SQL Server Reviews

It has all of our data. Our company sells contracts when you buy a car. We sell aftermarket insurance for the tyre, wheel, ding, dent, windshield, etc. When somebody buys a contract, we capture all of that data into a legacy database PostgreSQL, and my task is to incorporate that into our financial platform using T-SQL. So, I write queries, procedures, and views. I use SSIS, and I use SSRS. My job is to get the data into our financial system so that we can process claims, payments, cancellations, and refunds. 

In terms of its version, we're up-to-date. We have version 2019.

This is the heart of the whole company. SQL Server is where all of our financials are. It has all of our data.

I've been using SQL Server for 20 years, and there is nothing that it can't do. It is awesome.

When we are talking about event space architecture, scalability generally comes into play. For example, I might have a hundred thousand transactions a second, and then all of a sudden, I build something that everybody in the world wants. The next thing I know is that I have a million transactions a second. So, to be able to process the throughput, I'd have to scale up, and then when the holidays are over, I'm again down to a hundred thousand transactions, and I want to scale back down. SQL Server is not going to do that. In this way, it is not very scalable. One of the reasons why they want us to use Kafka is so that if we need to, we can do that, but our base program is on SQL Server. So, this is where we would use a Kafka event stack so that if I need more servers, I can just write a command, and I can have more consumers, more brokers, and more producers, and when the holiday season is over, it scales right back down again. SQL Server is not going to do that.

I have been using this solution for 20 years.

We do clustering. If one SQL Server goes down, it automatically goes to another one.

I don't ever need tech support. If it breaks, I can just rebuild it.

They're now using a different database for contracting called Road Runner. I don't know what that is, and how it stores data. I don't know anything about it. 

There is also Postgres. I like SQL Server more than Postgres. That's only because I know SQL Server. I don't know Postgres as well. So, I can't say which one is better because I don't have the same amount of experience in both.

I can bring up a SQL Server in an hour or so and set it up.

In terms of maintenance, the number of people required depends on the need. 
We have a team of DBAs, developers, and UA analysts. We probably have 40 people in our IT area who are maintaining our solution. I'm just the developer. I'm the guy who makes the magic happen, but without other people collecting the information that I need to make the magic happen, I'm stuck. Without the guy who is an expert in permissions, partitioning, and performance tuning, I'm stuck. So, it's definitely a team effort. You can do it all, but you don't want to do it all because then you're running your head off, and you don't really get good at anything. It would be a jack of all trades, master of none type of scenario.

You will seldom find a database that was designed correctly. Just because you got a poor-quality database doesn't mean that you're going to get a better database anywhere else. You rarely get to build a thing on your own. Usually, you inherit somebody else's stuff. So, the challenging thing is working with what you have while trying to implement a better solution. My only advice is to be patient.

I would rate it a nine out of 10. I wouldn't give anything a 10 because I don't have that kind of knowledge, but right now, it does what I need it to do.

We developed a product for banks and we store the data in SQL Server.

SQL Server has good performance, but it could be better.

I have been using SQL Server for a couple of years.

The stability of SQL Server is very important for us because we provide services for banks. The banks need a secure and stable solution from us and we have requested from the cloud provider to give us this level of service.

We have approximately 10 developers and architects using SQL Server. Additionally, we have approximately four end-users using the solution.

The support from Microsoft has been good.

I have previously used Oracle.

The initial setup of SQL Server is not complicated. 

We have four technicians that do the implementation and maintenance of the solution.

There is a license required to use the solution and I am satisfied.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate SQL Server a seven out of ten.

SQL Server is our primary database for identity access management.

What I find most useful in SQL Server is that it's easier to manage and to query. Its databases are well-designed. It's easy to do any changes, and it's easy to query the database through reports and whatever information you need.

There is always room for improvements. In SQL Server, the databases should be able to deal with more data in a faster way. Sometimes, when you have a lot of information running on the SQL databases, the system hangs. Though there are always improvements being done to SQL Server, there's still a lack of speed in being able to process so much information, so the performance of this solution still needs to be improved.

