SQL Server Reviews

We use the product as a database, a data tool for everything. 

SQL Server, as a database, is great.

When it comes to the governmental sector, it is easily dealt with and can handle a big load of data. Specifically, after they added the capability of building a big data cluster from the SQL Server itself it's been great. 

If it was a database developer who was working with it or database admin, it provides a lot of tools and potential utilization that helps in doing the work in the right way.

Stability-wise, it's stable. 

If we want to expand to other servers and create an extra node, it's expandable. If you want to connect it with another, let's say, cloud node, it's also expandable with the cloud node. 

Security-wise, it provides most of the required security aspects in the market suchg as hashing, or encrypting, or hiding some data in tables (according to privileges and tools of the users). That can be done throughout it easily. 

It's an out-of-the-box solution. Lately, after they created the SQL Azure, if you use the Azure SQL Explorer, or SQL Server Management Studio, both of them can connect to the same database easily. It's natively built on the same core.

In my experience, while working with multiple sectors, such as banking, services, et cetera, there are some limitations for some sectors when dealing with the data.

It would be great if we were able to run it on multiple operating systems and not only stick with Windows. 

I've been using the solution for five or maybe six years. It's been a while. 

The stability is great. there are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. Its performance is reliable. 

It's very easy to scale the solution in multiple ways. If a company needs to expand, it can do so easily.

I can't say it is easy to deploy as it depends on the admin, however, it is doable. Most of the databases, in general, require configuration. Therefore, if the admin knows what he's doing, then it's super easy.

A full deployment, depending on what is needed, might take anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes. It's fast.

I can't speak to the pricing. I don't have any information on that.

It's my understanding that we pay for licensing on a yearly basis. 

There is also another added product they created, called Synapse, Azure Synapse Analytics. Both of them are similar to Microsoft PowerBI on-prem with SQL Server on-prem.

I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten. There are other competitors that are also doing a very good job as well.

We primarily use the solution mainly for databases on all types of applications.

SQL is the all around leading Database server

The solution is very stable. 

The scalability of the product is great.

We'd like the deployment process to be better in the future. 

The licensing is pretty expensive.

I've been using the solution for 20 years at this point. It's been two decades. We've used it for a while now.

The solution is stable and the performance is great. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze.

The product scales well. If you need to expand it, you can do so.

We have 900 to 1,000 people using it currently.

I'm more on the architecture side and therefore do not directly deal with technical support. I cannot speak to how helpful or responsive they are.

We also use Oracle. We've used it for over a decade already.

The deployment could be easier.

While the deployment only takes about 15 minutes, you have to follow up with a lot of configuration.

We handled the implementation ourselves. We did not enlist the assistance of any integrators or consultants. It was all handled in-house.

We're paying too much for licensing at this time. They need to work on the pricing. They could be cheaper, however, it's also difficult to run the licenses in the right way.

We pay licensing fees on a yearly basis. 

We're a customer and an end-user. We don't have a business relationship with SQL. 

While everything is currently on-premises, we're making moves to shift to the cloud. 

We're using the 2019 and 2016 versions of the product.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten. In general, we've been quite happy with its capabilities.

This solution is part of the ERP that we have for application. We use it for many purposes, such as POS in-store cash registers for enterprise companies.

SQL Server provides good performance. Most of the SQL solutions can be integrated and this solution is no different, you are able to link other databases. For example, we have Oracle running a Postgres Server and it is linked. It follows the ISO standard when it comes to commands, it works well.

They could improve by adding the SQL format.

I have been using SQL Server for approximately eight years.

The solution is stable, I have not had any issue using it.

The scalability is very good.

We have approximately 500 users using the POS.

I have previously used IBM Informix, PostgresSQL, and Oracle Databases.

The installation is straightforward and takes approximately 30 minutes. If you were to add more features the installation could take longer. For example, there are many features such as table partitioning allowing you to do queries faster, transferring data from one table to another, and performing quicker backups.

We did the implementation ourselves. We have a team that does the maintenance for Windows Servers, Linux desktops, and Linux Servers.

There is a license required for servers and for the POS we use the free version. The free version allows you to have tables and a total database size of approximately 10 GB, which is enough for our requirements.

This is an excellent solution when it comes to databases. I would recommend it to others.

I rate SQL Server a ten out of ten.

