Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Reviews

The solution's scalability is very, very good. It's one of the most important aspects for us. 

We really need our data to stay in Western Europe. As an insurance company, it's important for our business. Microsoft can guarantee that it stays in Western Europe. That way, data is not processed anywhere else.

It's widely acknowledged as an excellent product throughout the industry. There's a lot of knowledge about it in the Netherlands as well. It makes it very easy to find a consultancy and also employees who can help us with its modern architecture.

The initial setup is easy. You don't need extensive training. It's an intuitive process.

What I would like to see is a possibility for time travel on the data. For instance, a financial department would like to do an analysis of the data set as it was for the first of the month while another department wants to run the analysis about how things went yesterday or last week. They have different starting points for the queries. I've seen Snowflake handle tasks such as these. It's got a feature called time shuffling, which can show me what's there on a certain variety of dates. It's very convenient.

It would be great if we could query the data of the day as well as in the data warehouse. 

They should have scalable memory processor options for the data warehouse.

While the solution is flexible, sometimes this works against the user.

We're new to the solution. We started using it last year around April or May. It's been less than 12 months so far.

The solution is scalable. It's online. That means you can scale it online and can stop the database to change the scaling of it.

We've had a few calls with technical support. They were very helpful and responsive. We have been satisfied with their level of support.

The initial setup is very straightforward. It's not overly complex. A company shouldn't have any issues with the initial setup or implementation. You don't need deep technical insights to have training.

You can create a floor space in an hour. That's no problem. Afterward, you have to work with the data and do a few more things in terms of configuration, however, it's not hard.

We are using the latest version of the solution.

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

I would recommend Synapse, however, it depends on which industry an organization is working in. It can be complex, and often, you have to choose between several tools. They're all able to do the same job, they're just more industry-specific in some cases. 

If you want to transform your data, you can choose between the database, data factory, and SQL, and even other tools.

This means it is very flexible, however, it also makes it difficult to administer. It's not that one of these sources is harder per se. It's more about what is the best for the job. Sometimes you create something and it doesn't perform and you have to start from scratch.

We are using it internally and afterward some of the outcomes are made public, either to customers or in different projects.

It's mainly for preparing internal documents when we use Word. Otherwise, we use it for externally or for a lot of PowerPoint and Excel for budget purposes. Being a small company, we don't need a very sophisticated software solution, so with an Excel spreadsheet, we can handle the different budget of different projects simultaneously.

When connecting one project to the other, especially when it's handled by the same project director, the possibility of linking one spreadsheet to the other has been useful. Also, when using a Word document and making a link to another document based on an Excel spreadsheet, that's very useful. It's also great that we can interrelate one document to the other and sometimes one project to the other.

The macro functions of Excel are very useful. 

The stability is pretty good.

The solution has the potential to scale.

The macro functions, though useful, are not totally user-friendly. Some people have difficulties in learning them.

If the project keeps growing we will need to link some of the documents to the data warehouse. However, at that time, I'm not sure about the possibility of keeping the same systems that we are using right now. We may need some kind of migration. I cannot say for sure, as I am not an expert. We'll need advice on that.

The initial setup is not straightforward.

The solutions not user-friendly and does require training of some sort.

The solution requires a lot of the memory of the different devices.

We've been using the solution for a while. We use it pretty much every day and have used it over the past 12 months.

My intention is to increase productivity. As long as a project can still be handled the way they are, we will keep using the current system. If we see a better alternative with better productivity achievement, we will most probably think about migration. For now, we find it to be stable and acceptable.

We do plan to increase usage and we may hire a consultant to help with an expansion in a few months. This will likely happen, however, anything can change in terms of the business and the larger industry.

Scalability is good. I foresee scalability in terms of the possibility of using more features and the only difficult thing that I see already is the macros of the Excel spreadsheets. I also know that it has a good opportunity for scalability, in terms of the more complex tasks that can be achieved. 

Currently, we have ten people on the solution.

We use an outsourcing service for technical support. We've been satisfied with their level of service.

We haven't used a different product. We've always used Microsoft.

The initial setup is complex. It's not straightforward.

In many ways, implementation is a never-ending process, as there are always things to improve. In a few months, most of our people are familiar with the product and have a good sense of the basics, however, there's always more to do.

