
Why Does Microsoft SQL Server Exist? - ayjz
I&#x27;m having trouble understanding why anyone uses Microsoft SQL Server, or still uses it now that we have open-source databases. Does it have any features that PostgreSQL or MySQL don&#x27;t have?
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davismwfl
SQL Server is about environment and ease of use. It has come a long way, and
while I wouldn't use it for large scale projects anymore because of cost, it
is more then capable of handling the task. SQL Server does have unique
features to the Microsoft environment that make it easier to develop with and
make it pretty damn robust too. There are too many things to list, but I think
many choose it because it is an eco-system, you get SSRS for reporting, SSIS
works well for basic to moderate ETL and the basic setup for a simple database
a monkey could do. Not to mention the tooling is really pretty damn robust and
easy to use (sometimes too easy IMO). Performance wise, it is good when
designed for like any database, but if you do stupid things, or do things how
you would do them in say Oracle, then you may be asking for trouble. But the
same could be said for Postgres or MySQL etc.

Also, don't forget that many companies started with it as part of the Business
Server suite and so all their software was built around it for little cost of
the database itself. Then they grew into it.

I have spent a long time working in and around it, and respect it overall.
Personally, I have moved a lot of clients out of SQL Server into more cost
effective solutions when they have grown to a point that the licensing cost
will outweigh the need to re-architect their system. That usually happens when
they realize they need robust replication or a distributed solution which will
take some architecture work anyway, and why pay MSFT huge licensing fees and
architect for it when you can move to say Postgres and save the licensing
fees, just as an example.

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teddyuk
For me the tooling is really the best out of all rdbms's for the developer
tools ssdt provides a full api to query and create t-sql like rosylyn but for
t-sql:

[https://the.agilesql.club/blog/Ed-Elliott/2016-01-07/What-
Is...](https://the.agilesql.club/blog/Ed-Elliott/2016-01-07/What-Is-SSDT-
Part-3-An-API-For-Me-An-API-For-You-An-API-For-Everyone)

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smt88
It does have features that MySQL and Postgres don't have, and it also is
missing some features that those have. It's a different product.

Enterprises use it because they sign contracts with Microsoft to use all
Microsoft products, and then they get support from Microsoft when things go
wrong.

Furthermore, "no one ever got fired for hiring IBM" (not sure who said that
originally). Basically, when you use a big-name, enterprise vendor and the
software fails, it's their fault. When you use a (F)OSS solution and the
software fails, it's your fault.

You can go on and on with technology that sucks that's still used by large
enterprise for the same reason.

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greggyb
Others have covered some of the enterprisey and ecosystem reasons around SQL
Server. I'll add a few thoughts, but try not to reiterate too much. Note that
I am speaking about Enterprise Edition which is ~$14K/2cores (sold in 2 core
units) (other editions offer subsets of these features). This is all off the
top of my head.

 _Ecosystem_

As mentioned, you get core SQL Server, along with a number of integrated tools
that range from adequate to best in class:

* SSIS for ETL

* SSRS for reporting - includes traditional paginated reports, Power View for visual analysis and exploration (in 2016 gets native mobile apps and major overhaul)

* SSAS - Multidimensional for traditional OLAP, data mining; Tabular for in-memory columnstore

* CLR - everything has access to CLR languages for customizability and scripting

* Azure - easy transition from on-prem to cloud either with IaaS and pre-configured DB VMs or Azure SQL and Azure DW for SaaS with syntax and feature compatibility; very strong hybrid infrastructure story

 _Features_ All of these are native

* In-memory OLTP - memory optimized tables, optionally transactionally persisted to disk or not, with sprocs compiled to native code

* Columnstore index - optionally memory-optimized tables with clustered columnstore for hybrid OLTP / OLAP workload

* HA groups for native replication and failover story

* Native R integration (coming SQL Server 2016)

* Integrated row-level security

* Encryption for data at rest and in transit (more of an Azure SQL piece)

* Native master data and data quality services

I don't know if you care much (but CIOs and IT directors of large
organizations do), but SQL Server 2014 is the absolute leader in Gartner's
magic quadrant for mission-critical application development, and Microsoft is
in a leadership position for BI as well.

Believe it or not, TCO is one of the largest talking points for Microsoft data
platform account executives and solution sellers. Especially when placed
against Oracle that story is strong. We have customers (we being the company I
work for - BI and analytics consultancy) coming to SQL Server from every
platform you can imagine. There are also many customers leaving SQL Server for
every other platform. At this point in time Microsoft is doing a pretty good
job of making sure that first number is larger than the second by a healthy
margin.

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jenkstom
It is tightly integrated into the entire Microsoft development toolchain.
There are free versions given to developers. And then there's the persistent
myth of "Nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft". They used to say that
about IBM. They don't anymore.

A lot of it is inertia, as well. People who have been writing software for MS
SQL server for the past couple of decades probably aren't going to change any
time soon.

Plus with MS Azure, MS SQL server is easy for a non DBA to setup, add failover
and scale.

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BrentOzar
Setting aside the feature comparison, there's the matter of inertia. There are
tons of enterprise-quality software packages that already work happily with
Microsoft SQL Server, and the cost of switching the application to use another
database is too high. (Especially in enterprises where you may have dozens of
different applications all talking to the same database simultaneously, and
switching them all at the exact same time would be incredibly expensive.)

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eric24
I suppose you could ask the same question about any software category where
commercial and FOSS options exist. The short answer is that SQL Server is "the
right answer" for some companies, after analyzing the long list of technical,
financial, and support pros and cons.

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elchief
MS SQL Server's text search is far superior to PostgreSQL's. Otherwise, not a
huge difference.

Also, if you're a Microsoft shop, it's easier to deal with than learning
Postgres's unixy ways. And you can program sprocs using .Net

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xmstr
Vendor partnership, commercial support, legacy app support, .NET drivers and
optimizations not available elsewhere, developer knowledge...

Why does Oracle, DB2, Sybase, or any other commercial RDBMS still exist?

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Rajapk
Trustworthy SQL Server is need of every org/est.

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davelnewton
Why does anyone use XXX since there's an OS version of it?

* Different capabilities

* Different levels of support

* Previous lock-in

* Non-technical reasons

