Oracle Database Reviews

From a storage and memory perspective, 11g is great. We also tried to install 12c on our machines, but we weren't happy about it because there were two version of it and we weren't ready to use the required plugins. We'll go to 12c next year, but I'd like to know whether we can go straight to 13c, which is already out.

11g has helped increase the performance of our database. We're also able to maintain it easier and better.

It's really not very user-friendly. Once installed and set up, there are still a lot of other steps we've had to take to get it functioning the way we want and need it to.

Deploying it required a lot of customization steps.

The stability is better than with 10g, in our experience with it.

The scalability is OK, but now that we're pushing 30GB of data per hour, there are problems with applications at the OIS level not handling the data correctly.

I performed the full setup myself but winged the rest. I had problems with the patches even though the upgrade installation went well. I spoke with DBA's in other companies and they had no problems with the patches. I still haven't come up with a solution.

It's a good product, better than older versions.

For me as a DBA, the most important features are the partitioning option, active data guard, and security options. All of these are very useful for my daily workflow.

Oracle Database is the core of our enterprise information system, which I maintain.

I think Oracle 12c has a lot of new functionality that has never been in the previous versions I work with, 8i to 11g, for example, master-slave architecture where you can plug and run multiple databases from a single master database as well as the ability to create a container database (CDB) that contains all the Oracle-level data and data dictionary.

I have used it since 2000, so more than 15 years.

All the issues I dealt with during deployment have been related to other applications and not the Database itself. All of the issues were fixed by programmers during the deployment and test implementation phases.

All the issues I dealt with in regards to instability have been related to other applications and not the Database itself. All of the issues were fixed by programmers during the deployment and test implementation phases.

All the issues I dealt with in scaling it have been related to other applications and not the Database itself. All of the issues were fixed by programmers during the deployment and test implementation phases.

Oracle has an excellent knowledge base and, using this, I fixed over 90% of issues myself.

I have experience with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and 2012, but my main activity is Oracle RDBMS.

Initial setup steps are very straightforward and clearly set out in the documentation.

I have experience with implementation both through a vendor team and in-house. I would strongly recommend to have a very clear understanding of how an applied system works because the most issues you will have to deal with are with the applied logic, and not with the Database itself.

It depends on applied information system and what kind of RDBMS features and options have been used by your development team or by the vendor.

If you want to have a high-performing, stable, secure, and scalable system, you will choose Oracle Database.

Cloudera Hadoop provides the scalable data architecture organizations need to manage increasing data volumes, though not the intuitive GUI for business users. Oracle Big Data Discovery (BDD) provides business users the ability to explore and analyze that Hadoop cluster to uncover data of interest.

The scalable data storage of Hadoop is the most critical feature, but without Oracle Big Data Discovery that data is difficult for business users to access without significant IT support. BDD relies on Spark and Hive to function so those are the next most valuable features of Cloudera Hadoop for me.

Using Oracle Endeca Information Discovery has enabled our clients to search and explore unstructured data so they can answer unexpected questions as soon as they come up. This has been a game changer since it dramatically reduces the delay when new data volumes are introduced, or when new business questions are identified and need to be answered.

Hadoop as a big data repository is difficult for non-technical users to access but provides a potential gold mine of data insight. Oracle Big Data Discovery's ability to let business users explore that large volume of data gives them a significant advantage.

Oracle Big Data Discovery allows business users to interact with data in Hadoop and to transform it into a different format on the Hadoop cluster. This proprietary format can sit within the Hadoop cluster, but is not fault tolerant and query load is not distributed using native Hadoop technologies.

The more BDD can leverage those technologies the more robust and responsive it’s analytics will be. The second point is that when users identify and transform data of interest they do so directly, meaning they do not need to wait on IT development. However, the transformations are not especially complex.

Leveraging R at some point as a user drive interface within Oracle Big Data Discovery would allow them to do more advanced data analysis. Currently this depends on Hadoop programming which is not a technical barrier, but is not accessible to business users.

There are some details around BDD's configuration that should be improved as the product is refined. The main technical constraint is that Oracle Big Data Discovery is designed to work with subsets of the data on Hadoop. Although the record numbers can be increased it’s performance is impacted.

This means if you have one billion records in your Hadoop cluster, you might still only ingest a few million for analysis at a time. The positive thing is that analysis can be throwaway so you can do this multiple times.

