SQL Server Reviews

The most valuable feature is easy installation. It was very easy to install.

The interface is very user-friendly.

I would like to see more integration with other products and it needs to be more secure.

I have been using SQL Server for two months and I believe that we are using the latest version.

It's a stable solution. It's very stable.

It is a scalable solution.

My installation requires SQL Servers, so I have to continue using them.

I have not contacted technical support.

Previously, we did not use another product.

The initial setup was straightforward. The installation was easy.

It took two hours to deploy.

I completed the implementation myself.

I would recommend this solution to others who are interested in using it.

I would rate SQL Server an eight out of ten.

We primarily use the solution as a relational database system.

The solution offers very high performance.

It is a very reliable solution. We find it to be quite stable.

We've found the product to be very scalable, specifically from MSSQL. 

The product offers various deployment models.

The Message Broker portion of the solution is not very scalable in comparison to the rest of the solution. The problem is, you can exclude that portion.

The Task Scheduler has a lot of shortcomings. This could be improved quite a bit.

The enterprise version of the product should be more cost-effective.

We've been using the solution for the last 15 or so years. It's been a while. We have a lot of experience with it.

The stability of the product is very good. It offers excellent performance. There aren't bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.

The solution is extremely scalable. If a company needs to expand, it can do so without any problems.

The enterprise version of the solution needs to be priced more competitively.

We have a couple of models. We lease through Azure monthly, which is for the Standard version. We have had to purchase the Enterprise version to the tune of a few hundred thousand dollars, which is just ridiculous.

On top of that, there aren't really any other knock-on costs.

We have experience with almost every angle of Microsoft ecosystem that you could imagine.

We're a direct customer. We own a MSSQL server. We have it deployed both on-premises and on the cloud, so we use different deployment models. We have distinct instances in the cloud and we have distinct instances in our on-prem.

I would warn other organizations to not use their Message Broker and don't rely on their Task Scheduler. Look elsewhere. Go look at Oversource, Rabbit MQ, Azure Message Broker, or something other than what's built into Microsoft's SQL server. That would be my advice.

Our original architecture messaging infrastructure was based on Microsoft SQL server's Message Broker. It's been a complete disaster. It's a black hole that can't be diagnosed or supported in terms of troubleshooting from Microsoft when it doesn't work. When it doesn't work, it just doesn't work and no one can answer why. That is very bad. The intended use of it was for enterprise messaging. However, that is not a use case for MSSQL Message Broker, period. We're in the process of moving in a couple of directions. We're going to move to Azure Service Bus as an interim solution, as our current technical capabilities are very Microsoft-centric. Then, the next step will be to move to other more enterprise-class messaging and queuing subsystems like RabbitMQ.

The SQL server as an engine probably deserves a very high nine out of ten. It's a very, very efficient relational database management system. And it is very scalable.

We use SQL Server to store, retrieve, and manage data.

This product works well, serving as our operational database.

The interface is user friendly.

Better integration with other platforms would be an improvement.

I have been using SQL Server for almost two years.

We have had no issues with stability.

This is a scalable product. It is being used in three or four projects with a total of between 50 and 100 people.

I have not been in contact with technical support for this project, but we use the Microsoft communities to get answers to questions that we have. For example, we have checked the settings to make sure that we are safe.

Overall, the support is pretty good.

The initial setup is definitely straightforward and can be completed within a couple of minutes.

The installation and initial setup were completed by our admin team. However, there are some drivers and additional components that I installed myself.

We always like to work with the best products, we are happy with SQL Server, and I recommend it.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Its speed and the ease of server management are valuable. If I compare Microsoft SQL Server to MySQL, what I like in Microsoft SQL Server is the speed. We are using Microsoft Management Studio for managing our Microsoft SQL Server, and the user interface that I get to work with is also better.

There should be more tools and documentation for tuning the performance of Microsoft SQL Server. It would be nice to have more tools for tuning because currently, all the tuning that we have to do with our databases is almost manual. We have to read a bunch of knowledge base articles, and this information should be better documented.

Its free text search should also be improved. It is quite important for us. Currently, we're developing our own free text search because of the lacking flexibility in Microsoft SQL Server. Therefore, we're kind of using elastic search and making different implementations in order to reach our targets. Using just the native free text search of Microsoft SQL Server is not enough for us. It should have more flexible features as compared to the current version.

I have been using this solution for more than 15 years. Our clients are using its multiple versions, starting from SQL Server 2012.

It is stable.

In general, it is scalable, but we are only using the single-server mode. We are not using any kind of clustering. Therefore, I cannot say anything from my personal experience about the scalability of Microsoft SQL Server.

