SAP IQ vs. SAP SQL Anywhere

Does data compression very well, produces query results very quickly, ability to scale up as data volume/size grow in an organization, row level versioning is in memory and hence the speed. It is a very stable product for large enterprises. More detailed documentation on how to use this product in the initial stages would be really welcome.

Incentivized

SAP SQL Anywhere is better than not using a database, let's be clear there! However, I wouldn't pick it as my first or even second or third choice. I'd recommend looking at other options. Largely, it appears less powerful both in terms of its robustness and general performance and in its implementation of SQL. The standard Sybase utilities provided are lacking in basic features, and the interactive SQL utility is quite horrendous. However, the great thing is it is an ODBC-compliant SQL-compliant relational database.

Incentivized

• Inserting millions of rows of data takes seconds.
• Aggregating billions of rows of data is insanely fast (compared to Oracle, Sybase, and SQL Server).

Incentivized

• Good performance with relatively large data sets - its cost-based query optimizer is particularly robust
• ANSI SQL compliant
• Supports T-SQL
• Scales well between the desktop (single user) and client/server installations supporting 50-1000 users

• The pricing schedule is a bit expensive and cumbersome.
• Licensing for a virtual machine is difficult to understand.

Incentivized

• I think it should be more user friendly for non-technical users.
• More functional functionalities should be added to the object explore when working with a table to transform data/manipulate data.

Incentivized

Ease of use, relationship to existing software's used in house and familiarity with the product

Incentivized

SAP IQ support is top-notch. I prefer starting all my SAP IQ support tickets with their Instant Messenger, where the majority of our issues are resolved. If it makes it to their ticketing system, they are very prompt at responding and very knowledgeable in the platform.

Incentivized

SAP IQ is perhaps an under-marketed product in the sense that it is able to scale up very well and perform much faster and more efficiently than other products such as Oracle - when we ran multiple large queries on both Sybase IQ and Oracle, we found that that results were much faster in Sybase IQ and this gave the confidence to go for this product.

Incentivized

I worked with Oracle for years during my career. I wouldn't select SQL Anywhere to implement a global ATM system with tens of thousands of concurrent connections, but SQL Anywhere is much easier to use and deploy and works very well in workgroup settings. Query performance often exceeds some Oracle versions without having to rely on database tuning.

• The ROI over a number of years has been good. Seeing as how we use it for billing, it has an obvious ROI to us.
• As they have been modifying their licensing structure, it's been difficult to keep up and understand how they work.

Incentivized

• Skilled/experienced resources are less prominent than Microsoft SQL Server or even Oracle, or MySQL, so finding solutions and assistance, if needed, takes more time than it would with other platforms
• You will need to find a good SQL query tool by yourself because the Sybase Central / Interactive SQL utilities are lacking in many basic features, and just generally have a bad user interface

Incentivized