Oracle Database Appliance Reviews

The features that they're providing as skills are the solution's most valuable aspect.

The solution is simple to use and easy to maintain.

The testing aspect of the solution could be improved. Right now, it's done by us, but if they'd improve it with tools that would make things easier.

If we were able to use Oracle Database to create mobile apps, that would be great. I don't know multiple languages, like Java, etc. I need to learn a separate language, right now in order to do this.

We primarily use the solution for data storage.

The solution does crash. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen occasionally.

The solution is scalable. We have a few hundred people using the solution currently.

We've never been in touch with technical support. We don't have the internet password needed to connect. We typically use a third party if we require assistance.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

We primarily use the solution as an operational system.

The performance of the system is the solution's most valuable aspect. In combination with the database, it gives perfect results. It's a better system than using other kinds of integrated systems. In general, the ODA control is much simpler to use and offers up the best performance.

Technical support could be much better. The maintenance for an enterprise system isn't so great. It's also much expensive.

A future release should improve the availability of networking interfaces.

Hardware expansions availability should be in-line with product support. 

The solution should have the ability to offer an integrated management dashboard with virtualized systems and oracle DB manager in all DB supported versions.

The machine should have a visual monitoring interface, not also for hardware but also to DB and virtualized hosts.

The solution is very stable. We haven't had any issues over the past two years.

We're not too pleased with technical support. The cost to have access to them is way too much money.

The initial setup was fairly quick. It was easy to deploy.

The pricing of the solution is fair but the technical support pricing is quite high.

We use the on-premises deployment model.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. It's a very good system.

Report processing time has been reduced. We can use it in the future for our BI tool.

The performance due to the all-flash of ODA is very nice. 

The main thing would be to make ODA more affordable, to make it a more economical machine. Also, I would like to see virtualization, so you could implement all of your functions on one machine. Finally, improvement in the speed and performance would be good.

Stability is very good. There has been no downtime.

Scalability means you can increase the storage. 

ODA support is very good. Oracle support is very good. Online support is very good. Our local partner is also very good.

Previously I was using Exadata. Our technical team was already familiar with Oracle products so that's why we choose ODA. We had a license for Oracle Database.

When selecting a vendor the main criterion is support. Oracle support is very good.

The initial setup was very easy.

My advice would depend on the needs of the company. If the need is like ours, number of transactions per day, number of transactions per year; and whether the operation time is 24 hours, eight hours; these are the types of things to consider when deciding. Also, what is the downtime you can afford?

ODA performance has been very good for our requirements.

I would rate it at eight out of 10 because the product is stable, it has very low downtime, and the support of Oracle is very good.

Our primary use case is OLTP.

Cost.                                                                                                                                         .

Oracle RAC.                                                        .

Patching: Oracle Database Appliance patching comes out two to three months after the regular patching cycle.                     .

In regards to licensing, it is cheaper to maintain for Oracle applications, and it's an all-in-one solution.

We had been using a separate server, separate storage, and a separate switch for our Oracle Database, which was costing us a lot of money, because you have to have licenses for each of those devices. But now we have all of them in just one box. We don't have to buy a separate switch. We don't have to buy separate storage. We have everything in just one box.

That's the advantage. It has been cost effective. They have really helped us on that line.

Currently in Ghana, where I work, there are just a few companies that can afford it, because the price is a little bit high. Even though for the private sector it's not that high, if this would come in much smaller boxes, and much cheaper, it would be much more affordable for SMBs, that's small and medium businesses. That would be helpful.

It's very, very stable. From the day of installation we did not have any challenges with this product.

Scalability is not limited. It's scalable because you can add a standard device to the storage space. You are just looking at storage space. You are not looking for memory, because the memory range is high enough. And the capacity is also very fast.

I've worked with HPE, I've worked with other vendors' support. In terms of phone support, I get faster response from Oracle. The support is the highest standard I've seen. They will get to you by all means, and attend to you, the challenges that you have, and in a timely manner. They have the expertise and they have the know-how. The first time we contact them, our issue is solved.

The reason for our switching is that we wanted an all-in-one solution across databases, and we need to implement an all-in-one solution for our customers' databases. This is very simplified, it's easy to use, you can be in production immediately when you buy the product. That's why we went that direction.

If you work with other companies, you often see a lot of challenges because the storage is usually separate. If they have all-in-one, the licenses are too expensive. What Oracle did was they reduced the price because we are buying their solution. They reduced the prices for the Oracle licenses.

I can set it up in a matter of a very short time. The worst case scenario is an hour, and that happens only if I don't have the information from the customer, That's when it would take an hour. But if I have all the information in front of me, the box can be set up and ready to use.

We had two products in mind. We had a product from HPE, but we did not go with that product because it required us getting extended storage. We were looking at space in the datacenter; we don't have a lot of rack space in the data center. So, we factored all of that into our decision, and then we decided on Oracle.

In addition, it was the licenses, because we use Oracle, and when you buy their product they reduce the cost for you. So, I could use an Oracle database and buy an HPE product where I will not have a reduction in price for licenses. You have to leverage that opportunity from Oracle.

I give it a nine out of 10 because it gives the customer easy access to a complete database solution within 30 minutes. That is, someone can go live with in 30 minutes of buying the product, it's very fast to use. For instance, if you have a small company that you want to set up, and you don't need to put your infrastructure on the cloud, you buy this product and you are ready to go in the next 30 minutes. That's one of the reasons why I give it that rating. 

