Microsoft MDS Reviews

I'm a distributor and developer of Microsoft MDS. 

The most valuable feature of the solution is Excel because it enables even non-technical people to directly interact with the BI system which is important because most of our people are not from the IT sector. The second important feature is that while we are using Informatica and other SAP tools which are less customizable, MDS increases customization for us and that is very useful. MDS, SQL and SSIS make the solution much more powerful. The main reason we use this solution is because of its customization. 

I have faced data primary violation in MDS when the primary key was full and that is not good. There are occasions when the solution maintains SD and we get duplications of MDS. When I use the SIS package for batch activity and it's full, I have to delete the batch manually by going into the database. The solution can sometimes be slow. We are in a healthcare environment and I've faced some synchronizing issues with the test model. I've faced some issues as a consultant of this solution because of the above. It can be slow sometimes.

I rate the solution six out of 10. 

I've been using this solution for six years. 

There can be some issues with stability depending on how you use the solution. 

We can directly scale everything by coding and we can customize everything. 

It's important to remember that when you're installing the SQL Server, you have to select MDS. Once that's done MDS has to be enabled and the MDS database has to be created. For that purpose, you have to open MDS configuration and create the MDS database. Finally you have to build a few services of Microsoft Windows - Windows 10, Windows Server or something else - to enable multiple services and open multiple ports to enable DevOps MDS service. You then need a Microsoft Silverlight for MDS use. Finally, the MDS developer must have the admin rights of the system as well as the database.

MDS alone is a free product, but it comes with the complete package of Microsoft SQL Server. So while you are purchasing SQL Server Pro version or licensed version of SQL Server you also get SSIS, MDS and DQS. 

The advantage of Microsoft MDS is that it's so handy, so customizable, and easy to use. It has all the basics and given that we are a directly integral system, everyone is able to use Excel. The advantage is that you can be working on bulk data and creating a batch, we can upload or deliver activities. If one system has reached capacity or has stopped, then the whole system stops and it is quite difficult to solve the problem. My advice is that if you want to use custom UI, then make sure you work on Internet Explorer. Without it you can't use a structured MDS UI. In place of Internet Explorer create your own custom UI by the .NET feature.

It can be used for all the data cataloging, master data management, manufacturing, product management, data harmonization, data stewardship, for any kind of master data, and product catalog.

It gives you the flexibility to have in-depth experience. It allows you to collect data and save it as a golden record. You have the flexibility for data stewardship.

They also have an Excel API where you can do everything from Excel. You can make changes with the connectivity on the Excel API.

It's very easy to use.

The version that I work with is on-premises and it required an additional virtual machine on the cloud. It would be a better option to have an on-cloud version.

I have been using this solution for three years.

We are using the latest version.

It's very stable. Stability is one of the best features.

It's scalable. It's based on Microsoft SQL Server.

They are using this solution at an enterprise level for our customer who is an implementer. They are going to produce data and scale it.

We contacted technical support with an issue that we were having and they were able to solve it. It was a learning phase but Microsoft provided support.

Microsoft support is good. They are customer-friendly and they are knowledgeable.

We are using SAP for the master data.

SAP is more expensive than Microsoft. It's costly.

SAP is a very good ESP tool that can also be used for master data services.

It's very stable.

I was not a part of the installation. I have not done it, but it should be simple. 

It's similar to any SQL server installation.

Implementing with the cloud was a little bit complex. 

There was an issue with the production version.

In my current organization, I'm recommending reviewing all of the product cataloging master data management. This is what I would recommend for anybody who wants to do master data management, they use this product.

I would rate Microsoft MDS an eight out of ten.

I'm using Microsoft MDS for configuring the storage for backups on the DPM server, and data protection manager.

The most valuable feature of Microsoft MDS is its management.

The stability could be improved.

I have been using Microsoft MDS for approximately two years.

Microsoft MDS is stable.

I rate the stability of Microsoft MDS a nine out of ten.

The scalability of Microsoft MDS is good.

We have three administrators using this solution in my company.

It has some disadvantages, in the data protection manager, but this is specifically for our environment. In general, it scales well. 

I have contacted technical support because of our specific environment. It was not the fault of the solution.

The initial setup of Microsoft MDS is simple. After thoroughly planning and gathering all necessary information and instructions, the implementation took one day.

I rate Microsoft MDS a nine out of ten.

We have been able to have one true copy of data with Master Data Services. It's improved our organization by removing redundancies. It has reduced the duplication across a number of different databases.

The dynamic data masking, the row-level security, and the data quality business rules are the most valuable features of the solution.

The solution could be better integrated into Microsoft's other products.  

One of the key features that it doesn't have is a data modeling feature. Everyone uses Microsoft, but not for modeling. They use IBM, SAP PowerDesigner, etc. It would be really good to combine this solution with a modeler. For me, that's what is missing.

In a future release, I would like to see a better link to SSIS, Microsoft's business intelligence product. I would also like to see improvements in the user interface.

The solution is very stable.

I believe the solution is easiest to scale when housed by Azure. In previous installations, we housed 20-50 people, max.

Technical support is very good.