I do not have any experience with Microsoft support. We either use in-house knowledge professionals or third-parties for consulting services.

Its initial setup is quite straightforward. A major upgrade is a bit more complicated. We had some issues with the upgrade.

I would recommend this solution. It is a good choice in terms of price and quality.

I would rate Microsoft SQL Server an eight out of ten.

Our server projects are mostly related to SQL Server, and we're using it. All our healthcare projects are using the SQL Server, and we're able to load millions of data without any issues.

It's more user-friendly than most databases. If we don't have to use the command mode, it's very easy.

The performance could be better. When we pump in millions of records, we start struggling, and that's why we want improvement in those areas.

I have been using SQL Server for more than ten years.

In the past, it wasn't stable compared to other products like Oracle Db2, but it has improved, and now it's stable. 

The installation is easy, and performance-wise it's okay now.

SQL Server installation is easy, and we did it by ourselves.

I would recommend this product to new users.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Microsoft SQL Server an eight.

The solution is our main database and stores our data at the organization. We're a Microsoft shop. That's why it's the main database. We have licenses for the servers. The only reason I'm using that is that that's what we have. However, I don't actually like working with it.

The solution works. It does what you need it to do.

Their integration, SSRS and SSIS tools are really good. The flow is great.

The pricing of the solution is okay. It's less expensive than Oracle, for example.

It's night and day if you compare it to Oracle, and I am an Oracle fan.

Their datatypes need improvement. The SQL Server language in itself, its datatypes, seem like they are stuck in the eighties. Even companies that work with an SQL Server, experts on J.D. Edwards that sits on SQL Server that handles all the data transformation, they've actually converted the SQL Server datatypes so that they are more useful and easy to handle on their solutions. That tells you right then and there that their datatypes must improve.

When you run your SQL optimizer there, on the datatypes, it's very costly because it's just this level of conversion that needs to happen as opposed to just calling it numeric, or as opposed to calling it something else. Their datatypes technically work. If you know what you're doing, it really can give you all that. However, on the optimization side, on the performance side, it does struggle.

The datatype conversion to push my data to an enterprise data warehouse is difficult. I can tell you Oracle data is so much easier to ingest into it and it easier than doing it on a SQL Server.

There are many issues that I face when I'm pulling data straight from a SQL Server agent. There are more collections that I need to do or handle before it hits my target table. I noticed that due to the fact that I've been working on different databases and ingesting everything in a data warehouse. It just doesn't flow properly.

Even on their SQL Studios, that Master Studio tools, even if you try to do your conversions on their own, even though this is their native tool, you're always going to have some problems and it's always going to give you some type of error. It is just difficult to tell you what the error will be. You have to dig in and figure it out. Most of that is due to datatypes. It's just not easy. It's like pulling teeth. Especially if you have had experience using a tool, like Oracle, that is just not that painful.

There seems to be a lot of patching, which leads me to believe there may often be stability issues.

I haven't used the solution for too long. I've used it here at the company for two years.

The stability is more on the IT side. I have not paid attention to that as I'm outside the SQL Server. My enterprise data warehouse is not on a SQL Server. Once I get the data, I don't know what's happening in that space. It's not my realm anymore. I know they patch a lot. That gives me a hint that the solution has its issues with bugs. I can't really say if it's stable or not, however, I'm leaning towards no.

I have no personal experience dealing with technical support directly. I can't speak to their responsiveness or level of knowledge.

I'm a big fan of Oracle, which I have worked with for 18 years. Comparing the two is like comparing the iOS of Apple versus Windows. They're two very different systems and typically you either like one or the other.

The solution doesn't cost as much as Oracle. Oracle is more expensive. That's always been the complaint with Oracle. They're very good, however, they're the most expensive out there and that's how they're losing business right now. Their big jump in the cloud happened way too late in the game, and everybody just jumped on the cloud due to high costs. If you were to compare pricing, SQL Server is much cheaper.

I'm currently moving away from the solution.

I'm an Oracle guy, so SQL Server is new to me. I don't like it. I'm moving away from it.

If you're a Microsoft shop, definitely SQL Server is the right solution for you. If you're used to it, it definitely makes sense as an option. It's nice. It works. If you have not seen the other side of things, then you might like it. As long as you're staying in the Microsoft world, it works. However, it's very clunky. From an analytics perspective, a data handling perspective, it is clunky. That is why I decided to go to Tableau instead of Power BI. There are just too many dependencies on the ecosystem. Once you get ingested into that SQL Farm, it's hard to leverage other tools that are disrupting the industry as you're just stuck in that ecosystem.