I've used BDD for more or less six months, since v1.0 was released. Its predecessor, Oracle Endeca Information Discovery I've used for approximately four years. Cloudera Hadoop, which I've used for just over a year, sits underneath Oracle Big Data. This product provides business users with a web browser interface to the Hadoop cluster which I think is a critical gap in the Hadoop offering. BDD leverages Hive and Spark to provide users with the ability to search, explore, and visualize data from a Hadoop cluster. This is the area we are most engaged with as a professional services company.

Oracle Big Data Discovery depends on either Cloudera or Hortonworks Hadoop which are both stable and scalable base deployments.

As with most big corporations engaging with Oracle on technical support can be challenging. As a new product that seems to have a higher priority hopefully their support and development of Big Data Discovery will improve from what it was with Endeca Information Discovery.

Tableau as a tool for business users to visualize data is very popular, but the ability of Oracle Big Data Discovery to provide built in text enrichment, native support for unstructured data, and a very robust engine for search gave it some advantages to support data discovery that superseded the strengths of Tableau for data visualization. Solr provided excellent search, but not the same ease of support for text enrichment or interactive visualizations.

The initial setup is relatively straightforward, but as a new product in the market the support community is not very evolved so only a few organizations possess any real product knowledge.

As a professional service company implementation work on client sites is done by us. Regardless of who does the implementation, be sure it aligns to how your organization strategically intents to use the product. And be prepared to include training as part of the implementation to enable your target audience to take advantage of it.

Licensing costs are currently very competitive as Oracle looks to establish a market presence for BDD. Organizations that are not seeing tremendous return value on their Hadoop investment or are struggling with accessibility should take advantage of the early pricing options.

Aim to roll it out to a large cross section of your business users and structure the procedures to encourage throwaway analytics. Creating traditional dashboards and static reporting can be done with it, but this depends on the structure which makes them inherently inflexible to change. The strengths of Hadoop to store unstructured data and the ability of it to explore, search, and visualize that data means users can be rapidly exploring their data.

Oracle is the premier relational database platform for enterprise environments. Any organization that purchases enterprise applications will likely have Oracle in place since so many applications require or prefer it.

The most valuable features of Oracle database from my perspective are:

• Read consistency (all queries see a read consistent view of the database so that readers do not block writers and vice versa).
• Data Guard: standby database, with options for maximum performance, availability and protection. I use it in full-synchronous mode to ensure a “hot standby” is available with zero data loss.
• Ability to run non-Windows OS, particularly Linux.
• Ability to monitor and tune; lots of instrumentation built in.

Oracle Database is a big, complex technology stack with many options, features, management packs, etc. The base product (Oracle Database Enterprise Edition) is generally rock solid. Some of the oldest, most mature options are also quite reliable (example: Partitioning option). However, most of the other optional products create additional issues. Almost every time I have pursued the implementation of an optional feature I have encountered bugs, limitations or other unexpected behavior.

I would like to see Oracle follow a model like Microsoft’s SQL Server Enterprise Edition, where all products and features are included by default. There are no “options” you can purchase with SQL Server EE. It seems like one of the results of Oracle’s plethora of optional offerings is confusion and quality issues.

I've been using Database for over 20 years. There are many additional options and management packs (examples: Partitioning, Tuning Pack, Diagnostics Pack, Lifecycle Management Pack, Active Data Guard, Advanced Compression, Advanced Security, RAC, etc.).

A “simple” deployment of just Oracle Database Enterprise Edition is generally a trouble-free activity, albeit still tedious. The RDBMS kernel is perhaps the most mature on the market (Oracle and IBM’s DB2 were released about the same time).

It is one of the most stable solutions on the market.

There are no issues with scaling it.

Technical support is very good. I don’t use Oracle Support often to open a new case. Questions and issues I have are most often answered via the support portal. On the rare occasion a new service request is opened, I find the responses timely and helpful.

In the past, I have used RAC (and before that OPS, its ancestor). In general, like most shared clustering technologies, the “solution” creates more problems than it solves. RAC’s complexity level requires full-time attention in my opinion. I abandoned the option in favor of VMware and virtual servers, which cover availability from a hardware-loss perspective. In cases where more availability is needed, the Data Guard option is sufficient and MUCH simpler to configure and use.

