HCL Actian Data Platform vs. Azure SQL Database

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
HCL Actian Data Platform
Score 8.0 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
The HCL Actian Data Platform (formerly Actian Avalanche) hybrid cloud data warehouse is a fully managed service that aims to deliver high performance and scale across all dimensions – data volume, concurrent user, and query complexity – at a lower cost than alternative solutions. Avalanche has built-in self-service data integration that can be deployed on-premises as well as on multiple clouds, including AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, enabling users to migrate or offload applications and data to…N/A
Azure SQL Database
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Azure SQL Database is Microsoft's relational database as a service (DBaaS).
$0.50
Per Hour
Pricing
HCL Actian Data PlatformAzure SQL Database
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
2 vCORE
$0.5044
Per Hour
6 vCORE
$1.5131
Per Hour
10 vCORE
$2.52
Per Hour
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
HCL Actian Data PlatformAzure SQL Database
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
HCL Actian Data PlatformAzure SQL Database
Features
HCL Actian Data PlatformAzure SQL Database
Database-as-a-Service
Comparison of Database-as-a-Service features of Product A and Product B
HCL Actian Data Platform
-
Ratings
Azure SQL Database
9.2
Ratings
6% above category average
Automatic software patching00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Database scalability00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Automated backups00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Database security provisions00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Monitoring and metrics00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Automatic host deployment00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
HCL Actian Data PlatformAzure SQL Database
Small Businesses
Google BigQuery
Google BigQuery
Score 8.5 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Snowflake
Snowflake
Score 8.9 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
Enterprises
Snowflake
Snowflake
Score 8.9 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
HCL Actian Data PlatformAzure SQL Database
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
HCL Actian Data PlatformAzure SQL Database
Likelihood to Recommend
VectorWise is suitable to be a departmental data mart database or an operational data store (ODS). It is not suitable for enterprise data warehouse database.
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Your upcoming app can be built faster on a fully managed SQL database and can be moved into Azure with a few to no application code changes. Flexible and responsive server less computing and Hyperscale storage can cope with your changing requirements and one of the main benefits is the reduction in costs, which is noticeable.
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Pros
  • The support community was not as robust as you would find in a Mulesoft or Informatica environment. Given time and growth, it’s possible it will blossom, but for now it is minimal.
  • Training is always a big thing for us, and the tool was not expansive enough for us to implement our own internal training program. There was some online training, and we acquired an expert when we brought on the new company, but some additional training tools would have helped the tool grown its user base internally.
  • Not a lot to set it apart from the competition. Most of the features are available with other more established tools, but for a small company that maybe grew too quickly and needs to get its arms around many different data sources, I can see the appeal. Not really geared for larger firms.
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  • Scalability is #1: if it used to be an almost no-win endeavour to try to modernize your server or migrate to other hardware, with Azure SQL Database it becomes a press of a button.
  • All the tools simply work after you are on Azure SQL Database.
  • The applications do not need changes in order to start using Azure SQL Database.
  • Hybrid Cloud scenarios will work.
  • Clustering and failover - already there.
  • You can start monitoring the use and extract performance insights in a new way in Azure.
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Cons
  • As I said before, more training or greater visibility to training tools/options would be a plus. It’s easy to publish YouTube videos these days, I think they should make more of them.
  • Differentiation would help, there’s not a lot out there to drive you to buy the product if you are well informed in the market. If you know the market, you steer towards the large or trendy products. It’s a good product, but lost in the noise of the field I think.
  • Hitching the wagon to a major software brand (like Mule did to Salesforce) would help grow the user base, and thus increase the activity in the support community. More users also translates into product champions.
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  • A little slow on processing complex or large Views. We use a lot of Views to feed our BI system, and the processing time could see some improvement, IMHO.
  • Additional monitoring components would be nice too, automating some built in performance measurement tools would be a nice feature.
  • Price can always be improved as well. It’s not bad, but room for improvement.
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Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
This is best solution as a DBA one could expect from a service provider and as a cloud service, it removes all your hassles.
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Usability
No answers on this topic
It just works!
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Support Rating
No answers on this topic
We give the support a high rating simply because every time we've had issues or questions, representatives were in contact with us quickly. Without fail, our issues/questions were handled in a timely matter. That kind of response is integral when client data integrity and availability is in question. There is also a wealth of documentation for resolving issues on your own.
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Alternatives Considered
We didn’t actually choose Actian, it arrived as part of an acquisition, and really served its purpose both when it was used by the smaller firm we acquired as well as afterwards when we were extracting data and folding the company into our own data and analytics culture. The included hundreds of pre-built connectors gave us lots of options, but in the end, we were just too large of a company to rely on the product and needed a big-name player to address our wide-ranging needs. Powerful for its size, but not sized enough to address big businesses.
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Oracle Database is "the" serious database. There really is no competition in that field. SQL Database would be a serious competitor through the ease of implementation and the "no maintenance," but since it's too expensive for "normal" use (medium to small applications), it just priced itself out of the market, so to speak. Nevertheless, we do have 2 or 3 large applications that are highly integrated in azure, and for those it's just too easy to use SQL Database instead of the on premise Oracle Database with VPN gateways etcetera.
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Return on Investment
  • We had to move out of VectorWise after using the database for 2 years. Hence no positive impacts.
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  • We don't need a dedicated SQL dba because so many of the database maintenance operations are managed. A huge positive not only in budget but time constraints.
  • The ability to scale quickly is the biggest positive as our data needs change constantly.
  • Easy to migrate from legacy tools and systems, saving us on the need for redevelopment.
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ScreenShots