That's an issue with Oracle as well. That's just Microsoft and Oracle. They're pretty much the same. They're an enterprise solution. And there's an advantage when you're inside an enterprise using all these different services, and the tools that they have. There's definitely a huge advantage in that, however, it's limiting. If you look at Tableau Oracle would say, "We have our OBIE" and Microsoft would say that "we have a SSRS." 

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

We primarily use the solution for non-management processes.

The product is very good at centralizing information.

The solution has very good features related to timezones.

The product is quite stable.

If you need to, you can scale the solution very easily.

The solution has legacy issues when it comes to compatibility. If you have older technology, you may run into compatibility problems with SQL.

The solution is rather expensive.

I've been using the solution for over a decade. It's been a long time. At this point, it's been about 12 years or so.

The stability of the solution is excellent. We don't run into any issues with bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's fairly reliable.

The solution scales well. if a company needs to expand its SQL server, it's not a problem to do so.

We do plan to continue to use it going forward. I'm unsure as to if we have plans to scale it, however.

I don't have too much information on technical support, however, it's my understanding that if you need it, it is available.

We did not previously use a different solution. We've only ever really used SQL.

The initial setup isn't too complex. It's pretty straightforward, especially if you are setting up the cloud. It's very easy to provision. It requires fairly typical knowledge. If you are familiar with Windows software, you'll find that there isn't much of a challenge to the setup. I'd say it's not overly technical.

Deployment is fast. You can have it up and running in an hour or sometimes less.

You need about two people to handle the deployment of the solution.

I handled the implementation myself. It's pretty easy, and not too technical, and therefore I didn't need the assistance of any consultants or integrators.

You do need to pay for licensing in order to use the solution. It is a little bit expensive, however, it's not the most expensive option on the market. It's cheaper than the competition, however, as I mentioned, it's still pretty pricey.

We're just a customer. We don't have a business relationship with the client.

We're using the latest version of the solution currently.

We use both cloud and on-premises deployment models.

I'd recommend this product to other organizations.

Overall, we've had a positive experience with the solution. I would rate it at an eight out of ten.

We primarily use the solution as a database for business operations.

I personally work with Microsoft products and therefore I like the continuity it provides. I like sticking with the brand.

The solution is very stable.

The product has very good online documentation that can be used for troubleshooting.

The solution can scale as necessary.

We've found the setup to be quick and relatively easy.

The licensing costs are very high.

I would like the scaling process to be more transparent and obvious.

There's a lot of documentation on the web, and it is quite extensive, and yet it isn't very well organized which makes it hard to find items often.

I've been using the solution for a very long time. It's been around ten years or more. I'd say it's been at least a decade at this point.

The stability of the solution is quite good. We don't have issues with it. It doesn't crash or freeze. We don't experience bugs or glitches. It's reliable.

While I personally haven't gone beyond 50 or so users, it's my understanding that as long as you pay for the licensing, you can grow as much as you need to. There would be costs involved, however, the solution can scale if a company needs it to. 

I'd love to have Microsoft explain to me the scaling process so that I could better understand it. Right now, I'm in the dark.

In terms of technical support, I can say that sometimes I need them. However, it's very difficult to contact Microsoft support for anything. 

In general, they have none. I wouldn't know how to reach them directly for help if I needed it.

Right now they have good support for their Azure product, in the cloud. However, this is not the case for on-premise products. That means, as an on-premise user, I have a problem. That said, since their product is well-known, there's a lot of documents on the web. If I try to search online I will typically find the answers I need. 

The initial setup is not complex. It's pretty straightforward. It takes an hour or less to set everything up. Some people may need a few hours, however, for me, less than an hour was enough. That said, the Windows Server would also take an hour or two to set up as well.

The solution certainly comes at a cost, however, for me, it's an acceptable cost. I find it acceptable due to the fact that it would be free if I use MySQL on-premise, however, then it would be hard to hire people to maintain it. It's a give and take. That said, the license cost is very very high. I'm afraid if I use it on a larger scale it will cost a lot.

Currently, we're just Microsoft customers, although we would like to have a partnership with the company in the future.

I haven't done the HA for SQL server yet, therefore, I'm not sure how hard it is and how difficult it would be to implement, or how stable and how scalable it is.

There are two markets really. It's Microsoft and non-Microsoft. If anyone is familiar with Microsoft products, then they should go with this, however, they should bear in mind that it comes at a cost. The SQL cost is quite high if a company is using it at a large scale.

That said, if a company is looking at something small scale, there is a free edition. I use the standard edition, and it won't cost too much. 

In any case, for those that aren't tied to Microsoft options, there are a lot of products out there that might be suitable with very little overhead.

In general, I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten.