SQL Server Reviews

We are using this solution as a database. The main purpose is as an SQL Server.

Our backend and core systems are using Microsoft SQL Server. We have no complaints from anyone who is using it.

We have nothing that we can compare it with.

It's much more friendly in comparison with Oracle.

We are using the standard features. I don't see any areas that can be simplified with the standard functionalities. We don't use any special extended features.

From my point of view, using SQL Server 2017 and 2019 is very good. I haven't experienced any issues or been in a situation where I was struggling with problems for which I didn't have access to proper documentation or proper functions.

I have been using SQL Server for eight years.

After eight years in our company, we have not had any issues with SQL Server from a stability point of view.

We are a small company. We don't have any issues with this and we are fully virtualized. If we need to, we can extend the amount of CPUs as we want.

Our core system is being used by 50 users, but they are not accessing the SQL Server. We have approximately 10 users in our company who are using the SQL Server.

I have never used technical support.

I am using Avamar and Data Domain. I have been using Data Domain for four or five years. It was used as the data storage for the backup solution in our sister company.

I worked with Oracle in the previous company. Microsoft SQL Server is better.

We have also used Software Center, Active Directory, Microsoft Exchange, and almost everything that is Microsoft-based.

It was installed by an outsourcing company. It is another sister company.

It's cheaper than Oracle.

I am fine with the pricing, but pricing is an area that can always be improved.

We are Microsoft D-level partners. Pricing is not an issue for us, because of the outreach of our mother company.

We are a Microsoft-based company.

I would rate SQL Server a seven out of ten.

We developed a product that is using five or six databases supported on SQL Server. 

It is a very user-friendly solution. It is easy to manage the databases and troubleshoot any issue. It is a perfect solution for the volume or transactions that we need to manage.

The way to make cursors and manage raw data in rows can be improved. Currently, the way to construct or build these cursors is very hard, and you can waste memory. You need a highly skilled person to make it more efficient.

It can also have support for Cubes, which is the organization of data in different dimensions by using MDX languages.

I have been using this solution for ten years.

It is very stable. I would rate it an eight out of ten in terms of stability.

It is scalable. You can get scalability by using the link servers, or you can create another instance in another server and make a link with that server. It is very quick.

We have around 50 users of this solution.

I have not interacted with them.

Its initial setup is easy. It takes a week. One of the things that you need to pay attention to is the collection.

It is a nice product. You can use it as you want. If you don't know how to use it, you will waste it. Oracle is more powerful than this, but it is great for our needs.

I would rate SQL Server an eight out of ten.

We use SQL Server to process a lot of data. We are using versions and 2015 and 2018.

We like the whole product and we use most of the features.

Indexing, as well as integration, are areas of this product that need improvement.

We have been using SQL Server for approximately five years.

It's a stable solution. Stability is one of the most valuable features.

It's somewhat scalable.

We don't have any issues with technical support.

We have used SQL Server from day one, along with OpenSQL. We used them both regularly.

We don't use Oracle often but we do have a few areas where it is used.

The initial setup was straightforward. 

We have experience and did find it to be challenging.

We do multiple deployments which require three or four teams.

The cost is high and because it's an expensive product, we are in the process of moving towards open-source solutions.

We have evaluated MongoDB and are in the process of transforming ourselves.

We will continue using SQL Server for some things but not everything. Most of our applications will be migrated to MongoDB and others.

I am not in the position to recommend SQL Server to anybody. Rather, I am more in the area of quality assurance. 

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Most of the application what we use today are SQL-based applications. If you take a Microsoft ecosystem, there are many tools that connect easily with SQL - especially when it comes to reporting and analytics. Power BI is one of the good examples which can easily connect to SQL and then you can pull any report you want. SQL itself has its own tools like reporting services and transformation services. It also helps you to generate reporting and analytics and data transformation.

Overall, it helps our organization a lot. Again, it depends on what requirements and company has, and for what purpose you are using it. However, from an application relational database point of view that we are using today, it helps due to the fact that it comes with all that we need. Also, from a performance point of view, it configures well.

When you use the solution with Azure, for example, you get very good scalability. You can scale fast, whether it is horizontal or vertical.

If we use the product as a PaaS, Platform as a Service, it comes with all the security features you need - including against DDoS attacks.

The product offers good bloc storage, which you can buy at an additional cost. This allows you to have large object storage if you need it.

Over a period of time, their split engine has evolved and in the latest version, they've done a lot. Even from the management tool perspective, a lot of things have been done. A lot of functions have been added.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward.

Technical support has been good.

The solution has the capability to scale.

The pricing isn't as high as other options.

SQL is very easy to use. That's a very good thing about it in general.

