Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse Reviews

In the past, our use case for the product was just to collect data from different data sources. Now, we are trying to build websites and the business intelligence layer above the SQL Data Warehouse.  

In our economic situation, the price is really the most important consideration. It is not a pricey product compared to other data warehouse solutions like Oracle and similar products. It is less expensive, but it still achieves our goals and fulfills all our needs. So I think it is a comfortable solution for us and we can afford the price.  

I think that building better data protection and a business intelligence layer over the SQL would be great and improve the product. If they could make it more like what Oracle in that way it would be good. We have to take the time and resources to build our own business intelligence when other products already incorporate such solutions.  

If they could make it more user-friendly for business users it would be a more desirable product. Add a business intelligence layer that is user friendly and the user-base can grow.  

I think they should also add a machine learning engine. This is one of the most important features of newer technologies that they currently do not have.  

We have been using the solution for more than four years.  

Data Warehouse does not have any issues related to the product itself when it comes to stability. Maybe there is more likely to be another issue in the network or conflicts and things of that nature that can cause instability. But the product itself is stable.  

I think that theoretically, it is both possible and not that hard to scale. But I am also sure that the cloud would be easier to work with for the sake of scalability if scalability is the goal.  

We have a dedicated team to work with the data warehouse which has between four to six members. The data warehouse is one of our main software solutions that we use on a daily basis. We need it for the tech that we use which focuses entirely on SQL Server.  

We are looking to scale the usage by building a business intelligence layer over the data warehouse. The tech team is searching for how to implement that with the Microsoft SQL Server technologies. I think we are going to achieve this and expand the setup. So it is scalable in various ways.  

We have not had to ask for any external help from technical support. Usually, the internal team we have is skilled enough to solve all the problems that we may encounter.  

I think the initial setup was easy. I think you have to count the time that it would take to deploy in days rather than weeks.

The dedicated team where I work built the setup and we deployed this product by ourselves within your company.  

We did not need a consultant or an integrator to help with the installation. The internal team that we have works to maintain the product, but they have other responsibilities as well. Sometimes, there will be two or three persons taking the responsibility of maintaining and working with the product on other levels. During the deployment, the entire team did the deployment. But right now, at most, there is only a two or three-person team that works with it consistently.  

We do not have any external support contracts. All the features that we use do not require any additional subscription or yearly fees. We just only use features that we pay for on a one-time basis.  

For a small-sized company like ours, I really recommend this product. It can handle a big workload. I would say other products could not be better than Microsoft for small businesses with a lesser budget.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best. I would rate Microsoft SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse as a seven-out-of-ten.  

We provide this solution as a service to customers. Sometimes, it is just used as a data warehouse. However, a couple of our customers use the data warehouse to collect information from everywhere, e.g., from their subsidiaries, such as electric or petrol companies.

We are also developing some dashboards using the data warehouse. Sometimes, you are using Microsoft BI, but most of the time, you are using Qlik. It depends on the customer needs at the end of the day. 

Most of our limitations until this moment have been on-premise. There is some sensitive information, like the billing system for an entire country's electricity. However, because of the current circumstances with COVID-19, we are discussing with them how to move it to the cloud. Mostly because of the regulation that any government data cannot be hosted on a cloud, we need to host it on a local cloud at the moment. We cannot use AWS or similar things as of now. 

While we do have local cloud vendors that we are working with, this is something in progress.

• Availability of resources everywhere
• The cost of resources
• The information knowledge is there.
• It is easy to use. You can do what you want with the tool.
• It integrates well with SQL Server.

Collecting the data through SSIS packages from different sources and putting them all in one data repository is the most powerful thing. While others have this feature, they don't have the simplicity or ease of use when getting a resource and knowing everything about it. You can collect data from Oracle Databases, SQL databases, or file systems where it is then saved in one location, building cubes in an easy for SSIS packages. 

The setup has room for improvement. Some customers want to go to non-Windows Servers. Have the entire SQL Server done there though is an obstacle for us, as the configuration of Microsoft BI with cubes is a bit complicated.