Another area for improvement in SQL Server is its front end, in terms of running the queries, e.g. it would be better if it could give suggestions. For example: When you write something, this solution could have a feature similar to a dictionary's intelligence that will tell you what to write such as the one you have in Word, or in PowerPoint, for example, you'll have the design suggestions for it. An improvement I'd like to see in SQL Server is for it to suggest what you put next when you are writing SQL codes or queries.

We've been dealing with SQL Server for four years now.

SQL Server is a very stable product.

SQL Server is a product you can scale. You can add and remove modules as needed.

SQL Server is expensive if you use the advanced SQL version. If you use the standard version, it's not expensive, because it's included in Windows, in Microsoft. It's very expensive if you use the advanced version. We're using both. For IBM, we're using the advanced version, but then we use the basic SQL Server for the other platforms.

You just pay for the SQL Server license. There's no additional cost as everything's already included.

We currently don't have any issues with SQL Server. There's nothing that we couldn't solve internally, so I haven't had the chance to contact their technical support team.

I'm giving SQL Server an eight out of ten rating.

I can recommend this solution for medium and large enterprises. For small enterprises, it depends: if they use the standard, free one on Windows, yes. If they don't, I wouldn't recommend the investment.

For my business requirements, the performance is good. If we use it on a larger scale, it will not fit our business needs.

It is easy to use.

It has simple syntax, but you must check your packet on a daily basis.

We occasionally face or encounter a problem with the database table itself. Some tables and their flyers, as well as the content's data, must be truncated. It was a major issue with my ERP system because it is a backbone database application. It hasn't happened often, but it was a bad experience. Regarding some table issues, I believe we will encounter them in many applications, but I believe the other vendor, such as Oracle, has more than tools to protect my data.

In the next release, I would like to see a better user interface and a familiar syntax.

I have been working with SQL Server since 2003. It's been more than 10 years.

We use a version component for each application. One is for 2014, and the other is for 2017.

SQL Server is a stable solution.

We have two users in my company. The ERP system has nearly two users. We have about five users for subsidies and the sister company.

I'm not going to increase our usage because I'm going to the cloud. We're going to the cloud, according to my plan. Oracle NetSuite, Microsoft cloud, or NetSuite. Because they are both cloud-based, I don't need to increase the number of SQL server users, either for administration or for users.

I'm not opening a ticket with SQL about the issues we experienced, because it was opened by my partner, but it didn't solve the problem. For my table, it almost uses truncate comma syntax, and it flushes my table contact.

Approximately 10 years ago, I used Oracle Database.

The initial setup is straightforward. I did not encounter any issues.

We have 12 technical teams with four admins to maintain the solutions in our companies.

I don't need a license for it as I will be migrating to Office 365.

I would recommend this solution for small and medium-sized companies, but for enterprise businesses.

I know it's not the best, but this application meets our requirements.

I would rate SQL Server an eight out of ten.

This client, specifically, is using it for Dynamics NAV. I don't know what they're calling it today. Microsoft changes the names all the time, 365 NAV Dynamics. This is ridiculous. We're using it for that, and we have more of a niche CRM database called Tour de Force. It's owned by a company called White Cup. They own a bunch of companies, and it sits on Microsoft SQL, as well.

One of the things I most like about SQL Server is the log shipping piece.

I have another client who uses GP, and they use Power BI to take the data out of the back end. I'm doing an IT assessment there, so I'm not really involved in that specifically, other than the fact this person has too many rights.

I have an auditing background, and I spent 25 years doing IT auditing as well. I understand I'm not a programmer, but I've been involved with enough of them. The log shipping really is one of the greatest features. It is not the only database you can do it in, but that was one of the better features of it because I am a backup nut. We use Veeam Backup and Replication to a local mass storage, but then we fully replicate everything in Veeam to another site with the exact same server set up at our other location. But I wasn't satisfied with that from a disaster recovery point of view. My IT company was, but I was not. I said, "I want to do SQL log shipping. I want to do an SQL backup and SQL log shipping and move it to Azure in the cloud," which is what we do every day. We have an hour by hour backup, in addition to our multiple nightly backups and our replication to our other site, and we've had to use it and it worked. This is a great feature.