Every installation that I previously worked on had some form of Microsoft MDS.

I didn't handle the initial setup; it's dealt with by a different team. I believe it's very straightforward in terms of an installer having a model object package which contains all of the entities, attributes, groups, hierarchies, business rules, etc. And this is deployed as a package via an XML file. That's the standard way of doing it. 

We use the private cloud version of the solution.

The beauty with Master Data Services is that it's centralized in one place and the problem with other solutions is that most of them have been created in house. There is an overlap between them. 

The big advantage of this solution is with regards to a data warehouse. What you can do is cleanse the data and make it consistent throughout the warehouse before it gets into it, so it guarantees consistency.

I'd recommend Microsoft MDS. It's the best MDM tool out there.

I would rate the solution seven out of ten.

One of the main features I have found useful is the integration with Azure active directory.

I would like to separate the website from the database side. By default, you have the webserver running on the same server as it is the database. This forces us to make a bigger VM which means more costing for the VM. We tried to go with a less expensive route and every now and then we run out of memory, you have to reboot the machine. It is okay in DEV and QA, but ideally, we should not have this happening.

I do not like using Silverlight and Internet Explorer. The new 2019 version gets rid of that, which is one of the reasons why we are looking to switch.

Additionally, the overall performance could improve.

I have been using the solution for two years.

The solution will work fine stability wise if you have the VM sized appropriately.

If you have the environment then the solution can be scaled.

I have not needed to call technical support but I almost did when I was trying to do a SQL server restore of a production database and converting it into a DEV and QA environment.

I set it up on my own laptop and I did not think it was that difficult. The challenging part is making sure you are matched up with the right version and patch level of SQL Server and IE.

I did the implementation myself and it took me two days because we had multiple versions of the documentation. They were all dated in their own unique ways and because of this, I created a new version of them all, that worked for me. We have three technicians that support the solution in my organization.

I believe my organization has had a return on investment using this solution.

The solution does require a license and we have enterprise licenses.

I rate Microsoft MDS a nine out of ten.

The safety is good, and it's pretty easy to generate queries. Also, the GUI is friendly, with new features, like stored procedures. It is really easy to create a Microsoft service.

More generic related things can be included in the services.

I have been using Microsoft MDS for three to four years.

The product is stable.

I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.

Ten people are using this solution daily in our project.

I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.

The initial setup is easy because there is another procurement team in order to get it installed on our machines. In large organizations, everything is separated. There is a team for everything. We request a service, there is a procurement team which will analyze and install it on our servers.

The data modeling capabilities are sufficient. We utilize it sparingly, primarily for generating a few schemas. Additionally, these schemas have remained unchanged. 

I recommend the solution because GUI is good. it is very user-friendly. It doesn't require much knowledge to use the service directly, making it a pretty easy-to-use solution.

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

Our primary use case of this solution is to develop solutions for our clients.

What I like about Microsoft, is that it has a huge database with many users.

I would like to see better pricing - a drop in price would be great. 

I have been working on Microsoft MDS for the past three years now.

The technical support is good. We are responsible for the maintenance of the program for our clients, and I believe that we've provided good support so far.

The price of the program has gone up, so I would like to see better pricing. But I like it that there are no additional fees that we have to pay.

If I have to rate this program from one to ten, I will give it an eight. My advice to others would be to use an activity log. They should have a user account and they should keep track of every user that logs on, and the platform should keep track of it.

I like the ease of deployment. It is very easy to deploy and provision a machine.

I like the analytics and that I can run them. Until now, this was always something that was done on the business side. For me, this solution makes it easier to do analytics.

With Oracle, they have to use an IBM business intelligence tool called Cognizer. But with Microsoft, the BI tool is better. So we are using Microsoft BI as it is quite good.

Most of the Microsoft partners, especially digitally, are separate. Personnel are business people, and they do not have technical expertise, so you end up as a company spending a lot of money training your staff and your engineers. This is something that Mircosoft needs to improve on. They must have personnel who have each shared capacity for their staff, so when it comes to implementation, it doesn't take a lot of time.

The implementation takes months, and it could even take as long as a year. The implementation is a small issue because Microsoft does not come to the ground, it is the personnel.

The only issue is pricing because technical support is there. Our engineers are well trained in Microsoft, and we have the Microsoft BI Office which is very helpful but pricing is a bit of a challenge.

There is not much to be corrected other than just improve continuously on the business intelligence section. That is important for businesses.

This solution was already in place when I arrived, and I have been working with it for more than ten years.

Technical support is okay, we have not had any problems. In the future, we plan to move to Office 365. In the next financial year, we will be purchasing the license for Office 365.

With Microsoft, we buy everything though an agreement, so we purchase volume licensing every year. That is how our licenses are managed.

I am an information security analyst and I research to stay up on the trends and to see what is happing on the market now because we run our Firewalls.

I would recommend getting the correct licenses. From the article, they should get to know which licenses, because there are different agents of licensing. 

Ensure they get the right size servers.

Ensure that they have the best technical expertise, to help with the implementation.

Microsoft products are quite good. We run innovation Microsoft 2017 and it's pretty impressive.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.