I started with IBM’s DB2 and used SQL Server (Sybase initially, then Microsoft SQL Server after they split in the 90’s) before Oracle, so have used and evaluated all three of the major RDBMS vendors. I no longer use DB2 because the platform it was on (mainframe) was retired, but I still actively use Microsoft SQL Server.

Both products have their place. I prefer SQL Server for the smaller, departmental applications and Microsoft-related back-office applications due to its ease of deployment and management. I prefer Oracle for most enterprise-scale applications due to its overall strength in this area (performance, scalability, availability) and ability to run on a non-Windows OS (we use Linux exclusively).

Oracle is a complex product, there is no way around that. Compared to Microsoft SQL Server, which can be installed with a few mouse clicks, Oracle takes planning, preparation and significantly more time and expertise.

We have always installed, configured, and managed Oracle with in-house personnel. I would not recommend outsourcing the implementation unless all support for the product were being outsourced. Oracle database requires expertise and constant attention. If an organization intends to support it internally, the personnel responsible for that support need to be the same that install and configure it.

Oracle is very expensive. No organization that didn’t “have to” use Oracle would do so. If I were in a small business or an organization that did all of its own applications development, I would avoid Oracle simply due to its cost. Other databases on the market would suffice in those scenarios. Any medium-to-large business will probably not be able to avoid using Oracle database. I don’t think there is an ROI to calculate, but rather a sunk cost in doing business. My advice would be to limit the number of options and features and go with the bare minimum needed to support the needed applications.

The technology behind the base RDBMS is excellent, probably the best on the market, but its cost and complexity are negatives. The personnel who will support need to get formal training and need to be dedicated database administrators. A part-time DBA will not be sufficient for anything more than a trivial deployment.

The best thing about Oracle Database is that it performs well when measured on any scale. As a Database developer, I think it offers the best development tools of any database solution.

Its cross-platform compatibility provides flexibility for different platforms like Windows, Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, and AIX. Oracle offers high-performance handling of XML data.

We are currently using Oracle 11g, where as Oracle 12c now has all the major features for easy development. However, as the database industry is growing, there is room to enhance object reusability by introducing some development framework or out-of-the-box concepts.

I've used it for 12 years.

There were no issues with the deployment.

We had no issues with the stability.

It is scalable. Indeed, you don’t have to worry about scalability as this is Database's strength -- it grows with your business and is an all-in-one solution.

I have had some discussions with a few DBAs. Oracle technical support is not very good compared to Microsoft technical support, the latter of which is more proactive and reachable. Secondly, Oracle technical support is more costly than its competitors.

I also have worked as a developer on Microsoft Dynamics AX with SQL server. The main reason we changed was because of the AX Dynamics cost - initial cost, customization, and maintenance. It is much lower than Oracle Database.

As with any vendor resource, availability is also a major issue for Oracle. As there is a lot of development flavors for Microsoft, resources are easily available and it's more flexible to work with on different technology. In comparison, Oracle resources are scarce and are mostly away from new market trends.

The complexity of the initial setup depends, as it is a self-manageable database for small databases, whereas for mid and enterprise levels, it needs serious attention.

The cost of Oracle Database is a little higher than competitor products, but it gives good ROI in the longer run.

For long term investment, it is the best option. Initially, its cost is higher, but its running cost is less than other competitors.

This is the best database product on the market.

There are several valuable features that we've found in our experience, including ACID compliance, strong backup and recovery features, smart cost optimizer, very good stability, performance, and it includes disaster recovery solutions.

The company I'm currently working for is an ISV that develops applications for the healthcare system, where High Availability is the main concern. Oracle puts the database layer at the highest level of reliability. As a plus, the smart optimizer can compensate for a poorly written SQL, giving good response times.

The biggest improvements are mainly high license costs and the unavailability of Enterprise edition options on the Standard edition. For example, on the Standard edition, you cannot buy transparent data encryption, needing the Enterprise edition to access that option (which has to be paid for separately). Official certification for VMware environments would also be an improvement.

I've used it since 2001, mainly on OLTP systems, as it is well-suited as an OLAP solution.

We have had no issues with the deployment.

All software has bugs and Oracle database is no exception. Oracle's RDBMS offers a high level of stability, but the increasing complexity (added functionalities and options) is in some way increasing the risk of hitting a bug.

We have had no issues scaling it for our needs.

The level of technical support is quite low compared to the software level. It's hard to find a skilled specialist and response times are high. On the other side, except for really heavy load systems, it's quite rare to have to engage support.