Microsoft doesn't have active-active load balancing scenarios. It's always a failover cluster. There is no active-active cluster, which other tools, other database providers like Oracle, provide. If Microsoft can consider or probably come up with an active-active cluster, then it would be good. It will be more powerful in a scenario like that.

The pricing, while not the most expensive, is still quite high.

They have something called Parallel Queries, however, I don't know how it works. I've never tested it in a horizontal way. I'd like to understand a bit more about it and be able to use it horizontally.

I'm new to my organization and have only been using the product for three or four months here, however, previously, I worked with SQL for a long time.

In terms of direct users, there are only a few. However, there are applications that are using SQL and those application's users are 100 plus, or maybe 300 to 400 plus users.

This company is in the phase of growth. If it grows as expected, then definitely the chances are high in terms of the number of users - which means we will scale up a bit.

We have direct support from Microsoft. We have Microsoft partners as well. I don't see any problem with technical support, as we ourselves are capable of troubleshooting. I'm a certified BBS developer. If there any related issues, we take care of them internally. If not, we raise a ticket from Microsoft and we get support from them. They are helpful and responsive. We are satisfied with the level of service they provide.

The solution is very straightforward. It's not too complex. A company shouldn't have an issue implementing it. Once you install everything and get it configured as per your requirements if you are an SQL professional and an administrator, it's very straightforward.

It's doesn't take too long to set up. Within a week you can get it deployed. If you do a standalone module, a week likely is not required. If it is in a cluster module, of course, within a week you can set up a cluster and then get things done.

SQL pricing is slightly high compared to where it was before. That said, compared to other products like Oracle, they are still cheap. It's not overly expensive in comparison to others.

The final price you can expect all depends on your requirements. A standard version of SQL is always cheaper than an enterprise. If you're going to go on a cluster, it's particularly expensive. However, when it comes to the value and what is provided, that is also important.

It all depends on what you need. I cannot just blindly say that it's expensive or cheap as it all depends on your requirement. Comparatively, SQL is cheaper than other products like Oracle. Oracle is really expensive compared to SQL. 

We are customers and end-users.

I'm certified in SQL. I have a pretty good understanding of the product.

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

Whether or not it would work well for a company all depends on what purpose it is being used for. However, SQL is simple to use and simple to configure, and very powerful in terms of relational database and the SQL language and functions it comes with. If you configure it well and then use it well, the outcome will likely be very good.

We use SQL Server for our internal applications.

Working with SQL Server, it is quite convenient to use the SSMS tools to write a profile. I also like the profiling tools.

I like that the new version has a memory-optimized table to improve the performance.

We had some difficulty doing the performance tuning when we migrated from the 2008 version to the 2016 version. We experienced a drop in the performance. We could not understand or figure out what caused the drop in performance. We did not change any settings to cause this effect. We tried to keep the same settings.

We feel that when running the 2008 version, it was much quicker in terms of performance. 

That is an area of SQL Server that can be improved. Moving to a new version, you shouldn't have to change the configuration.

We have not been able to utilize it fully because it is not straightforward.

I would like to see the performance improved. Migrating should be easier and the scalability needs improvement.

I have been using this solution for many years. 

We are using version 2016.

It's a stable product.

In terms of scalability, it has some room for improvement.

We have 20 people in our organization who are using this solution.

We don't usually get support from Microsoft. We get it from our software vendors or we try to do it ourselves.

We are somewhat satisfied with the support that we have received from the vendor, but not fully because of the issue we faced when we moved to a newer version. But in other areas, it's okay.

We have used SQL Server from the beginning.

The initial setup was moderate. It was not easy but it was not difficult.

I would rate SQL Server a nine out of ten.

We use this Relational Database Management System for Line of Business systems, including Enterprise Resource Planning, Data Warehouse, Web Applications, and Business Intelligence.

Solutions are procured, built, and enhanced in the REIT industry, FMCG ERP, distribution and warehousing, manufacturing systems, knowledge workers such as workflow and portals, web applications, custom developments areas, enterprise reporting and analytics for internal reporting, and decision support systems.

Integration solutions provide robust integration to various and disparate third-party systems.

This is a simple to deploy, own, and manage RDMS.

Skills and support for this product are widely available. The security and vulnerability management are well-managed through the vendor. Lifecycles are greatly improved in recent releases, to make upgrades easier.

A license buys enterprise-grade data integration, reporting, and analytical capabilities as well.

It has broad adoption and support for integration with leading software brands such as SAP and Sage.

Data availability and security is well taken care of for the enterprise and is the backbone of first-class business continuity plans.

Support and adoption are important because skills are available to lower the total cost of ownership. 

