Coby Jefferson Gardner - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Consultant at Align BI
Real User
Top 10
A highly stable solution that has the ability to handle really large sets of data
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature of Amazon Redshift is its ability to handle really large sets of data."
  • "Amazon Redshift is a little more expensive than other products."

What is our primary use case?

We use Amazon Redshift for our data warehouse to store a lot of our data for a client.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of Amazon Redshift is its ability to handle really large sets of data. In our case, the solution does a lot of things that would be difficult to do otherwise.

What needs improvement?

Amazon Redshift is a little more expensive than other products.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Amazon Redshift for four years.

Buyer's Guide
Amazon Redshift
April 2024
Learn what your peers think about Amazon Redshift. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
767,847 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Amazon Redshift is super stable, and we haven't faced any outages or other issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution's scalability has been fine regarding how much data we can load into it. Once the solution is set up, we pay for what we use. Three people are using the solution in our organization.

What other advice do I have?

Users should select Amazon Redshift depending on what their needs are. Amazon has other cheaper database products, but Amazon Redshift is a really good option for users who need a lot of computation.

Overall, I rate Amazon Redshift ten out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Flag as inappropriate
PeerSpot user
Soullution Architech at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Excellent for reporting solution requirement
Pros and Cons
  • "Redshift has an advantage when it comes to administration, making it easier to manage and collaborate."
  • "Amazon Redshift does not have the capability to dynamically increase the VM file."

What is our primary use case?

I have used it for our reporting solution requirement. We gathered data from different processes and applications, like the high system process. Clients can review the data; we use it for connections and reports. Additionally, Redshift generates some configuration files without using an application.

What is most valuable?

For reporting purposes, Redshift is a great tool to use. Redshift has an advantage when it comes to administration, making it easier to manage and collaborate. Additionally, its server architecture allows for faster processing. Redshift also supports prepaid costs, which is another great feature. However, similar features are also available in Azure.

Redshift has some advantages in terms of administration and performance.

What needs improvement?

When compared to Snowflake, Amazon Redshift does not have the capability to dynamically increase the VM file. However, Amazon Redshift provides a virtual database called 'VW' that allows you to increase the size of the warehouse to run faster on a monthly basis without changing anything. This feature is not available in Redshift. So it's a limitation of Redshift.

It's not possible to immediately increase the virtual warehouse size in Amazon Redshift. When compared to Snowflake, we cannot increase the virtual warehouse size in Redshift. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution since 2015. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I don't see any issues with data loss or any other problems. Although there might be some loss in the data center, we monitor it, and everything is enabled. In such scenarios, the turn-up time is much faster. We've been using it since 2018, and I've got the same product for another customer using a limited rate. So, I don't see any significant impact, and it's a very stable product.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have to consider the scalability of this solution carefully. In production, we have a proper size. We allocate 40% for data storage and 60% for temporary segments. We cannot increase data storage usage beyond 50%. It cannot exceed 80% of the total utilization, including network speed and query performance. We monitor all of these carefully.

So if the CPU utilization goes beyond 80%, I recommend upgrading to multiple nodes. It ensures that there won't be any issues. Around 30 people are using AWS and Azure modules along with me.

How are customer service and support?

We have contacted the Redshift team for support related to other installations, such as WDL configuration for project implementation for a web application. When it was not working as expected, we had to provide authentication for the web chat. So, we used to contact them for that kind of knowledge.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup depends on who is doing it. In my opinion, it doesn't require much knowledge. Since we've been using it for a long time, it's much faster for me, but it might not be the same for others.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It's on the expensive side.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

One reason we chose this solution is that we are in the process of moving everything to the cloud. But that's not the only reason. My company wanted to consolidate everything into one system, and AWS provided all the necessary information in one place. For example, Lambda is for specific storage and limited membership; all this information is available in one cloud network. This way, data segregation is much faster and easier to use. It's just everything in one cloud network, so we decided to use it.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend it. However, I think we need to consider other configuration levels. You need to decide, and I would not go with the first option.

