SQL Server Reviews

Despite the core database is not SQL Server in my working company, SQL Server is widely being used as the backend for many in-house applications and customized applications like Solarwinds.

Helping to effectively and efficiently manage the business-critical data

- There are hundreds of "Dynamic Management Views" (DMVs) & Dynamic Management Functions (DMFs) that are system views & system functions that return metadata of the system state and they provide valuable insight into the current SQL instance state. 

- Resumable online index rebuild 

- Table Partitioning and the Swap out to covert a Table Partition into a separate table.

- Python & R2 Integration, Graph Databases

- Automatic Database Tuning

- Very reliable Backup technology and many more

The price could be better:

Compare to Oracle it is cheaper but with the existence of many open source databases currently in the market, consider reducing the Licensing cost. Secondly, with the Core-based Licensing since SQL 2012 Version, the SQL Licensing price has substantially increased.

Postgres Extensions is a concept in Postgres to extend the Postgres features that are very useful for Performance Monitoring & Optimizations. Similarly option to extend the features as necessary.

I have been using SQL Server for 12 years.

It's been scalable since 2016. With each version, they are adding more features which are very helpful. 

On a rare occasion, I had contacted technical support about five or six years ago and only when I had a specific use case.

The GUI-based step-by-step initial setup is easier for the initial setup and even the Jr.DBAs can handle it with minimal training. The automated installation is possible with PowerShell Scripts and the Infrastructure Provisioning and Configurations tools like Ansible. We managed to automate the SQL installation using Ansible Playbooks and Gitlab to deploy Continous Integration and Continous Deployment.

We implemented this solution by ourselves.

CPU Core-based Licensing & Windows Licensing costs are additional overheads compare to open source databases like MySQL and PostgreSQL.

Managed SQL Server Database Service in Azure is lagging with many features like Linked Server, DB Mail.

SQL Server deployment in the Cloud does not seem to be cost-effective with respect to the Licensing cost and average Life cycle of 5 years (I reiterate, this is in my opinion). 

If you take Postgre SQL and MySQL, they provide almost all the same features even though they are both open source databases.

I recommend this solution because you can engage in database manipulation, administration and manage almost all your requirements. When compared to Oracle licensing costs, SQL Server is better. 

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

We use SQL Server to query our database for specific reports we need to write for our clients.

The solution's most valuable feature is that we can set up redundant databases and replication in the databases. SQL Server has very good integration capabilities.

The solution’s pricing is high.

I have been using SQL Server for ten years.

SQL Server is a very stable solution,

I rate the solution’s stability a nine out of ten.

The solution’s scalability is quite good. Around 30 users use the solution in our organization. Currently, I use SQL Server about once a week.

I rate the solution an eight out of ten for scalability.

On a scale from one to ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy, I rate the solution's initial setup a nine out of ten.

The solution was implemented by an in-house team in a couple of hours.

SQL Server has dramatically improved our ROI. We couldn't do without it, and it's been a very valuable tool.

On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten.

I would recommend the solution to users looking for any form of transactional database or commercial database.

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

We use it for both development and administration purposes.  

It's serving our data solution needs okay. 

I like that it's the Always On Availability Groups setup. It ensures our servers are always running.

We need it to support Linux for better troubleshooting flexibility.

I have been using this product for five years. We currently use the older versions, SQL Server 2019 and 2017.

We will soon migrate to the 2022 version. 

It works perfectly. No issues there. 

So, it is a stable product. 

There are around 300 to 500 end users using it. 

We use it for our on-premises solutions, virtual servers and SSAS, SSRS packages. Also, our applications are .NET based, so it made sense to use it. 

The initial setup is very easy. It is easy to understand. 

It is an expensive product. 

I would recommend using it , but it's best if you already know how it works.

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

We use the solution to provide the database layer for multiple applications.

We have been using this solution for 10+ years.

I have had issues with SQL Server but Microsoft support has been able to resolve them quickly and most came down to configuration/design errors and not a stability of the product issue.

SQL Server is quick to install < an hour.  Additional features increase the installation time.

The SQL Server pricing model is based on CPU cores that your database server utilises.

To others looking into using a SQL Server, I would say that it goes down to the application that you are developing and what funds you have available to run the total system.

I work as a BI specialist, so I am directly using SQL Server since I am using the database and making reports from it via SSAS.

I use SQL Server daily for data analysis using its database capabilities and reporting via SSAS. It is easy to use for a BI specialist.

It can be better if it enables the use of AI functions. I used to work with Alteryx, and it has an analytical platform that was best for working directly from a database with machine learning algorithms. So, it would be better, I think.