High availability, read-only copy synchronization, and data integrity mean that it is relatively easy to ensure data security, availability, and integrity. Lower tier SKUs offer high-end features.

Data integration is available, as SSIS offers a flexible data integration platform with rich features including .NET integration for web-service integration, or bus architectures.

SSAS analytical DBs are powerful yet easy to develop and own.

SSRS offers enterprise reporting that is reasonably user-friendly.

It is easy to deploy cloud/on-premises hybrid implementations with a familiar and consistent toolset.

It is costly to implement high throughput systems, beyond millions of transactions per second. The hardware to run the systems, especially for high availability deployments is expensive, i.e. more resources to run.

Linux-based editions are not yet proven to be on par with Windows deployments.

Row-level security is obscure to implement.

Running cloud offerings are expensive; for example, the Instance as a Service offering.

Third-party tooling is required to manage code version control.

Managing BLOB data is not equally simple to implement.

The engine that implements query plans was updated in the 2012/2014 refresh that could necessitate a costly rewrite of queries.

I have been working with SQL Server for 21 years.

I have a very high opinion of the stability of the solution. It is one of the most mature products available.

Best practice setup is important to consider but when implemented correctly, it just runs.

The vendor is excellent and their relationship with Microsoft has proven invaluable. The 2008 > 2012 and 2012 > 2014 upgrades had specific issues that made them costly. Recent upgrades have been relatively painless.

We have tried using different technologies, depending on the use case. This is not the best tool for document-oriented or unstructured data.

It is relatively simple to run. We spent a good amount of time preparing the requirements for a high-availability cluster that paved the way for a reasonably straightforward implementation.

We had assistance from our vendor. We consider our vendor nimble and best in class. They contributed greatly to the stable running of the platform.

It is a positive ROI, especially in that we leverage many of the features in the offering.

With recent releases, the Standard Edition (cheaper) SKU has some of the earlier version Enterprise features. SQL Express has some limitations.

The Azure Platform as a Service option remains relatively expensive, at least in South Africa, compared to on-premises, but it is worth exploring.

Some baseline comparisons were made around 2012 to Oracle, with MS SQL Server coming out to have a lower total cost of ownership.

It is a first-class enterprise RDBMS and will continue to enjoy favourable sentiment from developers and DBAs.

We use SQL Server for our application data.

As a government agency, all of our data is stored in our environment on-premises.

SQL Server is easier to use than Oracle, programming-wise.

It is the latest technology and pretty powerful in terms of the high availability of the virtual server.

We have had problems implementing a data warehouse using SQL Server. It may be because the data is too big, although it claims to be able to handle the amount of data that we have. Perhaps there are some technical issues because there is something weird going on. It cannot find the correct IP address.

I have been using SQL Server for ten years.

This product is not quite as stable as Oracle. I would rate the stability as moderate and would not rate it ten out of ten.

SQL Server claims to be good, scalability-wise, but we have had issues with it.

On the other hand, we have been using it for a lot of large applications and it has worked well in those cases. For the most part, it is good, and we have a lot of users.

Microsoft technical support is good.

I also have experience with Oracle and I find that SQL Server is easier to work with, but it is not as powerful.

Initially, it is easy to set up.

My advice for anybody who is considering this product is that it is relatively easy to set up.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

The .NET applications use SQL Servers on a very large scale. Basically, about 80% or 90% of the database platform is on SQL Server.

We are working on version 2019, but we are also now working on the cloud databases. Our goal is to stay away from versions. We are going to go version-less and move to Azure SQL or managed instance, which is version-less. This way we won't need to worry about any upgrades or any version changes because Microsoft is going to take care of these things. We will always have the latest and greatest version.

It is a pretty good solution. The on-premise version 2019 has many features, and they had introduced a really good and stable environment in version 2019. It has very good integration with big data clusters and other things. It covers pretty much everything that you can do with a SQL server. You can use any language to connect to it, which is not there in other solutions. They have also introduced Python, and it also has ArcScale.

PaaS is a modern, scalable database. You can use Power Automate and a lot of features in this. It is very easy, and you don't have to worry about versions and upgrades.

Microsoft keeps on adding new features to this solution. Microsoft is improving its connectivity on an ongoing basis. It connects well with Office 365. If you see something not working, in a couple of weeks, it is going to work because there is a team working on it. You can vote for the things that are missing, and Microsoft can work on them depending on the product that they're launching. 

There are a lot of improvements in the cloud space about which we open a case with Microsoft every now and then. These improvements are not in terms of features or functionality. They are more related to their own compatibility or connectivity on which they keep on working to improve the product.

I have been using this solution for 13 to 14 years.