There was actually one consultant at the beginning of the project. We will also definitely need someone for future migration. However, it's not something that we are considering at present. It's something we'll need to do probably in the next few months. It will depend on the growth of the business.

The licensing is okay. There might be a few extra fees in addition to the standard license.

I'm just an end-user and customer.

I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.

I'd rate them higher if they could make it more user-friendly in terms of those more sophisticated capabilities that the system offers. Also, the training requires long hours. That's something difficult to organize when people have to be allocated to specific training sessions, instead of being on the projects. There's a kind of complex way of balancing the possibility of some people using the more sophisticated solutions and getting trained. 

Our primary use case is to process data and provide it to our clients.

The most valuable feature is data processing.

The architecture, including compute and storage, is good.

The performance and data consistency need to be improved.

Support for PSQL functionality should be included, as it is something that is missing right now.

I have used Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics over the past 12 months.

The stability has been getting much better. Two years back, there were issues with it.

Scalability is something that is improving.

The initial setup is straightforward.

We deployed it ourselves.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

I used it for a project thesis for my school project.

I like its performance. It is well-structured and offers a lot of practical options. Because of the visual design of the product, it is very easy to find icons and other visual elements.

It took me more than two weeks to understand how it works. I had an intensive training session to understand it, which was enough. It was not hard to understand how it works.

I am a researcher. For people to be able to research a solution, there should be at least a free trial. Just advertising a product or saying that this product is better doesn't work. I would strongly recommend providing a lot of free trials and trainings. This will also help Microsoft in having more users or customers. Oracle provides some free trials. You can just go for a free trial and use your database online, which is very good.

I have been using Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse for three months.

It was ready when I started to use it. I just had to do my project.

Its price could be better. It was a school project, and I got it for free. If I try to pay through my company, it is a little bit more expensive as compared to Oracle.

I am also using an Oracle solution. Oracle has been in the database field for a longer time, and it provides you more familiar terms that the users understand. When users start to work with an Oracle solution, they are more familiar with the terms. They just need basic training to understand it, but with Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse, they have to be a little bit more experienced. In order to understand this product better, they have to know how other Microsoft products work.

It is a powerful asset if we can use it and learn more about it. If Microsoft can give some free training sessions for students and amateurs, it would be helpful in knowing more about this product from inside. 

I would rate Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse an eight out of ten.

We primarily use this solution for source analytics and procurement.

The most valuable feature of the solution is the analytics and that it can connect with Power BI. I found it quite interesting and very compelling in terms of detail within a single stack.

I would like my team to be able to build pipelines that integrate with the Azure Data Factory. Some of the best-in-class ETL products that are available in the market, such as Informatica ETL, are far more mature than this solution.

We started implementing projects with Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse about six months ago.

This is a stable product.

Scalability is good and we haven't had any issues.

We have approximately 150 users. We are stable at the moment but we will expand our usage as we get more data.

We have contacted Microsoft support twice, but I do not have much experience with them.

In addition to Azure SQL Data Warehouse, we work with the version that is on-premises.

We are also working with Oracle Data Warehouse and we plan to continue using both of these solutions.

The initial setup is straightforward.

We implement this solution for our customers.

If you are using Microsoft products, such as Office 365, then this solution is good because it can take the data from multiple sources. 

This is a good product, but when you compare to Oracle Data Warehouse there are differences in scalability, high availability, and implementation.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

We mostly provide cloud data warehousing platforms for major banks in Canada. What we're trying to do is to create a standard platform environment that is compliant with the regulatory requirements imposed by the government and financial overseeing institutions for the banks. We help them to onboard the lines of business to these platforms and migrate the existing workloads to the cloud platforms.

The ability to scale out services on-demand and scale them down when they are not required is most valuable. You are in control of your expenditures, and you are also in control of the horsepower that you need. That's a major advantage.

The major challenge that we're seeing with Azure Synapse is around security concerns. The way it is working right now, it has Managed VNet by Microsoft option, similar to the implementation of Azure Databricks, which may pose a concern for financial institutions. For managed environments, the banks have very strict policies around data being onboarded to those environments. For some confidential applications, the banks have the policy to encrypt it with their own key, so it is sort of like Bring Your Own Key, but it is not possible to manage the resources with Microsoft or Databricks, which is probably the major challenge with Azure Synapse.