As well, it's easier to manage, because you have a central point of management which is the Oracle ODA. You can manage it by using the browser interface. 

Database consolidation and for X6-2L also database performance improvement due to NVMe storage being used, which dramatically increases I/O performance

We value the appliance architecture with its “everything-in-a-box” highly standardized setup.

For the new ODA X6-2 models there is a possibility to deploy also SE/SE2 databases in a bare-metal deployment as well as the boosted I/O performance due to NVMe Flash disks.

For one customer it consolidated several databases from several Windows physical servers into one single ODA and resulted in increased stability.

For another customer it was used to “isolate” the last Oracle database system on one single ODA, thereby freeing-up SAN storage and rack server slots used by an old Linux cluster.

The following issues need some attention:

• Ease of administration and deployment. With ODA X6-2 there are different “OAK” administration commands for the S/M/L models (e.g. “odacli”) compared to the HA model ("oakcli").
• In my opinion only one single command should be used for all ODA models, as it’s confusing.
• Some of the new commands have limitations/restrictions, though I assume they’ll be improved over time.

We have been using the solution since 2012. We implemented 2x ODA V1 systems.

With the X6-2L we had a couple of early replacements, e.g. PCI card and battery

We only had a stability issue with the ODA V1 due to an ASM disk mount issue (“ORA-600 [KFDJOIN3]”, bug). This issue delayed the go-live for production databases, but was fixed with the assistance of Oracle Support relatively fast.

We only had a scalability issue regarding local storage, especially on the ODA V1.

I would rate the technical support as six out of 10. Over the past couple of years, I’ve found that the quality of Oracle Support first-level has decreased.

We used custom-built single-server or cluster solutions. The ODA provides a high degree of standardization.

The initial deployment of 2x ODA V1s was accomplished in one day, including unpacking and rack-mounting.

Leverage the Pay-As-You-Grow licensing, and consider using the ODA X6-2 S/M/L models also for SE2/SE.

We evaluated Exadata, which often is overkill for many small and medium sized databases.

If you go with 1x ODA then at least establish a Data Guard standby system on a Linux server, e.g. Public Cloud. I suggest to use 2x ODAs in each DR setup.

Nowadays, we migrate midsize EBS environments (EBS 11i, 12.1 and 12.2) to these machines. We use the machine as a consolidation environment and we also see a performance increase in the database layer.

Customers with limited licenses prefer this machine, as it has capacity-on-demand features which are completely aligned with Oracle licensing policies.

It is an easy-to-deploy database environment, which does not need much maintenance work. A DBA with knowledge of Oracle technologies, such as ASM and database, can manage it.

The system resources of this machine are quite enough for running midsize Oracle databases but, if there is a need, customers can expand their disk and memory resources.

This machine is also used as a standby database environment, especially for customers who have ODA HA or Exadata in their primary sites, and want to have an affordable engineered system for their standby sites.

• Capacity on Demand: Valuable because we can configure the machine according to our licenses. When there is a need, we can directly increase or decrease the CPU cores of this machine.
• NVM Express (NVMe) solid-state drives: This technology brings outstanding I/O performance for midsize databases. We have tested it by doing POCs on customer sites and the results were quite satisfying.
• Virtualization: Using the KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine), we can virtualize this machine and run both databases and applications on it.
• Affordable price: When we think about the technology and the features that this machine delivers, the price seems to provide a lot of value.
• Engineered system: This machine is a 1U engineered system optimized, tested and delivered by Oracle. It is a ready-to-use, easy-to-deploy environment for running Oracle products.
• Support for multiple database versions: Both 11.2.0.4 and 12c databases are supported with this machine.
• Support for multiple database editions: Both Standard edition and Enterprise edition databases are supported with this machine.
• ODA X6-2 is easy to manage: It delivers management utilities such as odacli and virt-manager (for virtualization management).

Oracle ODA is a fixed server appliance. It would be improved if it were an engineered system with scale-out capabilities.

Virtualization features could also be improved. A web-based GUI would be a good start.

Also VM-specific features, which provide VM-level fault tolerancy, could be added to this product. (This improvement would depends on the scale-out capabilities).

I have used ODA X3, X4 and X5 models for three years. This ODA X6-2M is a new ODA model and I have used it the last six months.

None.

No issues, but there is room for improvement here. Currently, there is no scale-out option for any of the models in ODA family.

Quite good. When you buy this machine it is registered with Oracle. Any service request is created using this registration. SR creation and updates are fast.

Conventional systems. Most of the time, the reasons for switching are the optimal price and the promising features.

Straightforward. The whole environment is built in one hour by following the Oracle documentation and using the related utilities.

Get benefit from the capacity-on-demand features. License your cores according to your licenses.

Standard HP servers and other members of the ODA family (such as ODA X6-2S, L and HA).

To others looking into this product I would recommend they take a look at ODA X7, which has been released.

ODA X7 delivers more system resources and it also delivers Standard Edition Oracle Database support for the HA (High Availability) model.

Offers easy deployment and setup.

It hosts many applications and deploys ODA quickly.

Patching cycles have many bugs that need to be addressed.