DBMS > Microsoft Azure AI Search vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. NCache vs. Vertica

System Properties Comparison Microsoft Azure AI Search vs. Microsoft SQL Server vs. NCache vs. Vertica

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Search-as-a-service for web and mobile app development

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Open-Source and Enterprise in-memory Key-Value Store

Cloud or off-cloud analytical database and query engine for structured and semi-structured streaming and batch data. Machine learning platform with built-in algorithms, data preparation capabilities, and model evaluation and management via SQL or Python.

Primary database model

Column oriented

Secondary database models

Vector DBMS

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

Document store
Search engine

Using distributed Lucene

Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

DB-Engines Ranking measures the popularity of database management systems
Trend Chart

Score	5.59
Rank	#63	Overall
	#7	Search engines

Score	824.29
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Score	0.94
Rank	#195	Overall
	#29	Key-value stores

Score	10.68
Rank	#43	Overall
	#27	Relational DBMS

Website

azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/search

www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server

www.alachisoft.com/ncache

www.vertica.com

Technical documentation

learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/search

learn.microsoft.com/en-US/sql/sql-server

www.alachisoft.com/resources/docs

vertica.com/documentation

Developer

Microsoft

Alachisoft

OpenText

previously Micro Focus and Hewlett Packard

Initial release

2015

1989

2005

Current release

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

5.3.3, April 2024

12.0.3, January 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

restricted free version is available

Open Source

Enterprise Edition available

commercial

Limited community edition free

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

on-premises, all major clouds - Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and containers

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

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Implementation language

C++

C#, .NET, .NET Core, Java

C++

Server operating systems

hosted

Linux
Windows

Linux

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

Yes, but also semi-structure/unstructured data storage, and complex hierarchical data (like Parquet) stored and/or queried.

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

partial

Supported data types are Lists, Queues, Hashsets, Dictionary and Counter

yes

XML support

Some form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

No Indexes Required. Different internal optimization strategy, but same functionality included.

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

SQL-like query syntax and LINQ for searching the cache. Cache Synchronization with SQL Server using SQL dependency.

Full 1999 standard plus machine learning, time series and geospatial. Over 650 functions.

APIs and other access methods

RESTful HTTP API

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
OLE DB
Tabular Data Stream (TDS)

IDistributedCache
JCache
LINQ
Proprietary native API

ADO.NET
JDBC
Kafka Connector
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API
Spark Connector
vSQL

character-based, interactive, front-end utility

Supported programming languages

C#
Java
JavaScript
Python

C#
C++
Delphi
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Visual Basic

.Net
.Net Core
C#
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
Scala

C#
C++
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
R

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

Transact SQL, .NET languages, R, Python and (with SQL Server 2019) Java

support for stored procedures with SQL-Server CLR

yes, PostgreSQL PL/pgSQL, with minor differences

Triggers

yes

Notifications

yes, called Custom Alerts

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

tables can be distributed across several files (horizontal partitioning); sharding through federation

yes

horizontal partitioning, hierarchical partitioning

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

yes, with selectable consistency level

Multi-source replication

One, or more copies of data replicated across nodes, or object-store used for repository.

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Bi-directional Spark integration

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency
Strong Eventual Consistency over WAN with Conflict Resolution using Bridge Topology

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

Support to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of data

ACID

optimistic locking and pessimistic locking

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

In-memory capabilities

Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.

yes

User concepts

Access control

yes

using Azure authentication

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Authentication to access the cache via Active Directory/LDAP (possible roles: user, administrator)

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard; supports Kerberos, LDAP, Ident and hash

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

NCache has been the market leader in .NET Distributed Caching since 2005 . NCache...
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Deploy-anywhere database for large-scale analytical deployments. Deploy off-cloud,...
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Competitive advantages

NCache is 100% .NET/ .NET Core based which fully supports ASP.NET Core Sessions ,...
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Fast, scalable, and capable of high concurrency. Separation of compute/storage leverages...
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Typical application scenarios

NCache enables industries like retail, finance, banking IoT, travel, ecommerce, healthcare...
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Communication and network analytics, Embedded analytics, Fraud monitoring and Risk...
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Key customers

Bank of America, Citi, Natures Way, Charter Spectrum, Barclays, Henry Schein, GBM,...
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Abiba Systems, Adform, adMarketplace, AmeriPride, Anritsu, AOL, Avito, Auckland Transport,...
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Market metrics

Market Leader in .NET Distributed Caching since 2005.
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Licensing and pricing models

NCache Open Source is free on an as-is basis without any support. NCache Enterprise...
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Cost-based models and subscription-based models are both available. One license is...
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