To evaluate the data you are planning to migrate, we need to assess the environment. What is the value of your data, and what type of data is it? The density of the data is also important. Before implementing Redshift, we need to ensure that the AWS configuration is activated. After that, you need to set up enrollment and increase your storage. I don't recommend making a purchase on the same day, but it is a critical moment at a high level.

I suggest purchasing a renewal that meets the deposit requirements so that you can have a good experience and optimal performance. You can increase the budget for the building process. If you have the right team, such as those with experience in AWS or those who are learning about Azure databases, they can start using Redshift without any issues.

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

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Amazon Redshift
April 2024
Learn what your peers think about Amazon Redshift. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
767,847 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Liana Iuhas - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at Quark Technologies SRL
Real User
Top 5
Is scalable, stable, easy to use, and has good query performance
Pros and Cons
  • "It's very easy to migrate from other databases to Redshift. There are migration tools dedicated for this purpose, enabling migration from other databases like MS SQL directly to Redshift. The majority of the scripts will be automatically transposed."
  • "AWS Snowflake has a very good feature for cloning databases. It makes it easy to clone a data warehouse, which is useful. I would like to see this feature in Redshift."

What is most valuable?

It is scalable, easy to use, and has very good query performance. It is serverless as well.

They introduced machine learning directly in to Redshift, and you can now query using machine-learning functions.

It's very easy to migrate from other databases to Redshift. There are migration tools dedicated for this purpose, enabling migration from other databases like MS SQL directly to Redshift. The majority of the scripts will be automatically transposed.

What needs improvement?

AWS Snowflake has a very good feature for cloning databases. It makes it easy to clone a data warehouse, which is useful. I would like to see this feature in Redshift. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Amazon Redshift from 2013.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

For stability, I would give a rating of ten out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have 16 Redshift users in our company, and I'd rate the scalability at ten out of ten. 

How are customer service and support?

Redshift's technical support has been great.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is simple.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

In comparison to the price of similar solutions, Redshift's cost is the lowest.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend Amazon Redshift and would rate it at nine on a scale from one to ten, where one is the worst and ten is the best.

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Mikalai Surta - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Big Data Department at IBA Group
MSP
Top 5
Provides excellent features, enables fast reporting, and can be deployed easily
Pros and Cons
  • "Redshift Spectrum is the most valuable feature."
  • "The product must become a bit more serverless."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution for data storage of reports.

What is most valuable?

Redshift Spectrum is the most valuable feature.

What needs improvement?

The product must become a bit more serverless. Users should have to pay only for the resources they consume.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for one year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The tool is quite stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Around 20 people in our organization use the product. The tool’s scalability is good.

How was the initial setup?

The solution is deployed on the cloud. The initial setup was pretty easy.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The product is quite expensive.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We also tried using Athena. However, Redshift was faster.

What other advice do I have?

We use the tool because we have everything on AWS. Amazon Redshift is best for fast reporting. People who want to use the solution must try using Athena. If it is not fast enough, they can try Redshift. Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Flag as inappropriate
PeerSpot user
Sr BI and Data Engineer at Datacult
Real User
Top 20
Good for data warehousing but complex setup
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature of Redshift is its cluster."
  • "The initial setup is a complex process, especially for someone who is not familiar with nodes and configuring terms like RPUs."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for data warehousing. Currently, I'm setting up a data link with Redshift to fetch data from our data lake.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of Redshift is its cluster.

What needs improvement?

Redshift's serverless technology needs to improve because not everyone is technically inclined. Organizations want to quickly access and import data into their data warehouse without hassle.

Redshift's ETL tool, Glue, is not seamlessly integrated with Redshift. I've encountered many instances where it couldn't fetch the perfect data type from the source, which should be intuitive. Snowflake's ETL tool, on the other hand, is more intuitive and seamless.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for two years. I am working with the latest version.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I haven't faced any stability issues because when it works, it runs continuously.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is a complex process, especially for someone who is not familiar with nodes and configuring terms like RPUs. You need to consult the documentation to understand what an RPU is.