I would like the integration to be offered in a simpler way. I would like improvement in the integration between Microsoft SQL cubes and Parallel Data Warehouse with other members of the Microsoft family, such as Microsoft Power BI and SharePoint.

This tool needs a lot of memory for processing. As it does a lot of jobs, it may need this memory while other tools don't need that much. It would help if they enhanced the memory and hardware usage of the tool in order to support the performance of doing the queries

I would like the tool to support different operating systems.

I want a dashboard.

We have been using it for five to six years.

It is stable. We have migrated millions to billions of data points in Cubes from system to system, while running data cleansing conditions. Putting restraints on this can be time consuming which is why people may want to go to another server. When you inject equation and conditions, then it consumes a lot of time. Though, I have never compared this time consumption to other tools.

I have no concern about the scalability. We have never faced any problems regarding the scalability. If we wanted to extend this, it is extendable.

The online help is good enough along with our technical expertise. 

If everything is available, such as information knowledge sources and connections, I can have the solution deployed in five days.

I recommend getting assistance from an integrator or consultant with the integration.

Microsoft has an agreement with the government in our country, so our customers get their licensing costs from the Ministry. Whenever we work with any government, company, or government institute, which is mainly what we are doing, that license comes directly from the Ministry of Technology and Information. 

We actually do not know that much about the price of Microsoft tools. Even if I ask for the price, I'm asking it as a partner.

We have had a good experience working with this tool.

If you don't have a problem with memory and have good processors, then you won't have an issue. However, depending on your needs, you may want to go check out other tools.

I would rate the tool as an eight out of 10.

This is a solution that we implement for our clients. We provide end-to-end development, maintenance, enhancement, testing, and support. Everything is done by us.

We are able to monitor daily jobs, so if there is anything that needs to be done then we can do it. If there are discussions with our clients about changes that need to be made then it is us who implements them.

The most valuable feature is that we can deploy directly to the production environment, rather than having to go through a development environment first.

If the database is large with a lot of columns then it is difficult to clean the data.

I have been using the Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse for two years.

The Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is a stable solution.

We have not had problems with scalability.

The initial setup is not difficult. It is easy and we are fine with that.

We deploy this solution for our clients.

I am not comfortable with the Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse at the moment.

I would rate this solution a six out of ten.

I am a consultant and I assist in implementing this solution for our clients.

The projects that we are working on right now are related to finance, banking, and government.

The most valuable feature is the business intelligence (BI) part of it. BI includes decision trees and similar functionality. This happens post-building of the data warehouse when you start using the analysis features.

The user interface is definitely good.

This solution would be improved with an option for in-memory data analysis.

Scalability can be improved because there are other tools that perform better with very large datasets.

We have been working with Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse for more than five years.

This is a stable solution and we haven't had any issues. Even if we encounter issues, there is a lot of help available. If issues are identified then we will have a quick turnaround time for fixing them.

There are some tools that are more scalable than this one, and the performance is better as well. This is an area that could use improvement, especially if you have a huge set of data.

We have about 50 analysts and another 30 or 40 regular users who work with this solution every day.

We have been in contact with technical support in India and we are satisfied with them.

We are using Pentaho Data Warehouse in addition to this solution. We select which one is implemented depending on the customer's request and what they want to do.

The initial setup is straightforward. There is a lot of help available to assist with each step, so it's pretty easy.

The deployment took longer than expected because of continuous improvement and upgrades that were needed for the projects. Once we started and got a handle on how this solution could benefit our projects, we had to incorporate those new ideas. In total, it took between one and a half and two years to deploy.

We implemented this solution with our in-house team.

This is a solution that has good performance and I recommend it. The support from Microsoft is also another thing that makes the Parallel Data Warehouse a good option.

The biggest lesson that we have learned from using this solution is that customers are most interested in a quick project turnaround time, which is something that Parallel Data Warehouse provides.

This is a good solution but there is always room for improvement.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

We primarily use the solution to build up our server analytics.

The data transmissions between the data models is the most valuable feature.