Somebody who knows it would easily say, "No problem," because we set up our log shipping in about three hours. We sometimes have challenges with it in terms of timing, of getting it out, backing it up, and sending it to the cloud. There are always the glitches, but I get a daily report on what's going on. Around 30 backup jobs are running at all times, because it is a big company. It's a 200 person company.

In the next releases, I would only like more enhanced backups and more restore points. Data backup and cyber protection are the number one things everybody should be thinking about now. They may not be, but they should be. We're going to go to the Azure environment because that really is a duplicate of the on-premise environment, just somewhere else.

I would say that I have been directly involved in the ERP world for as long as I can remember, but SQL really didn't appear on my radar until the mid-90s. I know that early GP was out there. I believe it was on an earlier version of SQL. I use it heavily now because I'm the CIO. I'm a consultant, but I'm a CIO of a client for almost nine years, where we have two major databases sitting on SQL.

So I have always been involved in a Microsoft environment.

We are always deploying the latest version. I have multiple clients with SQL and Oracle. But my big client is always up to date.

Whether it is deployed on the cloud or on premises depends on the client. My big client is on-premise and we have a two year plan to move to the cloud.

In terms of scalability, I haven't seen any problems with it. We have 120 users. Every once in a while we get a record lock in our data. It's very rare though. Once every six months somebody hits the same record and same night. It's very rare. You go out for a minute, come back in, and it's over.

I don't have any Fortune 5,000, Fortune 2000, or Fortune 1000 companies. According to the governmental definition, they're small, they're SMB, but my big client is 200 million. To me, that's a lot of money-

But in the eyes of the government, they're still a medium company. I have clients with 1,000 people, but they're only a $50 million company. Those are not for profits. They're paying people 10 bucks an hour. It's very hard to categorize that if you're looking at it from a business perspective versus a technical perspective. I have a client with 1,000 people with 82 sites. So that's a technical challenge, but they don't have the same kind of money as the other people do.

It's a different way to categorize it.

Calling Microsoft is like calling Verizon. I wouldn't do that. I have a middleman that I work with. It's easier because they have more clout than do. I know that.

This client, the big client I've been talking about, had some ancient DOS system from the 70s when I got there in 2012. They had no data dictionary note. I think it was running on an early version of Unix on a Compaq machine. When I got there, it was 15 years old. The thing was still running until six months ago. You can't believe it. This thing wouldn't die. I tried to make it die multiple times, but we converted from that system onto Dynamics NAV.

It's a two year undertaking. The SQL was stable all the time, never had a problem with it.

In terms of the initial setup, you probably need to know what you're doing. I haven't seen any real laypeople get into the tables. I know it's possible to learn. Things like Power BI have made it easier, but if you don't know what the tables are you have to be a very methodical person to be able to do that stuff. We use a company called ArcherPoint for dynamics. They're one of the largest dynamics dealers in the country, and they have their stuff together. This woman I use there knows her stuff. She knows SQL very well, and my IT company also has a senior guy who they often talk to, and it always seems pretty straightforward, whatever they do. It's never a big install.

Usually a few hours and it's over.

This client has money, so I never hear any complaints. It seems reasonable to me. I think the biggest problem that Microsoft had back in the early 2000s was that the pricing of SQL was a nightmare. You could call five Microsoft people at Microsoft, and you'd get five different prices. Microsoft has a problem. Well, they have lots of problems. They characterize themselves as perfect.

From 40 years ago, I already knew well in advance of the clients that there is a security hole. I'm looking at Business Central, and somebody who has a global super admin of the tenant can get into the client's accounting system if they have full rights to their 365 email system. That's a big security gap. Their IT company shouldn't be in their financial system. Why would that be? I came up with the idea after talking to five different Microsoft people to just buy another tenant that they don't have access to and they said, "Oh, that works."

SQL Server is a good mainstream application that has been around for quite some time, and I like when things are around for a while. I don't like to be the first kid on the block. I remember when Power BI first came out. I waited a year and a half to use it.