Moreover, Redshift can be difficult to maintain, especially the Redshift cluster instance.

What about the implementation team?

When it comes to the initial deployment and implementation process of Redshift, there are two types of nodes to choose from: DC2 and RA3, which are for different requirements based on the load. One is for storage, one is for storage and checking, and one is for the computing center.

First, the user needs to know their exact requirement, unlike Snowflake, which automatically scales up and down based on the requirement using the Retrieval Service tool.

The service has not matured yet, and for the Redshift cluster, scaling has to be done manually. The cluster also needs to be set up manually, which is not ideal, especially when Snowflake is already in the market.

It is easy to deploy if you already know how to use Redshift. But if I were a new customer, I might need assistance.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Redshift is a bit less costly than Snowflake, but the effort justifies the cost for Snowflake.

What other advice do I have?

I would suggest starting with a three-cluster that is DC two large, especially if you are setting up a cluster-based search. We offer a three-month or one-month trial, which will allow you to see if you can handle the manual scaling up, scaling down, and maintenance of Redshift. If not, then you can switch to a serverless data solution.

Overall, I would rate it a seven out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Integrator
PeerSpot user
Martin Gregor - PeerSpot reviewer
DWH, BI & Big Data consultant / developer /modeler - independent contractor at Freelancer
Real User
Top 10
Helps us create SQL ETL procedures in a business system
Pros and Cons
  • "I like it because the usage is very similar to Microsoft SQL server. The structure of the query and the temporary tables are very similar."
  • "The explain panel in the Redshift database could be better."

What is our primary use case?

I use Amazon Redshift for the creation of SQL ETL procedures in a business system. Business people check this in a front-end application, and it helps them plan sales for the next year.

Redshift is being deployed on a Microsoft Azure server.

There are about six people working on this project and using the solution, but there are many similar projects running on Oracle and Redshift.

What is most valuable?

I like it because the usage is very similar to Microsoft SQL server. The structure of the query and the temporary tables are very similar. Until recently, I thought it was the superior database, but now I think that Redshift is better.

What needs improvement?

The explain panel in the Redshift database could be better.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used this solution for 10 months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable. I haven't had any problems or downfall with the database in the 10 months that I have used the solution.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have also used Microsoft SQL server and Oracle.

How was the initial setup?

Setup was difficult because I had to set up 25 connections with different users and passwords. The connections have been predefined, but there were still problems when trying to connect for the first time. I had some problems with some certifications that were malfunctioning. This might have had something to do with the functionality of my keyboard because if I pushed a random combination on the keyboard, it would delete the certificate from the folder and the connection wouldn't work. I think this is a problem with the remote desktop rather than with Redshift.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate this solution as eight out of ten. I can't give it a higher score because there are some issues with variable character columns in the table. Otherwise, it's a great database.

Some of my former colleagues from a previous job have joined my organization, and they have had some issues with the SQRs because some things work differently in Redshift, like the partition bar. If someone has issues with Redshift, my advice is to check with support.

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Service Manager & Solution Architect at a logistics company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Easy to use and simple to setup, but the performance is low, and there is no tool to support the CDC
Pros and Cons
  • "It is quite simple to use and there are no issues with creating the tables."
  • "It takes a lot of time to ingest and update the data."

What is our primary use case?

We stored all of the data in the S3 bucket and would like to have it stored in a data warehouse, which is why we chose this database. 

It would be very easy for us as an end-user, who would like to access the data, rather than draw it post-transformation and store it at a database level.

What is most valuable?

The TP transactions for the creation of the tables does very well.

It is quite simple to use and there are no issues with creating the tables.

What needs improvement?

The managing updates, deletes, and role-level change performance is very low. For example, while you are doing inserts, updates, deletes, and amalgamates, the performance is very, very poor.