The database is enormous, so much so that we haven't exploited it completely.

I don't have any recommendations for new features at this time.

I've been using the solution for about one year.

The stability of the solution is good. We haven't had any issues with it.

The solution is very scalable.

My understanding is that the team's experience with technical support has been good.

We didn't previously use a different solution. Our customers chose this solution.

The initial setup was straightforward. We had a knowledgeable team working on the implementation. Deployment took about six to eight weeks.

We use the on-premises deployment model.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

I am using the Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse for working with information services and datasets, creating reports. It is used primarily for our historical data, but we do some in real-time also. We can receive data weekly, nightly, or even hourly.

The most valuable feature of this solution is performance. It reduces the time it takes to process data.

The initial setup of this solution is complex and can be improved.

Sometimes you need to re-run the reports because they don't work.

The reporting for certain types of data needs to be improved.

I have been working with these kinds of services for the past five to ten years.

The stability depends on your data and whether it is null. If the data is set up properly then it will be more stable.

It is definitely scalable. We have more than 220 users in multiple cities. Most of the people, perhaps 70%, are information technology users. The remaining 30% are business analysts who are concerned only with reports.

We do plan on increasing our usage. We recently converted all of our Tableau data, and now we are working on permissions and security.

The technical support from Microsoft is good.

The initial setup is definitely complex.

We are not always aware of where the data comes from because it is distributed. Sometimes the data is fine and sometimes it needs to be set up. Once it is configured then it runs fine in parallel.

The length of time for deployment depends on the size of the data and whether we were also implementing a data warehouse or a data mart. When I was implementing this solution and copying data, it took between six and eight months. That is end-to-end with everything finished.

If it is a small data mart then it may only take a month.

Our in-house team, including our DBA, handled the deployment.

My advice for anybody who is implementing Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is to be aware of how big the data is. You have to be sure of how to secure and take care of the data. You have to think about scalability.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

I have mostly worked with analytics, so I normally use SQL to put in data for analysis. I have worked on building dashboards as well.

One of the most important features is the ease of using MS SQL. It has been easy to do exactly what I wanted. For example, it was very easy to pull the data from, and it is also very easy to import data from CSV or Excel. If I needed a specific set of data from the master then it was easy to get it.

I think that the error messages need to be made more specific. Recently, I was working with a large amount of data, and I received a runtime error. I had to solve it by running the query several times, removing data each time. If the error messages were less ambiguous then it would have helped.

I have been using this solution for about one year.

The stability is good.

The scalability is really good. I know that we don't have to worry about scalability because one time at my former company, we almost doubled our size. In fact, the number of staff doubled and we were able to migrate very easily. The additional data was very easy to accommodate.

In my previous company, my team had 35 users. At one point, during our migration, we had about 50 users who were working extensively with the solution.

Funnily enough, neither myself nor anybody in my team has had to contact technical support. Whenever we have had a problem, we have always found a solution on Google or in a YouTube video. When we get stuck and search with Google, we usually find ten similar problems where people have commented on how to fix them.

I was not part of the initial setup, although I assisted with linking our ERP systems to SQL and that is pretty straightforward. There was not much complication in terms of linking the data and how it was being stored.

My advice for anybody who is implementing this solution is not to overload your server with all of the data that you don't use on a day-to-day basis. It is very easy to pull the data that you need whenever it is required. You will have to decide how to store the data and how easy it is for your client to send new data. Neither of these things should be difficult to do, even for newcomers to SQL. Sometimes, you will have to have a senior person demonstrate something basic, like how to pull data, and then people usually pick it up.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

The primary use cases for this solution are for recording and transactions.

The most valuable feature for me is querying.

I would like to see better visualization features.

A stateless update functionality for the forms may help. Without this, you have to perform updates manually using the drop-down menu.

The user interface should be more user-friendly.

I have been using the SQL Data Warehouse for fifteen years.

The stability of this solution is based on the set up from the outsourcing team. There are a lot of things to consider, including the connection.

It is constantly being used with transactions occurring every minute.

