Microsoft SQL Server

UI is user-friendly, making integration easy for all members of the team.

It is easy to set up and teach to new members.

Good support with third-party software.

Cost can be expensive.

Some learning curves for users transitioning from other services.

Scales well

Widespread usage means resources are more readily available.

Reliable when configured and maintained properly.

*Very* complex

Performance can be poor when configuration isn't tweaked just right.

System resource intensive, and some resources are capped by licensing.

Upgrading to newer versions is difficult and time-consuming.

Good range of data types helps us store lots of diverse data

Easy administration helps us control who has access and what they can do with the data

Backup and restore processes are easy to manage and provide good security

Data can be easily replicated from Server to Server for use in other countries

The import/export process can be tricky to follow with lots of steps and could be better for importing flat files

Obtaining help from Microsoft is cumbersome and often other internet sources are better and quicker

The documentation is not great and again it's generally better to obtain help elsewhere if needed

Ease of use

Intuitive

Powerful

None

Maintenance, SQL server is easy to maintain.

User Friendly, Easy to use and understand.

Access, user access, and administration are very straightforward.

Application, it is easy to setup and provide service.

Can be used in small and enterprise sized clients.

Support cost, need to pay for support.

Compatibility with other new technologies.

Reporting capabilities.

Licensing, it is a lot of work to get licenses renewal

Query analysis and execution plan details - You can see indexes you may be missing that would (if used) possibly improve performance of your stored procedures and queries.

Data storage - It's easy to restore and back up entire databases and to set up automatic jobs to do this.

Scheduled tasks - You can plan health checks or updates to data, or reports, from the Jobs tool.

Unlike Visual Studio, there isn't a built-in or out-of-the-box way to format your SQL scripts/queries. You can easily install plugins and extensions to do this (paid or free) but it would be a nice-to-have.

Occasionally it's not obvious from a query execution plan what piece is causing the most bottleneck, and even then, side-effects of implementing the suggested index(es) aren't always obvious.

Storing data in a de facto standard relational database.

Industry proven connectors to the data.

Options for hosted (Azure) to on-premise.

Options for scalability from SQL Express to SQL clustering.

Developers have their change list, however, it does what I need.

It's easier to manage than other RDBMS.

Good, mature, in-the-box interface for both development and administration.

It has a fully extending feature set for managing Azure SQL DB to SSMS and/or Azure Data Studio.

It's simplifying security/access setup for Azure SQL DB.

Error logging and indicators

Colors keywords

Allows for easy formatting

Allows for multiple tabs

Allows for multiple subqueries

Needs more specific error messages

Sometimes it seems "buggy" with the predictive text

Needs an in application help resource that is easier to understand

It offers a lot of functionalities, such as Reporting Services, Integration Services, Job Scheduler, Resource Manager, Query Analyzer and Profiler, etc.

You can connect it to Active Directory if you so desire.

The price of the enterprise version could be a little lower and also licensing should be more understandable.

There can be problems when connecting with software that is not owned by Microsoft.

Easy setup

High performance and flexibility

Data recovery

Linked server functionality

Modeling and Schema creation

Query optimization tools

Integration with coding tools via Entity Framework etc.

Analysis, integration and reporting tools

Better handling of blobs so that they do not slow down queries (lazy loading by default perhaps)

Automatic Migrations -- migrations are complex right now, tools that make it easier would be useful

Cheaper!!! It is too expensive, forcing many people to go to datalakes/s3/NOSQL databases when they do not really want to

Great integration tools via SSIS.

Great reporting tools via SSRS.

Great analytics tools via SSAS.

Latest versions (2019) really push the envelope forward on automatic query optimization.

Need to be careful on licensing and features. While they have done a great job in 2019 to make features available in standard edition, a lot of use cases may require the more expensive enterprise edition.

SSIS and SSAS doesn't play well with source control.

There is no "Data Virtualization" (Not talking about PolyBase) You should be able to spin up a clone of a database with minimal effort and storage space. No reason to have to pay a secondary company for such a vital feature!

The workbench is very good. I like that you can explore multiple databases in one query window.

Exploring data is very manageable compared to other SQL querying tools.

Simple language to learn and very easy to transition from other SQL learned in other environments.

IntelliSense slows down query writing. It sometimes freezes the query window.

The data that you can copy-paste from the results is limited and I'd like to be able to copy-paste whatever I want.

It isn't case sensitive, which isn't a problem until you get to reporting.

Able to zero down to a specific instance.

Having new queries on separate pages eases going back and forth.

The capability of changing databases quickly.

Older versions had an auto-fill feature for columns that seems to have disappeared. That's why I prefer using the 2008 version.

Support: Microsoft support and documentation make usage and maintenance worry-free.

Performance: developers and admins have the ability to tune performance to meet their application needs.

Prevalence: being an industry standard, compatibility and support are widespread.

Learning curve: while SQL databases share many of the same concepts, admins and developers need to be familiar with the interface and quirks specific to SQL Server and the Management Studio.

Cost: as with most enterprise software, especially from Microsoft, the investment needs to be considered.

Required resources: both system resources and other considerations for maintenance and in-house support may be heavy compared to other solutions.