I have been using SQL Server for around three years.

I would rate the stability around nine or ten. I have not encountered any problems with it.

I used to work with Dataiku, however, I switched jobs. I used to work as a developer for Dataiku, and now I am working as a BI specialist.

I think it is not easy to work with date types when compared to Oracle. Oracle is more useful, but I do not know which feature is better for SQL Server.

I deploy all packages myself and use SSIS for that. We are creating stored procedures and triggering some jobs in SQL Server. I did the deployment by myself.

I am unable to determine any ROI since I have always used SQL Server and cannot compare it with other tools.

I have previously worked with Dataiku.

Based on my experience, SQL Server is a common tool and does not offer significantly higher benefits or anything too special. It is easy to use, and I would recommend it to others. 

I would rate it around five on a scale of one to ten.

SQL Server is easy to use. As a Microsoft product, it has an intuitive and user-friendly interface.

The product performance can become slow when the data reaches sizes like a terabyte.

The product is stable. 

Our organization has a maximum of 100 SQL Server users. The scalability needs improvement.

We have used other solutions such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, and Oracle. 

SQL Server is often chosen for Windows platforms due to its compatibility. For other development environments, like PHP or Java, we might select MySQL or PostgreSQL, respectively.

The setup process is straightforward. It involves running the setup file, configuring general settings, setting up a user account, and creating a database. After that, you can create tables within the database and start using it.

The product's price is reasonable. It requires a one-time license purchase, unlike Azure SQL, which operates on a subscription basis.

SQL Server's performance is good enough for medium-sized applications. The security features are adequate and effective.

I rate it a seven out of ten. 

The solution is used as our backend database for our in-house applications. 

It's consolidated all of our Microsoft Access databases.

Having everything in one centralized set of databases is the most valuable feature.

Over the years additional features, data warehousing, cubing, just better performance and better manageability in terms of the actual Microsoft SQL Server AppLINK console.

I have experience with SQL Server. 

It is a highly stable solution. It was our database of choice because of its reliability. It just does what it says on the tin. We've never experienced any issues with it. I've never experienced any issues with it crashing or anything like that. 

The solution is very scalability. I rate the scalability a ten out of ten. 

Their technical team is very efficient. 

Positive

We switched to SQL for the reliability and scalability.

The initial setup is cumbersome as it's very menu-driven. The deployment takes half a day's time. We run it on a virtual machine or virtual service. We build a virtual server. We downloaded the ISO from Microsoft's licensing website.

I rate the setup an eight out of ten. 

The deployment was done by a single person, in-house. 

The SQL server is affordable. I rate the pricing a five out of ten. 

I rate the overall solution a ten out of ten. 

We primarily use the solution for our daily operations.

The solution has provided our clients with some valuable data feeds.

The performance is a very valuable aspect of the solution.

SQL is very easy to manage.

Occasionally the performance, as good as it is, is a bit off. We sometimes experience memory spiking. If they could maybe fix that aspect of the solution, that would be quite helpful for our organization.

We've been using the solution for more than ten years at this point.

The solution is extremely stable. We haven't had issues. We don't really experience bugs or glitches and haven't had the system crash on us before.

The scalability of the solution is very good. A company that needs to expand should be able to do so fairly easily.

We have about ten people using SQL at our organization. Some are in Operations. Some are developers.

The data we have is constantly expanding and growing for us, so we already are increasing the capacity of the SQL server. We'll continue to do so as necessary.

If we have any issues, we contact Microsoft. We only do so if something happens and we can't fix it ourselves. It hasn't happened too many times, and it usually doesn't revert to me to reach out, so although I know we have used them in the past, I myself have no direct experience dealing with them.

It's been about ten years since we started using SQL, which is quite a long time. I don't recall if we used a different solution before that or not. If we did, I don't know what it would have been.

I'm not sure how to answer as to if the solution is straightforward or complex in terms of setup. I didn't handle the deployment, so I'm not the person who would be best equipped to answer these types of questions.

I'm not the person that deals with billing and payments, so I don't know what the cost of the solution is, or if it is monthly or yearly billing. 

I'm not sure if we would have looked at something else or what it might have been. If there was research and a comparison was done, that would have been a decade ago. It's been a long time. 

We are using the 2008 and 2017 versions.

I'd like others to know that SQL is easy to use and easy to manage. It also offers pretty good performance, in my opinion.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. It's not too expensive, or at least that is my understanding, but I am aware there are lots of open source options out there as well companies may want to consider.