Oracle Database Reviews

We use version 12c, but are planning to migrate to 19c. 

The solution is suitable for enterprise applications. We use it for trade systems and a betting system. We use it with applications that need a huge amount of data, such as SQL enterprise applications.

The licensing could be cheaper and clearer. It is not clear how it applies to certain options. The licensing of the solution for only several virtual servers is a big issue which should be addressed. 

I have been using Oracle Database for many years, perhaps since 2001. 

The solution is stable. 

I have not had direct contact with tech support, although my colleagues have. 

I cannot comment on the initial installation, as it is handled by the Database Administrator, not I. He possesses the skill to install the solution and has never mentioned any issues with this. Perhaps my colleagues would be in a position to give a more comprehensive answer. 

In respect of the deployment and maintenance, we have two administrators, developers, an architect and a tester who are in charge of four applications. 

The licensing could be cheaper and clearer. It is not clear how it applies to certain options. The licensing of the solution for only several virtual servers is a big issue which should be addressed. 

The license is yearly. 

Although I would recommend the solution for certain applications, as there are licensing issues, I would prefer to use PostgreSQL where possible. 

There are many people making use of the solution in my organization, including developers, testers, end users and end application users. We may be talking about thousands. But when it comes to those with personal experience using the solution, we are talking about 40 or 50 people. 

We plan to continue using the solution, as there are certain applications of ours which must remain on Oracle Database. 

The solution is stable and has good performance. Licensing is the big issue we encounter. 

Were I to rate Oracle Database strictly on its technical capabilities, I would have to give it a rating of nine out ten. However, its licensing issues bring this rating down to seven. 

We are using the Oracle E-Business Suite ERP system and the backend of that application is Oracle Database. We are using the customer care and billing application and the backend of that application is also Oracle Database. 

The customer care and billing capabilities are very good.

It is very stable. We are getting good performance from it. The reliability is excellent. 

It's one of the leading databases on the market.

We get good support on the database side. 

The cloud setup is very simple. 

The solution works well for enterprise-level organizations.

We've used the solution for so long, it would be hard to switch off of it. 

On the ERP side, they do not seem to be improving the on-premises version. They seem to want to push the cloud option on users. The roadmap for each seems to be diverting, and the on-premises side simply isn't getting the same amount of attention.

The pricing could be high.

In our company, we've been working with the solution here for 15 years.

The solution is quite stable. There are no bugs or glitches. We do not find that it crashes or freezes. It's reliable.

The scalability is very good. They are providing the structure, the architecture, and everything you need to scale. It's very easy to scale to whatever size you need. Usually, we can do scalable sites with no issue.

Technical support is okay for the most part. On the database sites, things are okay. However, if we talk about the application sites, sometimes we are getting a response time that is delayed.

The initial setup, for the cloud implementation, is very straightforward. Companies won't have any issues with the deployment. 

The solution is very expensive as they are charging their products in different categories. For example, we have to pay on the application side, on the technology side, and on the licensing. On an enterprise level, if we compare with other solutions, there are a lot of open-source options which would be cheaper.

We're just a customer and an end-user.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten. I'd rate it at a perfect ten if the could and on-premises versions we treated with equal weight, and they didn't try to simply push cloud on users. 

On the enterprise level, it's very stable and reliable. It's great if users are looking for enterprise quality. However, there are options available in the Unix and Linux systems as well. 

We have started using it recently, and I don't have any use cases as of now. We are just taking the data from Oracle Database and pushing it to the further layers. We are using its latest version.

It is user-friendly. Its performance and security are also very good. There are 300 million records for our one-year data, and we can easily query this data.

You can use Oracle Database as a source for easily integrating with different databases and applications. It supports Java platforms and other applications very well. It works with SAP products better than Microsoft SQL Server.

It should have more monitoring features. There should be features to be able to analyze the performance with a query. In Microsoft SQL Server, when you are running any stored procedure, if you want to analyze the performance, you just run the query analyzer. You can easily find out that something is missing in a joint condition, or clustering needs to be added because of a delay. I can't find such features in Oracle Database. They should be added.

I have been using Oracle Database for the past three months.

It is stable.

It is scalable. Currently, about 30 people are using it. We don't have any plans to increase its usage.

We have never interacted with them. We are just taking the data from Oracle Database and pushing it to the further layers. We don't find any issues over there, and technical support isn't needed as such.