The big thing for NAV was to get reports. We still use it, but we mostly abandoned it. It's really not working as well as I would've liked. And that reads SQL tables. While that was great, you had to trust the person who wrote it, that it would include all the data you needed. There's a big trust. We often found lots of problems with it, so we decided to just program all these reports inside the application. That worked really well. The thing I don't like is, I know a lot of people don't know about the backend security of SQL. They think others cannot get into their system and I tell them they can, they have the SA password. People are shocked. That's a hole that they should plug.

They should plug that and make that more apparent to people. When I did auditing, most clients had SQL based applications, and we'd always say, "Who's got the SA password," and they'd say, "What are you talking about?" Then we would tell them, and there is all this SQL injection stuff that used to happen. I haven't heard of any hacking through the back end in a while. Because you're talking about cybersecurity being so important now, people can hack in and get into the back end, although 99% of cyber is ransomware through email.

The risk is probably still low, but I try to close up all the gaps if I can. Clients don't know about this stuff. They don't even know enough to ask. I find a lot of IT people don't even think about stuff like that.

I'll ask a client if they back up their data and how often. If they talk to their IT guy? If they say, "Once a night," I ask, "Okay, what if it was the middle of the day and you go down? You lose all your data." I ask if they have ever heard of SQL log shipping. They start stuttering because they don't know how to set it up.

It would be great if Microsoft was more up-front about how to do that stuff. It's a great feature.

On a scale of one to ten, I would probably give SQL Server a nine. I don't give anybody a perfect score, certainly not in the technology world. Oracle is out there. NetSuite is just giving it away. You have a lot of other applications not running on SQL, like Intacct, who are creating proprietary, non-Microsoft things to come against what Microsoft is offering like interoperability with different applications. They are really pushing a different environment. I think Microsoft is going to win, but Sage is not a small company.

We have all these big titans fighting each other.

We use Microsoft SQL Server as our main database. We implement our solutions to the client site, providing the machines and the SQL Server license depending on their requirements.

The SQL Server is being deployed on-prem. Most of our clients are from the pharmaceutical industry. If there is a physical database, they want a self-hosted server always on-premises. However, the market is slowly adapting to cloud servers. Scalability and security have increased, so now people are going with cloud servers like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. Most of our clients are hosted on-premises and they have their own server, so we don't go with any cloud server. However, we are planning to move ahead with cloud servers for many of our clients.

The replication feature, user interface, reporting services, and notification services are really good. They are providing SQL Profiler and sqlcmd as their integrated software, so we don't find it difficult to integrate any of our third-party applications with MS SQL because all of them support MS SQL very clearly. As a part of optimization, it is good for processing huge amounts of data.

Performance could be improved. There could be more support toward PHP-based websites and toward providing direct plugins for connections, and the related services or application services could be improved. The user interface could be improved so that someone with less knowledge could easily integrate and use that particular module software.

In the next release, I would like to see a separate tool provided to schedule backup or implement backup solutions on any of the servers that Microsoft has installed. This would be a small utility which I could open and point out the backup parts as well as the type of backup I want. Once I decide the time and set it up, it should be able to connect everything and then accordingly run that back up on an automated basis. 

Right now, people are making their own utilities to do that same thing, but it would be helpful if we could get it directly from Microsoft. Apart from this, it would be helpful to have small plugins or API-based connections, which could be used for integrating MS SQL with different platforms.

I have been using MS SQL Server for 11 years, from the very first day of my job. MS SQL is widely used because its compatibility is good, especially with the .NET Framework because most are Microsoft products. The integration and the response are good, especially if you have huge amounts of data.

Now in the market, there are NoSQL options like MongoDB and Hadoop. Previously, there were pretty much three main databases: MS SQL, Oracle, and MySQL. MySQL was mostly used for small software, but many enterprise software were using MySQL because of the configuration, the compatibility, and the performance.

If you're using platforms like ASP.NET and C#, then you will want MS SQL Server because enterprise-level Microsoft provides many features like analytics services, reporting services, notification services, and now they're providing Microsoft Azure integration services.

