Databricks Data Intelligence Platform vs. Azure SQL Database

Medium to Large data throughput shops will benefit the most from Databricks Spark processing. Smaller use cases may find the barrier to entry a bit too high for casual use cases. Some of the overhead to kicking off a Spark compute job can actually lead to your workloads taking longer, but past a certain point the performance returns cannot be beat.

Incentivized

We have found it's a great alternative for making older legacy applications work with online databases instead of only on-premises databases. We've converted over a dozen applications this way, and it has allowed our clients to have a distributed workforce using their applications without incurring the expense of a complete application rewrite.

Incentivized

• Process raw data in One Lake (S3) env to relational tables and views
• Share notebooks with our business analysts so that they can use the queries and generate value out of the data
• Try out PySpark and Spark SQL queries on raw data before using them in our Spark jobs
• Modern day ETL operations made easy using Databricks. Provide access mechanism for different set of customers

Incentivized

• Maintenance is always an issue, so using a cloud solution saves a lot of trouble.
• On premise solutions always suffer from fragmented implementations here and there, where several "dba's" keep track of security and maintenance. With a cloud database it's much easier to keep a central overview.
• Security options in SQL database are next level... data masking, hiding sensitive data where always neglected on premise, whereas you'll get this automatically in the cloud.

Incentivized

• Sometimes, when multiple jobs depend on each other in different environments, it is not always easy to see the full workflow in one place.
• It is sometimes difficult to determine which job or cluster contributes more to the overall cost.
• For beginners, cluster configuration may be a little difficult. So more recommendation in the platform can help.

Incentivized

• One needs to be aware that some T-SQL features are simply not available.
• The programmatic access to server, trace flags, hardware from within Azure SQL Database is taken away (for a good reason).
• No SQL Agent so your jobs need to be orchestrated differently.
• The maximum concurrent logins maybe an unexpected problem.
• Sudden disconnects.
• The developers and admin must study the capacity and tier usage limits https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-subscription-service-limits otherwise some errors or even transaction aborts never seen before can occur.
• Only one Latin Collation choice.
• There is no way to debug T-SQL ( a big drawback in my point of view).

Incentivized

This is best solution as a DBA one could expect from a service provider and as a cloud service, it removes all your hassles.

Incentivized

Because it is an amazing platform for designing experiments and delivering a deep dive analysis that requires execution of highly complex queries, as well as it allows to share the information and insights across the company with their shared workspaces, while keeping it secured.

in terms of graph generation and interaction it could improve their UI and UX

Incentivized

The interfaces are intuitive once you are familiar with all the functions. The ability to use different tools to interact with the platform, such as directly via a browser or code editors such as VS Code or Visual Studio is a great option and allows for integrating withn the project and other testing and developing tools.

Incentivized

One of the best customer and technology support that I have ever experienced in my career. You pay for what you get and you get the Rolls Royce. It reminds me of the customer support of SAS in the 2000s when the tools were reaching some limits and their engineer wanted to know more about what we were doing, long before "data science" was even a name. Databricks truly embraces the partnership with their customer and help them on any given challenge.

We give the support a high rating simply because every time we've had issues or questions, representatives were in contact with us quickly. Without fail, our issues/questions were handled in a timely matter. That kind of response is integral when client data integrity and availability is in question. There is also a wealth of documentation for resolving issues on your own.

Incentivized

The most important differentiating factor for Databricks Lakehouse Platform from these other platforms is support for ACID transactions and the time travel feature. Also, native integration with managed MLflow is a plus. EMR, Cloudera, and Hortonworks are not as optimized when it comes to Spark Job Execution. Other platforms need to be self-managed, which is another huge hassle.

Incentivized

We moved away from Oracle and NoSQL because we had been so reliant on them for the last 25 years, the pricing was too much and we were looking for a way to cut the cord. Snowflake is just too up in the air, feels like it is soon to be just another line item to add to your Azure subscription. Azure was just priced right, easy to migrate to and plenty of resources to hire to support/maintain it. Very easy to learn, too.

Incentivized

• The ability to spin up a BIG Data platform with little infrastructure overhead allows us to focus on business value not admin
• DB has the ability to terminate/time out instances which helps manage cost.
• The ability to quickly access typical hard to build data scenarios easily is a strength.

Incentivized

• Perfect for small and medium databases, being very cost effective.
• As a Platform as a Service, there is no concern about patches, upgrades and end of life.
• Be aware of security and network capabilities. The service cannot run in the VNET as Azure Virtual Machines do.