SQL Azure Reviews

• Azure SQL database
• Office 365 mail server

We are a solutions provider and we have implemented this solution for many organizations. With these customers, we have managed to reduce a lot of infrastructure budgets and to provide an eco-friendly setup. Organizations can reduce, by a lot, electricity consumption and simplify their cooling plant setup.

It needs to improve the security features, because people still aren't confident enough to use a public cloud.

I've used it for one year alongside Office 365 and Windows VM.

There wasn't much except some issues faced when migrating into the cloud.

Not much.

No issues encountered.

It's very good.

They have very good support and lots of online training as well as having seminars and customer support available. I have joined many sessions through the Microsoft Virtual Academy.

We didn't use a previous solution.

It's not complex and, in actual fact, it's easy. Ready made set-ups are available any time.

The pricing is good, but there is still a gap if you are going to manage a large setup and a big growth of an organization. If that's the case, then pricing will be big challenge especially the pricing forecast and your analysis of growth and IT budget.

I have done some studies of SalesForce AWS among others .

It's a nice, very advanced technology based project that is very secure and cost effective cut edge technology. There are lots of cost and technical resources that can be cut while implementing this solution, to manage cost budget IT infrastructure for any organization.

We use SQL Azure for the SAP application, an accounting software that facilitates transactions between different departments. The financial trends we run on SAP are supported by SQL, which is the back end of that application.

The reason we moved to the cloud was for the convenience of not having any physical hardware to maintain. As a technical person, this has reduced the amount of maintenance I need to do, allowing me to focus more on backups since the Azure infrastructure takes care of itself. Additionally, this is cost-effective for the organization since we are not spending much time on servicing infrastructure. Furthermore, it is convenient because we only pay for the time we use the solution, and are not billed for the time we are not using it.

Microsoft could improve its documentation and support. Without the necessary knowledge and expertise, it can be difficult to navigate the platform and find a technical person to guide us through. There is not currently enough documentation available to make it easy to use. If I had not been certified in Azure, I would have faced a lot of difficulties.

I would like reports attached to my phone if there's an error that occurs within SQL Azure or if there are updates that need to run, I would like to receive notifications.

I have been using the solution for two years.

The solution is stable. We only had one outage last year and it didn't even last for 30 minutes.

The solution is scalable.

The technical support has always been good, but recently I had two encounters, last year when I spoke to a consultant from Africa these people provided support, but it almost sounded as if they didn't have enough knowledge. They didn't have enough technical knowledge of my problem to call me back after they had consulted. The support didn't feel like it was Microsoft support contacting me.

Neutral

The initial setup is straightforward and only took one day.

When looking at the long-term expenses associated with running software on an on-premises server, the costs are almost equivalent but when we include insurance for devices, onsite fees for servers, and other related costs, we may find that this is a cost-effective solution.

I give the solution a ten out of ten. I don't see anything wrong with SQL Azure. I believe it's actually an advantage because previously we had to install SQL solutions on a physical computer. The good thing is that has been translated onto the cloud and that makes it a very good feature. SQL Azure itself, is a robust application that does a lot and integrates with a lot of applications. The reason I like SQL Azure better is that it's easily accessible and the setup is almost exactly the same as we do on the physical machines, but the good thing is there's no machine to maintain the grid.

We selected SQL Azure because it was recommended to us by the safety provider of our accounting software.

I recommend the solution to others.

The primary use case is to pass services for applications of some customers, where they have maybe the front end in dot net and another language, and SQL service in Azure.

The administration console in Azure, all in one is the most valuable feature. Monitoring the transactions in Azure and the elasticity when we need to grow the databases for our customers.

I think that the cost management in SQL is not clear because we may use some tax to identify products, but in some cases identifying the transactions in SQL is not easy for some financial cost centers. Perhaps if in Azure cost management we have the opportunity to monitor the SQL cost in more detail, it will be helpful.

I have been using the solution for around four years.

I give the solution a nine out of ten.

In some cases, our customers need to move forward with their SQL projects and when they try to budget in the Azure pricing calculator some costs appear that in the production environment are very different. This becomes problematic for customers when they use SQL Pass services.

We are an IT company, so I'm an architect for that company using Azure solutions. Many users in many companies use SQL. I estimate maybe around 1,000 final users and technical staff from each company are using SQL Azure.

We are using it for an application in two different models, the PaaS model and the SaaS model. One is the product, so we are using it as a SaaS model. We are using the other one simply as a PaaS model.

For its deployment, we are sort of using the highest model in which one instance has only VM and the SQL installer on it. Another instance is simply using SQL Azure.

We primarily and generally use it only for DB purposes. When it comes to the Azure part, we can easily provision, scale up, and scale down the generator machine. This kind of flexibility is the USP of SQL Azure.

Its interface and ease of use are also valuable. It is very easy to use and integrate with multiple databases. If I need to pull in or import some data from my on-premises database, the ease with which you can connect and pull the data, not only from SQL Server but also from other flavors of MySQL or even Oracle, is very good. 

The way it has been designed, in the on-premises deployments, the underlying Windows OS is highly scalable but has a very large resource requirement. A lot of power-related and memory-related things are there, which I have not seen in the RHEL and Oracle. I have not tried SQL on RHEL EXEC. On Windows, infrastructure-wise, a very large workload is running on the SQL. This issue is related to Windows, not SQL.

I have been using SQL Azure for two years. 