The Oracle setup process has been simplified over the years, but it's still a complex task, at least when it comes to High Availability/disaster recovery solutions (RAC, DataGuard).

I was an Oracle on-site consultant so it is one of my major responsibilities to set up the Oracle Database according to best practices. Always start from RPO/RTO constraints to design the solution and read the Oracle manuals -- they’re wide but very well written.

I would advise that you carefully evaluate the compatibility of the software solution with Oracle Standard Editions which are way less expensive. Also, take a look to the new Standard Edition licensing model (called Standard Edition 2).

I'm currently studying PostgreSQL, which is an interesting RDBMS solution and it's open source (similar to BSD license).

From a technical perspective, it is the best RDBMS solution on the market so far. For mission critical solutions, I suggest engaging a senior Oracle database consultant to do the job. An experienced DBA can configure the system to leverage the full potential of the RDBMS both on the performance side and on the availability (backups, BC, DR).

The flash drive recovery feature is the most valuable aspect of ODB for us. There have been many instances when a user mistakenly deletes important files from their flash drive and ODB has been able to recover that data.

The biggest area of improvement that I can suggest is with the stability. I've been using ODB for a while now, and there are have been occasional instances of bugs, glitches, and hiccups. It's never anything major, but they have been annoying. Yes, it's improved over time, but there always seems to be something that has to be fixed.

We haven't had any issues with deployment.

It hasn't been 100% stable, but I think over time it has become more stable than previously.

It has scalability. We haven't had any issues with being unable to scale it.

In our experience, the level of technical support has been in the middle. There are times when they're really good, and there are times when we've had to solve issues ourselves.

We didn't use a previous solution. It's always been our database product.

Although I don't do setups anymore myself, I found it very easy and straightforward.

We didn't look at other options. It was the first database solution we used.

It has evolved pretty well generally. There are consistently new features and Oracle is making ODB more useful.

Its big advantage is from a market perspective. Over 70% of the market uses Oracle Database. It's the market leader in the mid-tier for relational databases, probably, I think, tied with IBM right now.

The support level is good and well-documented. I can go to the web and I can Google just about any problem I have.

And another reason we use Oracle is that it's going to stay in business for a long time. So it's worth investing in training in the software long-term for us as opposed to, say a, smaller open source product that comes and goes.

It's very easy to get training and resources. Because we use a Linux operating system, our preference is for Oracle. It has a full suite of products and they all play nicely with each other. So if I get something from Oracle, I'm pretty sure it's going to work on my Oracle Database.

I'd like them to expand their support for Oracle Spatial and Graph, an app for Oracle Database. It only supports a single node right now. And really, to be practical, you want something with multiple nodes.

Also, while Oracle does have a NoSQL database (called Oracle NoSQL, a version of Berkley NoSQL, which isn't widely used as far as I can tell), I'd like to have the ability to do a heterogeneous join between my Oracle Relational Database and my NoSQL database, and I'd like to be able to use SQL on my NoSQL.

I've been using it since the 1980s. We use it alongside the Fusion suite, some of the big products there. We use ADF, which is the Java framework that they provide. And we make extensive use of PL/SQL-based products. Traditionally, we used a lot of Forms, but that's being phased out. Now we're using a lot of APEX.

It's pretty easy to install and deploy.

It's very stable. It's a well-known product and, while it does have problems, they're all well-documented. There are traditional security patches and, sometimes, some problems with new functionality. As long as you apply your patches regularly, they're resolved. And Oracle Support Group does resolve them.

We've had no issues with scalability.

The level of technical support is good, but you can put in a TAR and sometimes it will just disappear in space. The challenge for the support often is that if you don't use a straight Oracle configuration, in particular if you use a virtual server, they won't won't guarantee the support because they can't support every possible configuration. However, it doesn't mean that if you have a problem, they won't try to answer it.

It's pretty easy to install. The installation process has improved remarkably since the 80's when I started working with it. It wasn't friendly then, but it's very easy for me now. You just push a couple buttons and move through. If you know what you're doing, you can do it with defaults set up on a basic Oracle Database.

Now if you want to do something a little more complex, like Grid or clustering, you need to take some specialized training.

I implemented it myself.

You're always going to find some product that's cheaper. Oracle is never cheap. You're always going to find some product that is, in certain configurations, faster.

Especially for government organizations, it would always be my first pick.