Oracle Database Reviews

• High availability 
• Performance 

Those are the topmost.

Because we're servicing end clients, I need to have the SLA. The performance is the key point for us. When a customer logs in to the website, it needs to be within a few seconds, SLA. So that's how it's helping us, improved performance and, ultimately, gaining customer satisfaction. 

Right now, the version that have is just one version lower than what's available. I'm looking forward to upgrading to that version, especially the container-based database. That's what I'm looking forward to.

There is always room to improve. New stuff coming in.

It is a very stable product, especially the RAC, node clusters, so if one goes down it's very seamless. You have other nodes backing it up.

It's easy to scale. You can add more memory, more storage. If you need to scale horizontally, you can add one more node. It's a pretty scalable product.

We use it when we have issues. It's pretty good. They have a very good support model. You create a service request and, depending on the priority, they call you back. It's pretty good support.

No, we've been using this one. It's a robust product, very solid; better features. That's why we chose it.

It was complex. It was all set up but it is very complex. Day in, day out, it's very complex work.

The most important criteria for us when selecting a vendor are the support model and their willingness to work with us.

I would definitely encourage checking out this solution. Work with Oracle and you'll find out whether you can use it. They're pretty good at coming to your site and giving demos and all that kind of stuff.

The most important features are container and pluggable database. Now we have more control on the resource level, resource planning, where we can segregate our application based on the pluggable database and utilize the resources better.

The hardware cost and the maintenance cost, because we don't need to buy multiple servers. We don't need to engage so many DBAs. Instead we can put multiple databases in one container database.

Stability features should be there. And the performance, we are not expecting better performance as of now. They must include bug fixes and release a better version of their 12c Database.

It is pretty stable, but since it's only the very first version they released, I would say probably they're going to fix it in release 2.

It scales well so far, no issues at all, but some of the advanced features are pretty expensive, especially on engineered systems like Exadata.

We are getting good results for service requests, but sometimes we see too much delay. Sometimes we see their investigation is going in the wrong direction. They have to improve a bit in order to provide support. 

For example, I have three or four service requests going on with Oracle, and I have seen so many delays, and asking unnecessary questions, which I would not have expected from Oracle.

Upgrading is not an issue. As long as our application is supporting the upgrade. We can upgrade from 11g to 12c without any issues. 

But we have seen issues where we are upgrading our databases from 8i or 9i to 12c. Those versions are still not very compatible with 12c.

We have been with Oracle Database for a long time. Our products are stable on Oracle Database except some performance issues.

My advice is to check the application side, what applications they are going to attach to Oracle Database. Make sure the applications are fully compatible with the Oracle Database.

The most valuable features are security and stability.

I would like to see advanced compression and multi-tenant. We need to have multiple versions of our database. We don't know much about multi-tenant, but what they are announcing about it, seems interesting and would solve our problems. We need more of a focus on compression.

We have been using Oracle database for almost 15 years.

In terms of stability, there is no downtime. The times when we need to shut it down, it's because we want to shut it down, not because the product crashes. It is very reliable.

Scalability is good. I wouldn't implement some features if it weren't stable. We're interested in database in the cloud. We had good results with database on premises, so we want to test the same results in the cloud.

The premier support isn't enough. Oracle ACS is expensive. We would like to train our DBAs to work better than premier support. They know their stuff, but the time response is not good.

The time frames are not the same from our country, so when we open a service request the analyst doesn't know exactly what's going on. He tries to change to another analyst and we have to tell him the whole story again. That is what we don't like from premier support.

When looking for a vendor, I want them to be reliable and to have local support.

The setup was easy. I think it's easy to follow the steps to get it done.

The product sells itself. It's a good product. We had it since version 8. We're currently on Version 12C, release 1, and the product is not bad. It's a good product. It's the support that we have some questions about.

It has given us the ability to scale.

I would like to see lower costs. It has expensive annual maintenance.

We have been using this solution for three years.

There were no issues during deployment, but there was some occasional locking.

It has excellent scalability.

Customer service is very good.

Technical support is very good. They are responsive and meet our SLAs.

We did not have a solution prior to this one.

We implemented this solution in-house.

It is expensive.

We did not evaluate other options.

For both versions:

• Oracle data miner: automation of created and tested several models
• Warehouse builder: the best data modeling implementation tools for multi-dimensional schema, spatial data, robust ETL implementation
• Fusion middleware: information systems integration and process management
• Data integrator: bulk movement; good connectivity to the other databases, even hierarchical databases; simplicity in ETL implementation
• WebLogic: JDeveloper bundling as a new feature
• BI publisher: showing the best images of data and resources with quality reports, managing the reports, robust report designer
• Application development framework: rapid training and development, excellent deployment, simplicity, map integration

The product has improved organizations by developing BI applications for banks such as a banking data warehouse, fraud detection, incident detection, ad-hoc BI reports shown on maps with drill-down features, data quality process and ETL.

We are hoping they make improvements in the following areas

• Data mining
• Big data analytics

Because we need to find economic models and buying behavior by improving the data mining process and integration with structured and unstructured data for accurate analysis and effective decision-making.