It was pre-installed. We were given virtual machines for our team, and we are able to just access it through them. We get the user id and password, and we just install that ODBC driver and easily connect to it.

We don't have any rights to install such solutions. We just raise a request for installation. We don't have any authority to install or configure anything. For its deployment and maintenance, there is no need for a technical team because it is pre-installed, and we just use it. No support is required for this, and there is no need for a technical team.

It was purchased by our client. It might have been a one-time payment. It doesn't seem to be very expensive.

I would recommend this solution. Everything is good in Oracle Database. It is very good performance-wise, and that's the reason most people prefer Oracle Database.

I would rate Oracle Database a nine out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for critical financial applications.

The solution is very stable. The performance is quite good.

The product has been very user-friendly and very easy to use.

The flexibility is very, very good. 

You can scale the solution if you need to. Its scalability is good. 

The product could offer easier ways to configure everything.

The initial setup could be more simple and straightforward.

Technical support could be quicker to respond to queries. 

The solution is a bit expensive.

I've been using the solution for about two years or so. It's been a while.

The solution has proven to be very stable. The performance is good. There are no bugs. It's not glitchy. It doesn't crash or freeze on us. It's reliable.

The scalability of the solution is very good. If a company needs to expand it, it can do so easily.

We do have plans to continue to use the product in the future.

We have about 100 users on the solution currently.

We've dealt with technical support in the past and found them to be slow to respond. They should work on getting back to clients faster in the future.

The solution's initial setup isn't as straightforward as it could be. It's an aspect that could be adjusted.

If a company has all the prerequisites and all of the deployment considerations on hand, the deployment time is about one hour. It shouldn't take too long.

We have two administrators on our team that are capable of handling any maintenance that may be required. 

We handled the implementation ourselves. We didn't require any outside assistance in the form of a consultant or integrator. We handled everything in-house. 

We pay for licensing on a yearly basis.

It's a bit expensive. We would like it to be a bit cheaper.

We are using the latest version of the solution. I cannot recall the exact version number at this time.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten.

The primary use case of this solution is as part of our financial systems.

It is easy to set up on their engineered systems.

It needs to be more stable, as recently we have experienced some issues.

The support should be more customer-friendly.

The pricing should be reduced.

I have been using Oracle Database for a few years.

We are using the latest version.

It used to be stable and scalable, however, we have had recent stability problems on the Exadata platform.

We have the necessary number of people using the application.

We have Oracle support but we are not satisfied with it.

It needs to be responsive, and more customer-friendly.

We use different products for different requirements.

We are switching away from Oracle.

When it comes to storage, we are a large organization with many different databases. We haven't migrated between the databases, however, that is now starting to happen as we are moving off Oracle. We won't remove it completely, but we are moving away from it.

It depends on how it is being deployed. For example, if you have multiple designs and you are deploying it on their engineered systems then it's not complex. But if you are running it on a traditional hardware system then it is slightly complex.

I don't know how long it would take to deploy on the monitoring systems, but on the engineering systems, it would take two to three hours.

We did not use a consultant, vendor, or reseller to deploy this solution. We implemented the database ourselves. The engineering system is always done by Oracle, and we don't have a choice. Oracle always deploys the physical equipment.

We have a team of 12 to maintain this solution.

They are pricing themselves out of the market.

We will continue to use this solution in the future.

I wouldn't recommend Oracle Database to others who are planning to use it.

I would rate it a seven out of ten.

I am an end-user of the Oracle database. The only use of Oracle is the repository of the data. So from the end-user side, it is transparent. A database is a good database if it does not slow down production or data processing. That the database prevents data from being exposed to any malware or any malicious scripting is a good idea. Oracle has these capabilities.

Oracle is simply a reliable data warehouse for us.

Our Oracle database is very expensive, so probably the cost is an area that can be improved. The cost of the product.

The actual features that might need to be improved is a question that is better answered by any IT person or administrator because they know specifically what are the limitations and what the challenges that they face in using the product or the brand.

On the end-user side, it is all transparent and we depend completely on the administration to care for the stability of the product. So we do not know what they experience on the administrative end as we are isolated from those issues. I don't know if the services are slowing down or if there's an issue and the product is not performing as expected.

If something happens and there is a switchover to using the back-up or something like that, we do not see any of that as end-users. 

I have been using the product for about 12 years with the same company.

