration on our on-premise server and something is slowing everything down, it might be a particular ODBC connection. I am not sure if that is due to the Microsoft platform or it might be some other setup or settings that are causing the issue. However, other than this issue, the solution has been brilliant. It has been very reliable and stable.

The solution is scalable. I have changed the interface and most of the operations can be done from the interface by clicking a few buttons, it is quick and easy.

At the moment we only have approximately four people using the solution because it is a data warehouse creation in the back end. We have not reached the stage where our staff will use the product but we are building a single customer view using the platform and we will be increase usage in the future.

The initial installation is straightforward. There is a lot of documentation provided by Microsoft making it very easy to get started.

Having used the serverless option for the database has saved us a lot of money.

We chose the serverless option for the database which has saved us a lot of money. Our costs are approximately £600 per month.

It is beneficial to always plan exactly what the main aims are and then choose the solution that can do it. If you want something quick, I set something up without any knowledge with Azure in three weeks. Once you get going, everything will be at your fingertips.

I rate Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics an eight out of ten.

The healthcare sector is looking for how to accomplish certain processes because currently a lot of it is pure logistics. The goal is to announce and to make processes more transparent and see if they can be made more efficient. This is where business analytics comes in. The organization is using different kinds of information sources, such as electronic client dossiers or HR systems. They will see what kind of knowledge is required, how the patient or the clients are experiencing what quality of health, and create dashboards to see how the organization is doing. This will show which areas they can improve and which areas are already more efficient to make them more visible. This should allow a better understanding from the management, organization, and healthcare professional.

The features most valuable are the simplicity, how easy it is to create a dashboard from different information systems. We are trying to get these organizations to work with the architecture. This should allow these organizations if there is a new product or a new piece of software that is introduced to be able to handle operations themselves. For example, being able to attach the new product to a Power Bl, create a connector, or create interactive information exchange between these two or more different information systems. Standardization and simplicity, are key features.

The solution can integrate well if there is a connector. It will integrate perfectly with the Office 365 suite and Workspace 365.

Indicating what areas need improvement in this solution is a difficult question because the organizations that I am working for are really new in this area. However, an even better more simple interface, or perhaps an extension of a connector app store solution, would be helpful. For example, if your organization, has an electronic client dossier and you want to connect that information system in real-time towards Power BI, you just go to the app store and see if there is an ONS connector, introduce it, set it up, and go from there.

In an upcoming release, it would be beneficial to have the ability to have dashboards on mobile devices to receive a better experience for the user.

I have been using the solution for approximately five years.

This solution is reliable. You have to be aware that you are solely depending on an internet connection. The stability is more about the resilience and reliability of the stability of the network rather than the solution itself.

We have not tried to expand the solution into a very large extension because it is a rather small organization that I am working for. The Azure platform where Power BI is running on is expandable to whatever you like.

We have many organizations using this solution. The care organization I am working for has three customers using it. I am also working as an associate with another company and they have multiple organizations that are working with these solutions. My estimate would be approximately 15 organizations that are working with this solution.

We have plans to increase usage, but these organizations are all at the starting point. This is a strategic solution to improve their processes and business continuity. It is a conservative environment, every change is really hard. It is really stressful to get changes done and it will take some time. This solution changes the way in which work is done, it will take up to three to four years to be widely adopted.

If I ever have to do call Microsoft support, they are really supportive. For instance, on the Office 365 suite, I had an issue and I received a call back the next day by somebody in the United States. They walked me through the issue and they resolved it within a few hours. They have service-level agreements to attend to and there is good monitoring to see what the status is, the support was really good.

In the initial setup, to make it really easy I have, for instance, just a plain Excel sheet retrieving information in and one information system which brings in live data giving you a good starting point. It is not a really hard setup, to do it is quite straightforward. In the Netherlands, there are some major players concerning electronic client dossiers and electronic patient dossiers. Once you go through the complexity once you can then re-use it for a different customer.