The solution is a part of a product. We use it for our database, among other items.

The solution is very stable.

The product scales well.

From a security perspective, we have no complaints. 

The initial setup is very straightforward. 

The solution should work to improve its search functionality.

It would be ideal if the solution offered better integration capabilities. In the future, we expect that our company will need to make more integrations with other systems.

I've been using the solution for three years. It hasn't been that long.

So far, the stability has been very good. We haven't experienced any crashed or anything of that nature. There are no bugs or glitches. It's reliable and the performance is good.

The solution is very scalable. The only thing that would limit its ability to expand is how your environment is designed. That said, a company should have no trouble scaling it if they would like to.

There are only five of us using the solution right now.

We do plan to increase usage in the future.

While I haven't had a chance to open a ticket with technical support, I plan to open one next week, as I have an issue I need to ask them about. However, since I have yet to be in contact, I cannot evaluate their level of service.

The initial setup is not complex or difficult. It's easy. It's very straightforward and the setup guide is available if you Google it. Anyone can search for the installation guide on whichever version you're installing.

The deployment is quick. It only takes about 30 minutes or so.

We have a technical team of five engineers. If any maintenance is needed, we can handle it. 

I installed the product myself. I found an installation guide and just followed the directions. I didn't need the help of a consultant or integrator.

We do not currently pay a licensing fee in order to use this product.

I'm currently using the 2017 version. I am not using the latest version of the solution.

In general, I would rate it at an eight out of ten. For the most part, we have been satisfied with its capabilities.

I'd recommend the solution to other users and organizations.

We are a company that possesses data relating to the banking and telecommunications sectors. We use the solution to organize all data received from subscribers and customers. 

I feel that this is the simplest of solutions. It is user-friendly, is a robust tool and is always reliable to users. The solution is within the Windows environment. This means that all users, who are already accustomed to Windows, will naturally prefer to use this environment over that of Linux or another operating system. 

I would like to have a more directed modeling, to have the flexibility to design all databases using a graphic interface. In other words, the interface integration could be better. 

To avoid the need to write code, many users like to use the database diagrams as an overall tool and, as such, the solution should be more flexible and user-friendly. 

I have been actively using SQL Server for up to 10 years. I started with programming, moved to databases and am now concentrating on Power BI.

The solution is quite scalable, as it can be extended to replicate many computers. It can be used in a virtual environment. One would, of course, make use of the cloud. We are now gaining experience in cloud programs such as Azure and AWS.

There are two teams which provide technical support. The same team provides support for all these tasks. 

The initial setup is not without certain problems. Many users prefer to use Docker in lieu of the original selection. This is more convenient for them owing to certain configurations it possesses. However, if one is incapable of doing this initially he will find it difficult to do at a later date. An example would involve the inclusion of TCP/IP support, which is quite cumbersome. While it is not very difficult, it does require a certain amount of expertise. 

We have prepared many virtual machines. Each month we prepare these systems so that they may be ready to meet our needs. This task consumes three to four days per month. 

We have a support team who helps our users with deployment. They provide these services to our customers.

When it comes to deployment and maintenance, there are four people responsible for providing the administrative support to us and to our customers.

Our customers do pay license fees for the MS SQL Server but the Rabbit is free, as it is open-source software.

Some who pay for these prefer in-house, on-premises support, while others take a cloud-based approach. 

I am also a consultant to SQL Server.

I usually consult with databases, including the Power BI. I started with data business and now shifted to this.

I strongly recommend the solution because we are doing consulting projects using Java applications.

I rate SQL Server as a nine out of ten. 

We use this solution to analyze the profitability of sales.

Within our organization, there are roughly 30 people using the analysis services solution from the Business Intelligence side.

The performance can be great. Tuning and understanding SSAS is not straightforward.

The issue is that Microsoft is not really supporting the Multi Dimensional Analysis Services feature any longer and it's looking very obsolete. We're looking at replacing it.

SSAS-MD is difficult to make changes. It's a very complicated product in general — that's the issue. It is too complicated for most. It's too difficult to change. It's too difficult!

I have been using this product for more than 10 years.

This particular product is quite stable. We've not had any particular problems. We've had problems with Microsoft Excel recently, but Analysis Services has been quite stable.