I do not have any idea about the specifics of the stability because that is usually taken care of by the IT department. From an end-user standpoint, the stability is very good. At least that is the case for us as the IT department is doing their job.

But definitely as of this moment, due to the COVID crisis, we are not going into the direction of expanding any software or hardware inventory. Everything was put on hold to maximize the usage of current assets.

But of course, Oracle is a scalable solution. We are hoping to go in that direction. If you have a solution that is not scalable, then you probably will be left behind. All software seems to be taking that direction in offering scalability and flexibility.

Oracle can be deployed into whatever architecture you have right now. Whether it be on-prem, on the cloud, or a mix or hybrid. Probably that is a good point for Oracle.

I have not heard about any problems with technical support from Oracle and I also do not hear about any escalations regarding support from our IT department. I have not heard about any reports that the Oracle Database has been down.

So the product is good and the back-end support is good.

We have been using this Oracle solution from the time that I arrived at this company so there has not been any other product in use.

The setup is taken care of and maintained by the IT and administration. 

I am not exactly sure of the precise cost, but I do know that the cost of the product is very expensive compared to some other solutions. Even though we are in a third world country, we do not enjoy any discount for our situation and economy.

As far as I am aware this is the only product that was considered because of its reputation and performance.

The advice I have for other people considering this solution is that if they have money then they should go for it. We do not experience performance issues or trouble with throughput.

It is probably a good idea to do some research for use in documentation which can be searched or located on the Internet. I think every company that is looking into creating value from their software assets, they have to do research or evaluation first on the Internet.

They should be sure, before making an investment that the product fits their requirements, probably they will contact a distributor or supplier to get the product.

The next important step would be the proof of concept. They must try to do a POC or work with a demo and see if the Oracle Database can solve the pain points that they are having right now.

One factor they can not forget is the budget. If the product fits their needs but not their budget, they will have to try to fit their budget to the product and make it work perhaps by scaling usage.

On the scale from one to ten, with one being the worst and ten being the best, I would rate Oracle Database as probably around and eight-out-of-ten. That is a good rating. The price is really the only thing which is holding it back from a better score.

I use this solution as a DBA on AIX and Linux.

This solution was great for a while until Oracle became adversarial with its customers and the professionals who support their products.

This solution has the best performance, bar none.

Oracle needs to stop suing users.

The documentation needs improvement because as it is now, providing support is a headache.

This is a stable solution.

This solution is extremely scalable.

Most recent involvement was the migration of a large database from a non-relational legacy database requiring redundancy with aggressive recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO) for the disaster recovery (DR) environment. We also had a requirement to have the migration completed and the data validated within a single long weekend. 

Significant assistance in tuning both the migration process and the production database was provided by Oracle Consulting Services, which provided excellent and very professional advice.

Switching to Oracle significantly increased stability of the application, and enabled ongoing growth of the application's data. It also provided better insight and diagnostics when data problems were encountered by the application.

RAC clustering allowed us to improve performance and provided additional redundancy. In general, the enterprise-grade features of Oracle are second to none.

In the case noted above, the converted legacy data was stored as XML. The 11gR2 version we converted to stored it as a Character Large OBject (CLOB). The next version of Oracle has a native XML data type, which provides better support for indexing the XML data.

Because of the way the application used the database, we found that two data servers increased performance, but a third one decreased it. This was a limitation based on the way the legacy application configured and used their data and how they did their own locking, which made their lock table a hotspot for the clustering, among other issues.

There was a bit of a learning experience on how to escalate an issue, but once we got through that, the vendor support was really very good.

The previous solution was a non-relational multi-valued database called jBASE.  The database size was exceeding the application vendor's recommended maximum for that database, but their application had the ability to use a number of relational databases with their enterprise features as an alternate data store allowing continued growth.

Initial setup was complex because of the odd way the application used the database, the application vendor's conversion tools, and our stringent requirements.

Implementation was done by a combination of the vendor, the application vendor, and in-house. The vendor teams were exceptionally good.

The ability to continue growing and increased stability were our non-negotiable points.

Be prepared to pay for consulting services, and do not underestimate the time required to find and hire good quality database administrators. Also, carefully evaluate your sizing and performance requirements, involving if you can, both the application vendor and Oracle consultants.

In addition to Oracle, we evaluated SQL Server and DB2.

Do a couple dry runs do thorough testing to ensure that everything will work as expected.