HCL Actian Data Platform vs. Azure SQL Database

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
HCL Actian Data Platform
Score 8.0 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
The HCL Actian Data Platform (formerly Actian Avalanche) hybrid cloud data warehouse is a fully managed service that aims to deliver high performance and scale across all dimensions – data volume, concurrent user, and query complexity – at a lower cost than alternative solutions. Avalanche has built-in self-service data integration that can be deployed on-premises as well as on multiple clouds, including AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, enabling users to migrate or offload applications and data to…N/A
Azure SQL Database
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Azure SQL Database is Microsoft's relational database as a service (DBaaS).
$0.50
Per Hour
Pricing
HCL Actian Data PlatformAzure SQL Database
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
2 vCORE
$0.5044
Per Hour
6 vCORE
$1.5131
Per Hour
10 vCORE
$2.52
Per Hour
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
HCL Actian Data PlatformAzure SQL Database
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
HCL Actian Data PlatformAzure SQL Database
Features
HCL Actian Data PlatformAzure SQL Database
Database-as-a-Service
Comparison of Database-as-a-Service features of Product A and Product B
HCL Actian Data Platform
-
Ratings
Azure SQL Database
7.4
32 Ratings
13% below category average
Automatic software patching00 Ratings6.630 Ratings
Database scalability00 Ratings7.932 Ratings
Automated backups00 Ratings8.032 Ratings
Database security provisions00 Ratings8.832 Ratings
Monitoring and metrics00 Ratings6.931 Ratings
Automatic host deployment00 Ratings6.427 Ratings
Best Alternatives
HCL Actian Data PlatformAzure SQL Database
Small Businesses
Google BigQuery
Google BigQuery
Score 8.8 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Snowflake
Snowflake
Score 8.7 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
Enterprises
Snowflake
Snowflake
Score 8.7 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
HCL Actian Data PlatformAzure SQL Database
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(2 ratings)
8.0
(28 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(5 ratings)
User Testimonials
HCL Actian Data PlatformAzure SQL Database
Likelihood to Recommend
HCL Technologies
This is a tool geared for smaller to mid-sized business that has disparate sources of data from different platforms in varying incarnations. It’s a great ETL tool to solve the problems a scenario like that causes, but you can also achieve that with good BI Tools like Qlik Sense. So be careful that you really need an ETL tool, as opposed to an end-use tool with a built-in ETL component. If you are going ELT and have a lot of data an not a lot of corporate resources, this is a better option than Microsoft or Informatica
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Microsoft
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.
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Pros
HCL Technologies
  • Quick response for queries involving multi-million rows
  • Low cost
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Microsoft
  • 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.
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Cons
HCL Technologies
  • As I said before, more training or greater visibility to training tools/options would be a plus. It’s easy to publish YouTube videos these days, I think they should make more of them.
  • Differentiation would help, there’s not a lot out there to drive you to buy the product if you are well informed in the market. If you know the market, you steer towards the large or trendy products. It’s a good product, but lost in the noise of the field I think.
  • Hitching the wagon to a major software brand (like Mule did to Salesforce) would help grow the user base, and thus increase the activity in the support community. More users also translates into product champions.
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Microsoft
  • 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).
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Likelihood to Renew
HCL Technologies
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
This is best solution as a DBA one could expect from a service provider and as a cloud service, it removes all your hassles.
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Usability
HCL Technologies
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
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.
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Support Rating
HCL Technologies
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
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.
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Alternatives Considered
HCL Technologies
Oracle>DB2>MS SQL Server>GreenPlum>Vectorwise
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Microsoft
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.
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Return on Investment
HCL Technologies
  • We had to move out of VectorWise after using the database for 2 years. Hence no positive impacts.
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Microsoft
  • 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.
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ScreenShots