It is quite easy to scale this solution. The whole company of approximately 2,500 people uses it.

Prior to using this solution, we used Oracle. We switched because my daily requirements are on Microsoft SQL. 

I find this setup of this solution to be simple, but that is based on fifteen years of working with it.

We use this solution for keeping track of sales, goods, times of shipping, and other information. It is used for our KPIs.

This solution helps the higher levels of the organization because they have better visibility of the whole company. This helps with decision making in terms of what should be improved or implemented.

The most valuable features are the performance and usability.

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is simple to use, and the user interface is intuitive.

More tools to help designers should be included.

I have been using this solution for about two years.

This is a stable solution. Once your data is stable, the data warehouse is stable too. If the structure of the data changes then you can't change the warehouse to add or delete fields or columns.

Scalability depends on how you design the warehouse. It can be scalable, but it depends on how much data you have to put into it.

We have about six hundred users.

Unfortunately, we are in a country that has a limitation that means we cannot contact Microsoft directly. Most of the time we use Google and I can help myself to solve problems.

Prior to Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse, we used a standard relational SQL database. We switched because of the performance and because the data and KPI changed. It would be difficult to use a relational database. We switched to a data warehouse solution because it was acceptable.

The initial installation and setup were easy and we did not have any issues. The deployment was completed within hours.

We deployed using our in-house people.

My advice to anybody who is implementing this solution is to design the databases as well as they can because it is difficult to make changes in the future. It is also important to have a time field in your data in case you want to use it in the future as a reference.

This is a good solution but all software can be improved and made better.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

I work for a Microsoft partner. We're one of the Gold partners, so we implement on their databases. We are also Dynamics 365 specialists, and I'm a Business Intelligence consultant, so I do SQL, Power BI, Azure SQL, SQL Data Warehouses, and a few others.

What I like the most about this solution is the fact that you can basically add capacity behind your data modeling, and you speed up the process before it goes into the Cube holding section. That's a great integration layer. You can basically collect all your data, and then that becomes a staging database for other models, where you can then either report directly with Power BI, or Excel, or other applications, and in more specifically, data Cubes with Microsoft Analysis Services.

Something that needs to improve, is the integration layer itself connecting to other non-Microsoft layers. But I don't know if that can be improved, due to the complexity of the data that they're connecting to. But I think they can maybe look at a way to do incremental updates, as it is slightly different.

The program is very stable - even during power outages it only takes a few minutes to be up and running again.

I think Microsoft is the largest scalable company in terms of data warehousing, elastic pools, elastic servers. Even with Power BI conducting parallel data warehouses. Those can scale up pretty large, and if you really want to, you can move into the data lakes.

I am very satisfied with the customer service/technical support. We work for a Microsoft company, so we've got a direct line to Microsoft, and because I am also an ambassador for one of the other larger event companies, I have great connectivity - I speak to some of the black belts at Microsoft!

The initial setup was quite complex. The time deployment takes will depend on all the components they specify. We've had deployments that took a couple of weeks, and we've had deployments that's been spread out over multiple years, because we cover 60 countries, in six continents.

I think the program is well-priced compared to the other offerings that are out in the market.

On a scale from one to 10, I rate this solution a nine. In the future I would love to see a slightly better automation engine, just for the data integration layer, to make it slightly easier for end-users or junior developers to get involved in incremental updating.

The biggest part that we battle with in terms of costing, and explaining to people why it takes so long to develop some of those things, is just to get the data into the actual data warehouse and automating that. It's purely an integration layer to actually get the data into the data warehouses.

People need to do their research very well to understand the terminology and the technology when they speak to people that are technically inclined, because there's a lot of miscommunication in terms of what they expect from the program and what's delivered at the end of the day.

The biggest lessons I've learned through the years are that Microsoft is probably the largest research company there is. So people should stick to people that know what they're doing, and Microsoft definitely has some very, very capable people designing these products.

And that's probably why I've stayed with Microsoft so long. I've actually tried out a few other suppliers, but I always go back to Microsoft.