I think that Microsoft SQL Server is the best database software for small and medium-sized companies

Microsoft SQL Server has a user-friendly interface for the database admins.

Microsoft SQL Server is cheaper than other databases (like Oracle, etc.).

Microsoft SQL Server is not suitable for big companies.

Microsoft SQL Server has to improve with more transactions. If you have too many transactions on the database, there is no response from the database to the user.

Microsoft SQL Server has to improve its big data technologies.

The tool is scalable and able to handle large amounts of data.

Microsoft SQL Server is compatible with many platforms and languages.

It is reliable and has the backing of a large and well established company.

The performance and speed of Microsoft SQL Server could possibly be improved.

Better tools for monitoring databases and better interface for these tools would be helpful.

Easier ways to create complex queries would make the tool even more user friendly, for instance drag and drop style tools to create queries.

We used to merge the data from different sources. For this, it is very to do in SQL Server.

Main times we used it to clean the data by reducing the unwanted rows and removing the delimited values.

Creation of stored procedures are pretty much simple in it, and these created procedures are very handy and simple to create because syntax is very easy in it.

There are no data visualization options available in it. For that, we need to connect it with different tools.

No inbuilt statistical modules/formulas. We need to make our own.

If data is more than 100 Columns and rows then it will definitely crash on its own.

Speed of selects with appropriate indexes.

Use through C# of Linq queries to the data.

Ability to use CLR assemblies to program in C#.

Replication to keep the database mirrored to another server.

I sure wish the T-SQL language was more like C# - it's really primitive.

I would like an easy way to pass an array to stored procedures and a way to iterate through the array in the code.

Integrated source control for the database would be appreciated.

Microsoft SQL Server has a very user-friendly interface. It is a breeze to create and schedule jobs for data reporting and updates.

The online community support and the numerous forums for Microsoft SQL Server are really handy in case of any issues.

Microsoft SQL Server supports Spatial Databases which is a critical requirement for an organization like ours.

It would be great if working with SSIS packages would be much more streamlined in the Microsoft SQL Server. As of now, the only option is to use Visual Studio which in itself is not very forthcoming in how to work with a package.

The version upgrade can be a bit of nuisance in case you have different databases created on different versions of Microsoft SQL Server. The version compatibility for different databases can definitely be improved upon.

Extremely Reliable - We have not had an instance of SQL Server itself having issues or causing downtime. We have had AWS hardware failures but not Microsoft SQL Server failures.

Total Cost of Ownership - Having Enterprise Edition provides us with the additional features of SQL Server Reporting Services, SQL Server Integration Services, and if we would like, SQL Server Analytics Services.

Multiple disaster recovery options - You can use mirroring (replaced by Always On Availability Groups), replications and log shipping to name a few options.

Elastic Database options - You can have a mix of on-premises and Azure instances if your use case requires it.

Easy Manageability - Microsoft has done a great job of making the management of Microsoft SQL Server easier with every release.

In-Memory Database options - You can have in-memory tables for any business case needing that level of performance.

While I really like their disaster recovery options, they could make them more affordable and easier to implement. Always On-Availability Groups is improving with every edition but still can come with some gotcha's if you do not watch it. Including Security across instances, jobs across instances, etc.

In memory, at least in 2014, once you enable it that is it. You cannot go back. This makes it difficult to retire this feature.

Better native Enterprise management meaning, in a use case where you may have multiple servers or clusters with multiple instances the native tools are lacking and typically require purchasing 3rd party tools or building out tools for monitoring and managing the servers and databases.

Troubleshooting is easy because of several forums available on the internet. We can Google error messages and find solutions easily.

It has a complete set of tools for data warehousing and business intelligence, so integration and automation are easy.

Easy access to training and skilled workforce availability.

There are some in-memory tools in the market that I have used to replace analysis services. Those in-memory tools have reduced the aggregation time to a few minutes as compared to a couple of hours on analysis services.

Mobile apps for SSMS and SQL agent would be a good addition to the toolbelt.

A built-in SQL source code control tool that can be used to track code changes and schema changes from SSMS would be very useful. It should easily show who made the changes, what changes were made and when, and provide an option to roll back to any of the previous versions if needed.

It is quick and easy to create data and tables using their built-in aid, and it has a wide variety of fields.

We like to correctly support stored procedures which facilitates processes and enriches functions within the application and can delegate more responsibility to the database.

It integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft applications, such as Visual Studio in addition to many other third-party applications either natively or by means of ODBC connectors.

Can manage user permissions easily.

The installation may take longer than expected.

It requires a lot of resources for its implementation.

SQL Server, because it is Microsoft, has the support of the company, and it is possible to integrate with thousands of applications that run on windows.

The price of the paid version of SQL Server is well below the market average, although we do not lose in quality.

It allows the developer to use a managed programming language, such as C # or VB.NET, to address queries, rather than using SQL statements.

The main point that displeased me most in SQL Server 2008 is the lack of intelligence of the tools.

Since Microsoft decided to support the creation of stored procedures and other database objects in .NET framework languages it seems that T-SQL has been a bit sideways.

Difficult to mount a cluster, mirroring, replication...