In version 2019, they introduced a really good and stable environment. Bugs are there, but bug fixes are provided by Microsoft. We have premium support with Microsoft. If we find a bug, they work on it and provide a solution.

It is very scalable, but its scalability also depends on what you're using. If it is on-premise, you have to do everything on your own to scale it out. It is easy, but you have to get the infrastructure ready to scale it out. It is a manual process. If you're on a cloud, then it is pretty much easy and straightforward if your cloud has those availabilities. It also has a Hyperscale, where you can put the upper and lower limit, and it can scale up and down as per the use case and the compute that you need.

We have a lot of users. Everyone is connected to this. We have business users, technical users, application users, and integration users. We have 17,000 instances of SQL Server here with a lot of databases. 

We use Microsoft's Premium Support. They're good. I would rate them an eight out of ten. For on-premise, you design your infrastructure. When you change something or customize a few things, it is hard to get support because the issue can be from either side. When you have a critical issue, which is not straightforward, you have to go between two different vendors, and they start finger-pointing to each other. They say that the issue is not at their end, and there is nothing wrong with their configuration. The issue is because of storage or network. These are the few things for which you have to fight for support. I don't know how they will improve this. It only happens sometimes for an on-premise solution. We don't run into those issues on the cloud because it is their own setup.

A cloud solution is pretty much on their site. They are managing the infrastructure, so they have to provide the solution, and they are good at it, but when you have on-premise, you decide what storage to use. Sometimes, you ignore Microsoft's recommendation, and you don't want to use what they are suggesting. When we run into issues on the DB side or the application side, they can point out to different vendors or causes for issues. 

We also have Oracle, Db2, and MongoDB databases here. We also have some NoSQL apps, but comparatively, SQL Server has a bigger footprint, and it is better than the others. 

Other systems are more complex to configure. When you configure a cluster on the SQL itself, it is easy to configure because you've got more resources, whereas, when you have to configure Oracle or Db2, you have to have a SPEC process because they have to configure that on Red Hat Linux or Unix side. A few companies don't have special admins for Linux because the footprint is not that big. You might have two or three applications running on that system. When you run into a problem, you need to hire someone who can implement it for you, whereas most of the companies, almost 80%, are Microsoft shops. They already have the talent and resources available. You also have offline help and support. You have a lot of blogs or online help available when it comes to Microsoft, but when you go to other solutions like Oracle, sometimes it is a challenge. You really need the right person there, and not everyone will be able to do it. 

The capability of a solution also depends on your needs and configuration. If you configure things wrong, any system will fail. When I'm testing something, I always believe in the functionality because Microsoft and Oracle test their products thoroughly. I never question their functionality, but we also check it according to our plan. You have to customize things based on your needs. If you're not getting the results, you have to consult the tech support and bring them in to configure it. These are the things that you run into when you are in your own data center. If you are not getting the throughput from the storage itself, you need to get the storage admin or storage vendor in there. When you move to the cloud, everything is taken care of.

It is straightforward. There is no complexity. It is all automated, and we do un-attended install. We are not sitting and doing it. We just include it with the server build itself. When the server is built, we provide them the un-attended scripts to run, and everything is configured. They can use the media provided by Microsoft. Everything is done in one step. We just need to do auditing. We need to check at the right place, and we just keep checking it.

Cost is a major derivative for any organization. It has a reasonable cost value, and its cloud support is also better than others. Comparatively, Oracle can do the same things or is even better in certain areas, but it is expensive. The cost along with the support are the plus factors for SQL Server.

You need to know the concepts and the business logic before using this solution. It is not straightforward. You need to know what your application needs are and only then you can work on it. You also need to know about the product and how it works.

I would probably advise others to move to the cloud version, which is a modern database. If you want to use SQL Server, Azure is the best because you get the hybrid benefits. You can bring your own license, and you can save costs. You can save 55% of the cost. With AWS, you have to buy your license, which makes it expensive. If you are using SQL Server and your company is more on the Microsoft side, Azure is easier, and there is no change in it. You can also get more out of it. You don't have to put a lot of complexity in supporting or administrating it because Microsoft does that for you behind the scenes. Therefore, it is good to move to Azure SQL or to manage instances where you have more control. Both of these are PaaS solutions. There is no need to go into IES. It is better to stay on-premise than on IES because it creates more complexity. This is because you still have to build the servers, and you have to still manage them. If your application is compatible to be used with PostgreSQL or MySQL, you can also move there.

It also depends on the kind of talent you have in your company. You have to consider the talent that you have. You can choose other technologies, but you need support from your teams. If they're .NET developers and you have to build the knowledge base, it is smoother to stay with SQL Server because you have to change less on the coding side.

I would rate SQL Server a ten out of ten.