Azure Synapse Analytics vs. SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE), legacy

It's well suited for large, fastly growing, and frequently changing data warehouses (e.g., in startups). It's also suited for companies that want a single, relatively easy-to-use, centralized cloud service for all their data needs. Larger, more structured organizations could still benefit from this service by using Synapse Dedicated SQL Pools, knowing that costs will be much higher than other solutions. I think this product is not suited for smaller, simpler workloads (where an Azure SQL Database and a Data Factory could be enough) or very large scenarios, where it may be better to build custom infrastructure.

Incentivized

High-performance, high-concurrency transactions are well suited for ASE. ASE is lacking some features in my opinion such as history tables, however there are ways to implement them via workarounds or by using Replication Server. I do think the way the ASE parser and optimizer works are far superior to other products as it is a true cost-based optimizer and the order of the tables in the FROM clause does not really matter although a good SQL coder will place the tables in a meaningful order to make the SQL more readable. ASE is good for applications that require high availability and can be used for mission critical systems.

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• Create data pipelines to connect with multiple data workspace(s) and external data
• Ability to connect with Azure Data Lake (sequentially) for data warehousing
• Being able to manage connections and create integration runtimes (for onPrem data capture)

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• Easy to setup and maintain
• Reliable, rarely has major hiccups requiring reboots or crashes
• Very responsive with complicated queries spanning various tablespaces and hundreds of millions of rows

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• It takes some time to setup a proper SQL Datawarehouse architecture. Without proper SSIS/automation scripts, this can be a very daunting task.
• It takes a lot of foresight when designing a Data Warehouse. If not properly designed, it can be very troublesome to use and/or modify later on.
• It takes a lot of effort to maintain. Businesses are continually changing. With that, a full time staff member or more will be required to maintain the SQL Data Warehouse.

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• Full database encryption - need to utilize external keys vs internal - for better separation of duties.
• History Tables.

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Our licenses are perpetual. It is the support that we will be renewing. We will renew because we continue to use and receive value from the product.

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The data warehouse portion is very much like old style on-prem SQL server, so most SQL skills one has mastered carry over easily. Azure Data Factory has an easy drag and drop system which allows quick building of pipelines with minimal coding. The Spark portion is the only really complex portion, but if there's an in-house python expert, then the Spark portion is also quiet useable.

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It does almost everything we need and for the things it doesn't do natively, we are still able to do using other features. For example, natively history tables weren't supported but we were able to create them using triggers.

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Microsoft does its best to support Synapse. More and more articles are being added to the documentation, providing more useful information on best utilizing its features. The examples provided work well for basic knowledge, but more complex examples should be added to further assist in discovering the vast abilities that the system has.

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Incredibly responsive, saving us countless hours in troubleshooting.

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When client is already having or using Azure then it’s wise to go with Synapse rather than using Snowflake. We got a lot of help from Microsoft consultants and Microsoft partners while implementing our EDW via Synapse and support is easily available via Microsoft resources and blogs. I don’t see that with Snowflake

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Much less effort than Oracle. Much better customer support than Oracle. Roughly equivalent to SQL Server in performance and ease of use. Much better customer service than SQL Server. Different ballpark from IQ. Same customer service.

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Basically, the billing is predictable, and this all about it.

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• We have had an improvement in our overall processing time
• Cost was much lower than most of its competitors
• Our reporting needs have grown and housing the data here has been great

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• Negative - Costs a lot ... but so do they all.
• Positive - It does what we need it to do.

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