I regularly encounter stability issues.

I regularly encounter scalability issues.

I rate technical support 9/10.

Our first solution was Microsoft’s solution. We switched to Oracle because of data volume, switch to big data in the future, security and other features.

Initial setup was complex. There was a limitation regarding access to the product, because of sanctions on Iran.

We also evaluated Pentaho, Talend, and Microsoft’s solution.

Make your best estimate regarding project size and data volume. Fully understand all of the products available.

The most valuable feature is the high concurrency in terms of transactions. The second most valuable feature is that from a diagnostic performance standpoint, I can tell exactly what is going on. It is really good at helping to solve problems.

The organizational improvements go back to the high concurrency. There are a lot of database products out there, but it is difficult to have a lot of simultaneous actions from a business perspective in the database. They have to happen very fast, and Oracle just shines at that.

I would like Oracle to instrument the CPU consumption of Oracle sessions. Right now I can tell how much CPU Oracle consumes, but I have no idea what it's doing when it's consuming the CPU. I can infer that, but I don't have the authority that I would like to when I speak about it.

We have been using the product since 1989.

It’s a software product, so there are some bugs. When I have issues, they tend to be from an unusual or intense workload that is stressing the system.

It rocks. You can tweak Oracle so it will use up all available computing resources. That's powerful. That way, you can use your investment and your capacity.

You always have to be careful about stability when applying patches. A patch could fix one thing but hurt something else, so you really have to be conscientious and do your homework first.

You need to get a good overall understanding before you drill down. There is too much to learn, so get a basic fundamental understanding and then let the problems guide you in learning more.

The main, most important feature is the integration of the database, security, and performance. Those are the three main features. They have evolved it very well since version 6. It used to be rule-based, now it's cost-based, which is great because there are so many routes to bring in the data. It's a really complex architecture, and the way Oracle has done it is really good.

I work with a couple of other databases too, but with Oracle, it allows you to drill down to a very small level inside the database and return a result that you want. That's another pretty good feature.

Also, Database has low-level security through a virtual private database. Within the same database, we can show two businesses simultaneously without having a different architecture. This really helps us.

A lot of things like a low level security. One of the features that we use virtual private database, which is a low level security. Within the same data base we can show two businesses at the same time, without having a different architecture. It actually helps us.

It's beneficial for our organization because we have a lot of financial data where it has to make sure that something came before on the master data layer. You have to have a node created before you insert the data that leads it to the node.

When there is the high insertion of data and bursts of insertions, Database has to manage the integration, but the way it tries to maintain all the integrations is not necessary. There's a way to de-normalize all this, but not if an application is already downloaded. Database has a lot of limitations, especially when you have a huge data insertion that you're trying to query. That really becomes a limiting factor with Database.

I've been using Oracle products for 22 years.

We have no real issues with deployment.

It's one of the most stable database that I work with. They have been improving with every version. As far as stability goes, I give a very high marks to Oracle.

There are ways you can scale it, but one of the limiting factor is the way Oracle licensing works. The moment you try to out scale it vertically or horizontally, you multiply the Oracle licenses, and a lot of customers are looking into that. How do we optimize those with the performance that you need?

The problem is the way the technical support works. A lot of people try to pass the ball around, and that's a lot of challenge with management of all that. Most of the time, if you really want to work on something you have to raise it to Level 1. You've got to escalate, otherwise things doesn't get worked on. If it's a critical thing, there's no other option.

The initial setup was straightforward, but maybe I'm so experienced that I don't have many issues with it. A new DBA may have a different view of the setup. I would suggest, however, that Oracle should develop a feature in Database that lets you know which products you have a license for and which ones you don't during the setup.

We implemented it with our in-house team.

It's a good, stable system. When it comes to Oracle, you need to understand what to use, how to use it, and look into the cost of it, which is very important.

It's enterprise-wide and can handle big databases. Also, it performs automatic backup recovery and database management and monitoring, both of which are extremely useful.

We've reduced our time monitoring the database and, instead, spent more time researching and improving our system.

The portal site needs to be improved, as sometimes it's very slow. They also need to improve their critical problem resolution, especially error ORA-60000. I hoped that they'd be able to reduce those types of errors by now.

We've had no issues with deployment.

We very seldom have stability issues. It's been really stable so far.

It's a scalable solution that comes at a cost.

Issues are registered through their portal where we login our tickets. Sometimes, it's a bit slow and their response is a bit average unless it's Severity One, in which case the response time is really quick, about 1 or 2 hours. Otherwise, if it's Severity Three or below, it can probably take up to one day. Sometimes the development team needs to look into the issues.

Database was already set up when I joined, but I haven't heard that it was particularly complex.

Oracle needs to reduce the licensing cost as it's getting more expensive.

You have to really know the Oracle version type that you're working on, especially with the new Oracle chassis which is running on multi-tenant architecture. That is very important if you are, just like our company, on MTA, multi-tenant architecture. We have to really know the inside out how it works before we can actually support and maintain it. So be well prepared for it.