SQL Server Valuable Features

Without any doubt the Integration Services and Analysis Services are the most widely used. These are the basis for data quality, data gathering, ETL process, as well as collation for the data warehouse, Cube-generation, and ad-hoc processes. The ease in which you may mold a process flow or even modularly add in new structures is something which is much needed in my job. View full review »

Always On is my favorite feature. I do like availability groups and cannot imagine how I lived with them before. Microsoft tries to release new features with every version, but I cannot say that they are killer features. Usually these are just "nice to have" stuff. However, SQL Server works and it works just fine. It is really reliable if you don't shoot your own leg. All the basic functionality is 100% bulletproof. View full review »

* Performance-wise, it is an excellent tool. * It is a Microsoft product, so there's a lot of support. * It's not a new tool; it has been around for a while. * It is one of the top five relational databases in the market. * It is very user-friendly. * There are a lot of resources available for it. View full review »

* Ease of installation. * Ease of creating your databases. * Ease of changing what your databases look like when you need to. * Creating tables is simple. * They have lots of different options that you can use for the fields within the tables. It is a simple query language. It is consistent across all versions. If you start with an older version, move to the newer version. The same code will still work. It can go easily on a virtual machine and be accommodated by a virtual machine easily. That is a plus, as not all databases can handle that. It also will do clustering, so you can have two database servers looking at the same data simultaneously. You can always access the data. You could have an offsite and an onsite, and if the onsite goes down, the offsite picks it up. I like that flexibility to provide continuing operations. View full review »

Everything is valuable. It is a relational database system which is critical for storing reporting data or any data that is highly relate-able. Plus your data is one of the most important assets in your company. Might as well have a good system to protect it. View full review »

Analysis Services, because we are an independent software vendor in the business-intelligence area. View full review »

The AlwaysOn high-availability feature is the most valuable feature of SQL Server to us. This is because of the relative ease of the configuration, rather than configuring for OLTP-OLAP distinction. View full review »

table partition options, that is very useful to separate unnecessary cost. For legacy data, we can do partition swith out and store into flat files or old tables. When it necessary, we can switch in back. View full review »

Traditional DB toolkit closely integrated into Microsoft Office. This makes it truly easy to deploy in a light non-business critical environment. View full review »

* SQL Server Profiler: Know exactly which procedures and functions are being called and how much read and write they are taking. * Tuning Advisor: It suggests where to add indexes and from where to remove them. It works like an adviser. * Storage capability * Debugger: The debugger tool can execute code step-by-step. View full review »

It is widely used and we never have problems with it. It can handle a PC, and it can also handle huge data. It is fast and efficient. It is something unique that tracks reporting of records, personnel, finances and more. It also integrates well with everything, not just Microsoft tools. View full review »

Ease of use. View full review »

Ability to convert to bigger DBs. It makes it easier to move or upgrade between branches. View full review »

* Creating and executing SQL queries, transactions, ACID properties * Creating and implementing stored procedures. View full review »

SSAS is the most interesting feature to organize the data and let the users play with it. SSIS is also very powerful, but not always user-friendly. It requires you to build a solution around SSIS. View full review »

The additional tools, like SSIS and reporting services, make this solution useful. View full review »

The most valuable feature is replication because we had several replicas of the SQL Server database in different geographical locations. View full review »

* SSMS * SSIS * Reporting services * FCI clustering * AlwaysOn * Basic availability groups. View full review »