I heard Brent Ozar recently talked a bit about the SQL Server platform and its future. He also mentioned that Fabric has distracted the data platform team and it isn’t a great product. I tend to agree, and I see too many bugs, holes, and problems. However at the end of this short snippet, he talks about SQL Server with an interesting comment.

Is SQL Server feature complete?

That was Brent’s opinion, which is one that I tend to share. I think that the platform is very feature-complete. There aren’t a lot of things I think I really need in order to choose SQL Server as my database. I wish some functions (FORMAT, MERGE) ran faster, and there are a few items (AGs, replication) that could be easier to work with or were more robust under load. However, overall, SQL Server runs well.

It’s a good choice, there is mature tooling available to help, it’s well understood, easy to administer for the most part, and there are lots of people that have experience on the platform. There are ample reasons to choose SQL Server as a solid relational database platform.

At the same time, if the product is feature complete, then that gives PostgreSQL, MySQL, and assorted other platforms a target to aim for and potentially displace workloads at a lower cost. Even if the features aren’t quite the same, a much lower cost can be enticing.

That ignores the cost, often a very high cost, of switching platforms. However, I do see plenty of people investigating other platforms, not to migrate or move, but for new work. That makes sense, and I suspect that is part of the reason that Microsoft keeps trying to raise the bar with new features. I’d prefer they focus more on stability and performance than new stuff, but I get that doesn’t always sell well.

Are you happy with SQL Server? Looking elsewhere? Ready to learn a few platform? Let us know today.

Steve Jones

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