If you want to query the database after you have a lot of terabytes of data, the load, performance-wise, is very low.

Looking at the performance of the query, querying the database, and especially with the amalgamates when it is getting updated, it is really poor.

We like this solution and have tried all of the native services; they were working quite well. The only concern about Redshift was managing the cluster, especially the EMR cluster. Our company policy was not to use EMR clusters, especially with the nodes failing. There were many instances of downtime happening. Essentially, there was too much data traffic.

The other drawback was the CDC, as we do not have any tools that can support it.

Creating the structure is easy on the DDL side, but after you create the table and you want to transform the data to store it in a database, the performance is poor.

It takes a lot of time to ingest and update the data. After you ingest the data and someone wants to fetch it in the table, it takes a lot of time performance-wise to return the results.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution for three months.

We are using the latest version.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

There are issues with stability and it should be compared with Snowflake.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This solution is scalable. We scale up and scale down manually when we are required to, we do not have an automatic setup.

We have three or four people using this solution.

How are customer service and technical support?

We have contacted technical support to give our opinion and recommendations or feedback and they agreed that it needs improvement.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Previously, we tried the Snowflake database, which works really well. The expectations were really good with the performance, also the DDL, DML operations on the processing of the data.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is simple and we did not find it very complex at all.

The time it takes to deploy depends on how many tables you want to create, or how many tables will you merge the data with.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We are switching to Azure, although not because of the product or the services that we did not like. It's about AWS being competitors for logistic companies that we are working with. Also for security reasons, we do not know how secure the data is on the cloud.

If you are competitors then you don't know if the data can be accessed by your competitor, and the team can be looking at a demographic, which could impact your sales.

What other advice do I have?

We have only just started using Redshift, but we are not really satisfied with it.

I would rate this solution a six out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Ved Prakash Yadav - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Data Platform Manager at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 10
Works as a data warehouse system and collects data from different sources
Pros and Cons
  • "The tool's most valuable feature is its parallel processing capability. It can handle massive amounts of data, even when pushing hundreds of terabytes, and its scaling capabilities are good."
  • "In terms of improvement, I believe Amazon Redshift could work on reducing its costs, as they tend to increase significantly. Additionally, there are occasional issues with nodes going down, which can be problematic."

What is our primary use case?

Amazon Redshift serves as our data warehouse system. We collect data from various sources, including 153 streams. We gather companies' data for rating, deployment, and stock market analysis. We then push this data onto Amazon Redshift, which Power BI, Tableau, and even Google Looker use for reporting and analysis.

What is most valuable?

The tool's most valuable feature is its parallel processing capability. It can handle massive amounts of data, even when pushing hundreds of terabytes, and its scaling capabilities are good.

The solution's performance and speed depend on the data structure and model, but Amazon Redshift's massive parallel processing is typically good. 

What needs improvement?

In terms of improvement, I believe Amazon Redshift could work on reducing its costs, as they tend to increase significantly. Additionally, there are occasional issues with nodes going down, which can be problematic.

We often encounter issues like someone dropping a column or changing the order of columns, which can cause synchronization problems when pushing data through our pipeline. It's a minor issue, but it can be annoying.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the product since 2019. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The product is stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

My company has more than 100 users. 

How are customer service and support?

I've reached out to the support team for help. We used to connect with them almost every week. They're very quick to respond and provide assistance.

How was the initial setup?

The tool's deployment is straightforward. You need to know what kind of clusters and nodes you want, how big they should be, and how much money you're willing to spend.

What was our ROI?

The tool's ROI depends on the data. If you have too much data, it's worth it. If you have some data and don't need it, you're wasting money.

What other advice do I have?

I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten. I'd recommend Amazon Redshift. It's stable and scalable, needing little maintenance. It handles data well and provides fast reporting results.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Flag as inappropriate
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Amazon Redshift Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: April 2024
Product Categories
Cloud Data Warehouse
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Amazon Redshift Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.