As of now, we have less production workload on Azure, but whatever is there, it is pretty stable. So, from a very large workload perspective, I can't comment, but till now, I have not found any issue. I will consider it quite stable as of now.

It is highly scalable.

My team initiates the service request. We have unified support from Microsoft. The service request is through the service hub. This is, in fact, a very good change from the point of view of the overall approach towards support. We can open multiple or unlimited numbers of service requests on the service hub, and their response is also quite good.

We started with just a simple client-server kind of application. Right now, we are basically in the full-phased data lake solution of Azure. So, it is in the design and architecture stages. When it is finalized, then we will implement a full-blown solution on Azure.

I would, of course, highly recommend this solution. You cannot avoid SQL Server or SQL Azure if you are primarily working in the database domain. There are a lot of other databases available in the market, but the ease with which you can do the development and the overall support that you get cannot be compared with any other database. 

I would rate SQL Azure a nine out of ten.

I think this product can improve its integrations with business intelligence software. The integrations are always cumbersome due to the approvals, passwords, et cetera. 

I have been using this solution for the last three years.

My impression is that this solution is quite stable. I would rate its stability an eight, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

I would rate the scalability of this solution an eight, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best. Currently, there are two users of this solution in our company.

I will be doing the implementation myself with the help of a third party.

We evaluated the SQL Server in addition to this solution, but we ultimately chose Azure mainly to have everything on one platform.

Overall, I would rate this solution an eight, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

We're using it for scalability. Everything is on Azure SQL for us. It is an enterprise application data warehouse, so all our applications are on this. It is useful for entire data warehousing. It is also good for microservices applications. We have its latest version.

It is good for scalability and high availability. It is also secure because of Microsoft's cloud investment.

It is easy to use because it is on the cloud. Creation or making it available through web services is super easy. Azure SQL can be quickly published as web services for APIs to connect with other applications. Because it is in Microsoft Cloud, you can easily integrate with Microsoft stack.

Its price could be better. It is expensive.

I am not sure if Microsoft Master Data Services is included in this. If not, Master Data Services can be integrated with Azure SQL. I have only used Master Data Services on-premises.

I have been using this solution for four years.

It is stable. Microsoft has been in the market for quite some time.

It is quite scalable. It is a good choice for any kind of application database, data warehousing, or data lake. 

In terms of the number of users, it is being used by all users in our enterprise. For development, we have four to five developers, and we also have partners to help us.

Technical support is managed by Microsoft partners, which is good.

Positive

We have used Microsoft SQL Server on-premises. We are still using it, and slowly, we'll move to Azure SQL.

You don't have to install it because it is on the cloud.

It is expensive. Snowflake and PostgreSQL are cheaper than this. Google is also cheaper than Azure. 

Its licensing is on a pay-as-you-go basis. It is based on usage and storage.

I would recommend this solution. If anybody is using Azure Cloud, they should definitely use Azure SQL. Our strategy is to have all our applications on Azure, and we will keep using this solution. We will also be using it for our analytical data mart.

I would rate SQL Azure a nine out of ten. It is a good product, and it has all the required features.

We use it for benefits management in the healthcare domain. 

It helps us deploy new applications very quickly. We have set up everything on Azure, including SQL Azure. 

It has a lot of out-of-the-box features, which is useful. It is easy to move applications for disaster recovery or availability, and all these features are out of the box.

It is easily scalable, and it is faster than SQL Server. It is also less expensive than using SQL Server. It has the pay-as-you-go model, and the charges are based on the usage.

There are some limitations for cross-database queries and features. The migration of data from older systems should be easier.

For deployment, there are too many options, which sometimes makes it difficult to figure out the best option. There is not enough information to help you to find the best option for deployment. There should be more documentation about this.

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

It is easily scalable. We have around 60 to 70 users. We'll be increasing its usage. We are gradually moving to SQL Azure for all our requirements.

Their technical support is prompt, but some of our issues have not been addressed, even though the team is trying. We didn't have a good experience with them for a couple of issues, but overall, they have been good.

We got everything ready-made in Azure because our all applications are in the .NET framework and SQL, so we found SQL Azure to be the most suitable option.

It is straightforward, but if you're migrating data from SQL Server, it is quite time-consuming and not so easy.

I am not aware of the exact pricing, but our monthly bill for Azure is around 80,000. It is less expensive than using SQL Server. It has the pay-as-you-go model, and the charges are based on the usage.

If you are migrating from older systems, you should know that CLR is not supported in SQL Azure. Data migration can also be a challenge.

I would rate SQL Azure a nine out of ten.

We have HR applications including a lead system and also traveling expenses. We're using SQL for items like that.

The solution offers good plugin capabilities. We're a Microsoft customer, so it fits in with everything else we work with. 

The solution can scale. 

From a user standpoint, there isn't really any need for improvement. 

We'd like the solution to be available on mobile phones. 

The product could be more competitive in terms of features, security, and scalability.

We've been using the solution for around three years. 

The scalability would be a bit better. That said, right now, I am happy with how it can scale. As a user, you always want it to be better; however, as of now, it's not too bad. 

I'm not sure how many people are using the solution in our company at this time. 

I've never used technical support services. I can't speak to how well they respond when a customer has an issue. 

We're a Microsoft customer. 

I'm not part of the development team. I'm not sure which version our company is on. 

I'd rate the solution six out of ten. While it's fine for use online, we'd like it to be more mobile. If it were on mobile, I would rate it higher.