The deployment just takes approximately two hours. It is the testing and the acceptance, and what to get out of the product, that is going to take a longer period of time. This could take up to a couple of weeks to a couple of months.

The type of license depends on what you want. This is a perpetual and monthly license, similar to Office 365.

My company pays for the license and  I am not sure about the price. Sometimes my company wants to have a micro business case study to see if it is an actual benefit for us to purchase. It is a strategic solution and we have to make sure that the organization understands this is going to save them money in the long run.

My advice to those wanting to implement this solution would be to "Think big and act small." See what is up ahead. One of the organizations that I am working for, the big picture is population health management. We are not going to start with that, we are going to start to improve one small process, which is a cumbersome process that is been difficult for many years. That is the process that we are going to make transparent towards the organization, to see where the bottlenecks could be or are, and improve that process. 

We want the user experience to improve and that the amount of time you can save is monitored, which can be used for other care processes. Start with a cumbersome problem, resolve them first. You can actually tell within the organization, if the solution is already working, not on the larger scale, but on the small scale. Once you start seeing these results move on to the next problem.

The solution is secure. However, the organization has to be aware that if you use the security by default, the security is there. It has security by design. It is not the optimal security, I would always recommend that organizations use multi-factor authentication for an additional security layer. Additionally, if possible, have a next-generation firewall within their network in use or, if not, start implementing that if they are planning to move forward into an outsource Azure platform-based eco landscape.

I rate Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics an eight out of ten.

We mostly provide cloud data warehousing platforms for major banks in Canada. What we're trying to do is to create a standard platform environment that is compliant with the regulatory requirements imposed by the government and financial overseeing institutions for the banks. We help them to onboard the lines of business to these platforms and migrate the existing workloads to the cloud platforms.

The ability to scale out services on-demand and scale them down when they are not required is most valuable. You are in control of your expenditures, and you are also in control of the horsepower that you need. That's a major advantage.

The major challenge that we're seeing with Azure Synapse is around security concerns. The way it is working right now, it has Managed VNet by Microsoft option, similar to the implementation of Azure Databricks, which may pose a concern for financial institutions. For managed environments, the banks have very strict policies around data being onboarded to those environments. For some confidential applications, the banks have the policy to encrypt it with their own key, so it is sort of like Bring Your Own Key, but it is not possible to manage the resources with Microsoft or Databricks, which is probably the major challenge with Azure Synapse.

There should be more compatibility with SQL Server. It should be easier to migrate solutions between different environments because right now, it is not really competitive. It is not like you can go and install SQL Database in some other environment. You will have to go through some migration projects, which probably is one of the major showstoppers for any bank. When they consider Synapse, they not only consider the investment in the actual service; they also consider the cost of the migration process.

When you scale out or scale down your system, it becomes unavailable for a few minutes. Because it is a data warehouse environment, it is not such a huge deal, but it would be great if they can improve it so that the platform is available during the change of configuration.

I have been using this solution for two years.

Generally, it is stable. We all heard about the Active Directory issue earlier this week, but it was not related to Synapse. It was related to the Azure platform.

Its scalability is good. The only thing is that when you scale out or scale down your system, it becomes unavailable for a few minutes. Because it is a data warehouse environment, it is not such a huge deal, but it would be great if they can improve it so that the platform is available during the change of configuration.

We're working with banks, and they have great support because Microsoft has multiple representatives closely monitoring each account. Whenever there is an issue, they're being proactive. They're making a lot of money out of it. Most of the banks, on average, spend between 30 to 50 million a year on Azure. They're pretty large accounts, and Microsoft has dedicated people supporting everything related to Azure.

We deliver platforms to different banks. Some of the banks go with Synapse, and some of the banks go with Snowflake. Overall, these are two major alternatives available right now.