MS SQL is very stable. However, the corruption of databases needs to be handled more accurately. If I'm using MS SQL Server and my server accidentally restarts or one of my machines restarts accidentally, then usually the MDB or the MDF file is corrupted. That corruption of files should be handled more efficiently because the client loses most of the data. Of course, the backup plan should be more efficient, putting less load on the server. That needs to be improved and more optimized.

Scalability is good. We have worked on almost 25 loads of data and 35 loads of records in a month. Most were working fine, but after time the process slows down a bit. In MS SQL, the initial 70% would work fine, but when the database starts and the load gets full, it causes slow processing. But considering the cost, features, and compatibility with Microsoft, it's a very stable database.

I have not been in a situation where I required help directly from MS SQL Server because we have our own service team that handles those issues.

Initial setup was a bit complex, but it's doable because it has improved a lot. Previously, it was very hard to install MS SQL. If I had the 2016 version already installed, it allowed me to install 2018 as well. The report features were distributed between two services, and that's where it causes problems.

We implement our solutions to the client site.

For personal websites and personal software that isn't used by more than 100 people, I will always go for MySQL for two reasons: MySQL is free and the enterprise is very low in cost.

Oracle Enterprise is another option, but the cost is high when you consider that MySQL is free.

I would rate this solution 7 out of 10. 

Microsoft's modules are really good. The syntax used for running the query is really easy. Their options for concurrency and locking are good, as well as their prices. They have created separate models such as distribution services and replication services. They are really good options so that if I want to take that service, I pay for it. If I don't want to, then I don't install it and I don't use it. Modular installation is something that I like about MS SQL Server.

If you have a lot of knowledge about MS SQL Server, you will be able to handle huge amounts of data very efficiently. However, you should make sure that you have regular backup protection. 

The servers which you have to purchase for installing, implementing, or managing MS SQL Server need to be optimized in a better way so that you get optimized performance from MS SQL.

Out of all the tools in the complete SQL Server package, I'm mainly using Toolbox and SQL Profiler because I'm using SSIS packets, so we're using job scheduling a lot. And sometimes we are creating the SSIS packages, so I'm using SQL Server for MSD for maintenance purposes. SQL Server is quite user-friendly. I have experience with Oracle and PostgreSQL, so out of three, I like SQL Server a lot.

They could increase the intelligence of SQL Server. That would be good for us.  There are some good intelligent features in SQL Server. However, they need to increase the intelligence because people switching to SQL Server from other solutions are not so familiar with it. I've been working with SQL Server for the last six years, but people are coming from MySQL or Oracle, so it will take one or two months to adjust. Still, they could add some intelligent tools to convert Oracle into SQL Server something like that. 

And sometimes when I'm writing a function, there is already a predefined structure available. So if they defined their structure more precisely, that would be good for us. And the last thing I would like to add is that SQL Server should handle queries more like Oracle does. For example, you submit a query in Oracle, and the whole table comes up. In SQL Server, you go to the table, right-click, and it lets you see the first 200 rows. Then on top of that, you can add 200 more rows.

So in place of those 200 rows, if I can update all my table records or search my table record without a new search query, it'll be very beneficial. That functionality exists in Oracle, but this feature is not available everywhere in SQL Server. So if SQL Server had the feature, it'd be great because SQL Server is lacking only on this point. For example, one of my clients is a semi-technical person, so I have to train them to file a query in SQL. And they say that Oracle is much better. Say, for example, that I wanted to query a particular employee from a list of all staff. So the query output comes, and they can directly filter out the data by just applying the filter. They don't have to use the drop-down menu and search for all the employees with a given name. 

I've been using SQL Server for the last six years. I'm working with SSIS, SSRS, or MDS. These tools are part of SQL Server, and the back-end queries are developed in SQL Server. 

SQL Server is stable. SQL Server has crashed only two times in six years, but it wasn't a major system error. 

It may be a licensing issue, but sometimes its operating speed becomes slow if we have multiple users. It's lacking some performance, but it's acceptable because we have a heavy load. And I would like to add that we're running SQL Server and SSIS at the same time. So while I've found that SQL Server is quite fast, SSIS is a part of SQL Server. It is just for data testing in India. But if a person knows SSIS, then they usually have very little knowledge about SQL and vice versa.