Scalability-wise, it's quite good. It's not scalable up to the big data type of thing that people are doing now. It's scalable up to a point, but it has been overtaken by newer products.

We try and avoid calling Microsoft support, generally. That's the truth. We've tried getting support for other products like Power BI — support is an issue.

They're changing their products and they're not stable enough. Analysis Services has been okay, but some of their other products, like Excel and Power BI, are not stable.

We're looking at alternative solutions because we think Microsoft's licensing costs have been expensive and multidimensional cubes have been overtaken by other technologies such as in-memory databases and products like Snowflake.

We're looking for a solution that allows us to pay by usage rather than pay by the number of users. We don't want to pay for hardware capacity that we rarely use. I'm looking at several products, including Snowflake, that bill by how much we use the product. I'm not sure if Microsoft is on board with that yet. I was also looking at Qlik — they do a commercial model that is paid by the amount of time. I think paying per usage is a rising trend at the moment.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give SQL Server a rating of nine. It's generally a good product.

If you're interested in using this solution, my advice is to do your research. It's a good product, but there are other products available.

One of the biggest issues that I have with Microsoft is that they change their products and don't continue to support the old product. We've got some things in Microsoft Excel that are no longer supported. They bring out a new model and they drop support for some of the older features.

We use SQL Server to process a lot of data. We are using versions and 2015 and 2018.

We like the whole product and we use most of the features.

Indexing, as well as integration, are areas of this product that need improvement.

We have been using SQL Server for approximately five years.

It's a stable solution. Stability is one of the most valuable features.

It's somewhat scalable.

We don't have any issues with technical support.

We have used SQL Server from day one, along with OpenSQL. We used them both regularly.

We don't use Oracle often but we do have a few areas where it is used.

The initial setup was straightforward. 

We have experience and did find it to be challenging.

We do multiple deployments which require three or four teams.

The cost is high and because it's an expensive product, we are in the process of moving towards open-source solutions.

We have evaluated MongoDB and are in the process of transforming ourselves.

We will continue using SQL Server for some things but not everything. Most of our applications will be migrated to MongoDB and others.

I am not in the position to recommend SQL Server to anybody. Rather, I am more in the area of quality assurance. 

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Our primary use case for this product is as a transaction database and for the provision of rational data through the application-based server. The main application of my current organization is pointing towards the SQL server database and some servers which are later used for data warehousing. So mainly we use it for transaction data and data warehousing. I'm the assistant manager and data administrator, and we are customers of SQL. 

Security is obviously the most valuable feature because I can provide certain logins for a particular level of security and I can provide specific permissions for certain logins. That's a very good feature. I like the user interface as well, it's easy to use. The SSMS Management Studio, which we use to do some work in database file query is a recent feature from 2018 and the SSMS is quite good. It has many features and it also shows the query statistics which I was not getting previously. The other feature I like is the query store which helped me a lot to analyze the data getting hit on the database. 

I'd like to see a simplification of the query optimizer and feel that SQL needs to look into the internal processing of the query because the query optimizer sometimes uses a different query plan, which we don't expect. It is similar to the triggers they have which are used after execution and not before. For example, if I'm running a query, my trigger will be run after the query has executed although I sometimes need the trigger before execution. That's a feature not supported by the product. 

I've been using this solution for four years. 

It is quite scalable compared to other data engines and the latest version has increased support for new technologies, like Python and other languages. It's a big improvement on the previous version. We have 30 to 40 SQL servers installed and they're used for different different applications; internal applications, client applications as well as for ETA tools and reporting purpose. We probably have up to 200 users querying the SQL server of the product on a daily basis.

I'm satisfied with the technical support. Whenever a call is raised to Microsoft they see to it that all our questions are answered properly and in a timely manner. It doesn't take long for things to be resolved. 

The initial setup is very straightforward, just like any typical software where you just click next, next, next, next. You just need to know your environment properly and which exact features you need to install. Deployment takes max one to two hours to install on-premises. Depending on the environment and whether or not you're installing any cluster environment, it will take a couple of hours. To deploy a stand-alone SQL server doesn't take much time. 

I would recommend this solution, particularly for OLTP purposes, the transactional data purpose rather than for warehousing. For data warehousing I think there are better solutions but for the transaction data, for application purposes, SQL Server great.

I would rate this solution a nine out of 10.