There are multiple differences in terms of the support of different workloads. When one of the banks made a decision to go with Snowflake, the major reason for it was the support for the multi-cloud environment. The major pro of Synapse is the service, and the major con is that when you decide to move out of Synapse, you would have to rewrite the entire thing, whereas, with Snowflake, it would be just simple migration to different cloud providers.

It is relatively straightforward as long as you understand what you're doing.

You don't really need to maintain it. That's the entire point of the cloud. You pay for it to be maintained. 

We do deal with monitoring and other similar things, but most of the activities are automated. Overall, it doesn't require a lot of labor around it. We're delivering the platform as infrastructure as a cloud, so everything is going through the pipeline. 

It goes by the usage, and there are some limits. Synapse goes by particular pricing, and it is expensive. Both Azure Synapse Analytics and Snowflake are pretty expensive. They don't have standard pricing. They deal with each customer differently.

For working with Synapse, you need to have an understanding and knowledge of the product to take full advantage of it. Synapse has a lot of features in terms of scalability, such as resource management, distribution, and partitioning. There are a lot of things that you need to consider when you go for it. It is not a simple database that you put in there, and it is running itself. 

I would rate Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics a seven out of ten.

The stability of the solution is pretty good. It's one of the solution's most valuable aspects.

The useability, the user interface, is very user-friendly.

The solution needs to improve its integration capabilities. It needs better integration with SQL and other databases. 

The initial setup is complex.

The product needs to implement more machine learning and artificial intelligence.

If they had more IoT and streaming capabilities, it would be helpful.

The product could use more analytics tools.

It would be helpful if we could use the product with less coding.

Normally, the solution is quite stable. The performance is pretty good. We don't regularly deal with issues. It doesn't crash or freeze, and I can't recall any bugs or glitches.

The solution can scale, however, it is expensive to do so. If a company wants to expand, it will have to pay. Therefore, they should be prepared for that.

Currently, we have about 200 people using the solution.

I don't have a direct relationship with the technical support when I have a problem. They aren't very good. We aren't satisfied with the level of support we get.

The initial setup is not too straightforward. It's rather complex. We had to get some outside assistance.

The deployment process took us about three months. It was a while.

We hired a consultant to help us with the implementation of the solution.

I don't have exact KPIs on this, however, I need to improve the sizing in order to improve our ROI.

The is a monthly licensing fee. I can't speak to how much we actually pay, however.

There is just one fee. You do not have any more costs over and above that.

While we didn't previously evaluate other options, in 2021, we need to explore the other solutions. I intend to look at the Amazon and Google Cloud platforms as other options.

We are both partners and end-users of the product. We use it internally and we use it with some of our clients.

I would caution new users that there is one parameter they need to watch carefully. That is the size of the data warehouse. If you don't configure this parameter to be as small as possible, your costs will be quite high.

I would rate the solution at a seven out of ten. It's a stable platform, however, the price model is questionable in comparison to Amazon and Google and the contact with support is a problem for me. 

We're using this solution for general data integration. We are customers of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics and I'm a data specialist. 

I like the solution because it's very interactive and provides flexibility. It's mostly a drag-and-drop procedure. It also provides a lot of design choices.

We've only recently starting testing this solution and it would be helpful if the documentation was better or if the company could provide some kind of presentation to help us understand how the tool works and what's required to optimize use of the solution.

We've been testing this solution for a couple of months. 

I haven't seen any issues with stability or scalability. We have an infrastructure team of around 40 people. 

The company chose Synapse Analytics because the price is fair and I understand it's cheaper than Snowflake.

We're also hoping to evaluate Snowflake which is an advanced version of both Azure and AWS together. Snowflake has advantages, especially in terms of scalability which can also be implemented separately at the storage level and also at the computer level. 

I think Synapse Analytics is definitely better than the traditional high solution data solutions that we've previously used. It's definitely worth considering and I haven't come across anything negative, only advantages for now.

I would rate this solution an eight out of 10.