There should be more compatibility with SQL Server. It should be easier to migrate solutions between different environments because right now, it is not really competitive. It is not like you can go and install SQL Database in some other environment. You will have to go through some migration projects, which probably is one of the major showstoppers for any bank. When they consider Synapse, they not only consider the investment in the actual service; they also consider the cost of the migration process.

When you scale out or scale down your system, it becomes unavailable for a few minutes. Because it is a data warehouse environment, it is not such a huge deal, but it would be great if they can improve it so that the platform is available during the change of configuration.

I have been using this solution for two years.

Generally, it is stable. We all heard about the Active Directory issue earlier this week, but it was not related to Synapse. It was related to the Azure platform.

Its scalability is good. The only thing is that when you scale out or scale down your system, it becomes unavailable for a few minutes. Because it is a data warehouse environment, it is not such a huge deal, but it would be great if they can improve it so that the platform is available during the change of configuration.

We're working with banks, and they have great support because Microsoft has multiple representatives closely monitoring each account. Whenever there is an issue, they're being proactive. They're making a lot of money out of it. Most of the banks, on average, spend between 30 to 50 million a year on Azure. They're pretty large accounts, and Microsoft has dedicated people supporting everything related to Azure.

We deliver platforms to different banks. Some of the banks go with Synapse, and some of the banks go with Snowflake. Overall, these are two major alternatives available right now.

There are multiple differences in terms of the support of different workloads. When one of the banks made a decision to go with Snowflake, the major reason for it was the support for the multi-cloud environment. The major pro of Synapse is the service, and the major con is that when you decide to move out of Synapse, you would have to rewrite the entire thing, whereas, with Snowflake, it would be just simple migration to different cloud providers.

It is relatively straightforward as long as you understand what you're doing.

You don't really need to maintain it. That's the entire point of the cloud. You pay for it to be maintained. 

We do deal with monitoring and other similar things, but most of the activities are automated. Overall, it doesn't require a lot of labor around it. We're delivering the platform as infrastructure as a cloud, so everything is going through the pipeline. 

It goes by the usage, and there are some limits. Synapse goes by particular pricing, and it is expensive. Both Azure Synapse Analytics and Snowflake are pretty expensive. They don't have standard pricing. They deal with each customer differently.

For working with Synapse, you need to have an understanding and knowledge of the product to take full advantage of it. Synapse has a lot of features in terms of scalability, such as resource management, distribution, and partitioning. There are a lot of things that you need to consider when you go for it. It is not a simple database that you put in there, and it is running itself. 

I would rate Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics a seven out of ten.

The primary use case is for the fast retrieval of data, which is in the data warehouse on-premises and migrating it to the cloud.

The most valuable feature is performance gains.

The scalable nature of the data warehouse on the cloud, and the flexibility that you get, and important features.

I would like to see them provide the ingestion of images.

I have been using this solution for more than three years.

It's a production that keeps changing and we are always using the latest version.

This solution is quite stable. It's in the cloud and we have not faced any issues.

This solution is scalable.

Technical support was not needed because of all of the documentation available.

The initial setup is straightforward.

All of the prices are available online.

My advice would be to move your on-premises data warehouse to the cloud. Move it there faster, as you can get more performance gains and it's also a robust infrastructure.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

My primary use case of this solution is as a data warehouse.

The most valuable feature of this solution is its filling of the gap between big data and classic data warehouses. As a solution, Synapse allows you to do almost everything. 

An area for improvement would be advanced analytics. The product also comes with a pretty steep learning curve, which could be improved. In the next release, I would like an improvement in internal security, which currently doesn't work at all.

I've been working with this solution for about two years.

Initially, the product had some issues with stability, but these seem to have improved with time.

Scalability is one of the main advantages of this solution.

Tech support is ok but more difficult tickets can take a long time to solve.

The setup was complicated because the data must be organized differently from the classic SQL database. There are also different techniques for query performance and managing caches, which makes the process more complicated.

Synapse is a very costly solution, and other products are available for less.

One of the main pros of Synapse is the ability to work with the classic data warehouse and the big data. Another is the ability to use the Spark engine for preparation. Before implementing this product, consider whether it will provide the results you want. If you are already using Microsoft products, Synapse is easy to integrate. I would score this solution as eight out of ten.