I know both of them. I found that maybe it's a bad habit, but I'm using SSIS packages. And in the SSIS package, I'm using Toolbox from SQL Server to improve the latency. Implementing both together takes a little time. And one more point is data handling. I am just forwarding the error names, and there are multiple errors in the SQL Server tool, but what if a person comes to work under me and has only one or two years of experience?  Sometimes it might be difficult for them to understand what the errors mean. For example, when joining data, it's easy to implement the inner joint. In the inner joint, there are two columns, so when there's an output error, someone who is inexperienced with SQL Server might not understand. Error messages should be a little more precise and defined, so it's easy to understand.

Setting up an individual SQL Server is pretty straightforward, but when you are implementing multiple tools, it's more complicated. In terms of maintenance, for the DBA part, there are two based in my company because I am on a master device, so they don't allow me to maintain the server part. So one person is from South Korea, and the other is from China. They are handling my SQL Server. So maybe there are multiple teams, but I am contacting these two guys, the DBA. And I'm MDS, so I'm a single person. There are two people on my team, and I have one junior staff member. So I have a three-person team, and there are two DBA sites because I'm discussing my master team. I am deployed on the business side, and there are more than 80 people who are end-users of SQL.

If you're using SQL Server along with SSIS and SSRS tools, it works pretty smoothly and all. When working with Oracle SQL, PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc, there are a few problems with the connection.

Overall, SQL Server is good, but sometimes, optimization becomes a little bit tricky when you're using SQL Servers in place of Oracle. For example, while I was implementing two queries one time, the SQL Server gave me the wrong results. This wasn't because of their internal modules. So there may have been some missing data, but SQL Server failed to identify those issues. SQL Server needs to improve there.

For example, say there is a line with a value of 136 or 137. The second value is a space, and the third value is null. And the last one is space. So a space means this is also null. So you are comparing these four values, and if you don't have any idea about data, it's a little problematic. So cases like this, we can deal with such queries using syntax, but if a person has no idea how to deal with this, they'll face an issue.

Here's another example. Say there's a team query that means we are erasing data from the teams, and some people are just analyzing the string. So I see data from it, which means the calling system is there. In the calling system, we receive the data to call anyone, and that type of wire call setup is there. So I am receiving a full-text format from the file I have to upload in the SSIS package. And some cells have a null value. It's a text file, so you can understand there are blanks in some places. I don't know the file type, so I am just trying to dump it into our SQL Server. But when I have time to get to that table, I realize that some values are null, space, and blank. So these four values make problems for me.

I rate SQL Server nine out of 10. I would recommend SQL Server to anyone because you can use cloud-based services, so it's very beneficial. If you install SQL Server on-premise and on the Azure cloud, it is much more advantageous for you. 

There are many applications between Microsoft and SQL. Most are in the legacy direction, but some are more modern databases with those application requirements. We have used it for multi-purposes such as back-office products applications and cloud office environments.

The solution is easy to use, has rich feature sets, and is business-oriented. 

They could improve the solution by allowing more portability between on-premise and the cloud.

More improvements can be brought around hyper-threading. Like we see in work engines of hyper-threading. It is very complex in terms of the way they do it. If it was via CPU or something else, it would be much easier.

In a future release, they could improve by expanding their form base capabilities.

I have been using the solution for a couple of years.

I have found the solution to be very stable.

The solution is scalable.

The support is good for the solution.

We used Oracle and DB2 in the past.

Initially, the installation took a while. We have started deploying configurations that are now standardized. We have automated it, but it can still be problematic. For the most part, the installation is now quite easy. Additionally, The way they have many configurable parameters that influence performance is in a way problematic.

We did the deployment of the solution and we have a team of 15 people doing the deployment and maintenance.

The licenses are really expensive. Their licensing model should be more simplistic.

I would recommend this solution to others and we plan to keep using it in the future.

I rate SQL Server a nine out of ten.