There are two things that are true:

1.     At AMTRA we love data. However, if you are ever in a room with our data team, look out, that is what true passion looks like!

2.     We openly admit our bias toward all the fantastic products and solutions delivered by our partners at Microsoft. Our partnership and their continual innovation combined with our amazing team is what has enabled us to build a successful managed service business.

To those that know us or have spent any time with us or on our website, you would probably already know the above, and when combined, this gives us credibility as experts in Microsoft and their data platform.  In most scenarios this is amazing, however, if someone had a question about the features, functionality or performance of another vendor (like Oracle) we understand that this bias might be a hurdle to providing an objective option and they would likely want a more well-rounded view.

That is why we were so excited when Raquel and team started working on the Expert Round-up, A Guide to Weighing the Options: SQL Server vs Oracle. In their guide, they have compiled a ton of great information, all from industry experts and analysts, so you don’t have to take our word for it that SQL Server is far superior to Oracle. Be sure to click over to the guide so you can see for yourself what the experts are saying against each of the criteria you are probably already thinking about as you look to invest in a database.

In the meantime, here is what our very own Randolph West, Microsoft Data Platform MVP has to say about SQL Server:

“It’s really hard to pick just a handful of features in SQL Server 2016 and 2017 that I’m excited about. Query Store can help you pick the best plan for your queries. Temporal Tables help you audit changes and prevent accidental data loss. Always Encrypted keeps prying eyes out of sensitive data. Machine Learning technologies like R and Python are built right into the database engine. Want to build a Graph Database? 2017 can do that for you. Adaptive Query Processing makes your batch mode queries run better. You can build amazing reports for web and mobile in Reporting Services, and integrate with Power BI. All of these features are included in the box, along with best of breed performance. Still using Standard Edition? You get In-Memory OLTP and Columnstore support as well. And did you know that SQL Server 2017 runs natively on Linux?

If you’re thinking about upgrading, there’s no time like now to get on the 2017 bandwagon.”

After you have a chance to take a look at the guide, be sure to let us know what you think.