Oracle Database OverviewUNIXBusinessApplication

Oracle Database is the #2 ranked solution in top Relational Databases. PeerSpot users give Oracle Database an average rating of 8.6 out of 10. Oracle Database is most commonly compared to SAP HANA: Oracle Database vs SAP HANA. Oracle Database is popular among the large enterprise segment, accounting for 71% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a financial services firm, accounting for 18% of all views.
Oracle Database Buyer's Guide

Download the Oracle Database Buyer's Guide including reviews and more. Updated: March 2023

What is Oracle Database?

Oracle Database is a top-ranking multi-model database management system by Oracle Corporation. Through Oracle database services and products, clients receive cost-optimized and high-performing versions of Oracle Database, as well as in-memory, NoSQL, and MySQL databases. The solution is available by several service providers on premises, in the cloud, or as a hybrid installation. It can be run on vendor servers as well as on Oracle hardware, including Exadata on-premise, Oracle Cloud, or Cloud at Customer.

Users can select from various types of Oracle Database solutions, depending on what they aim to do with this product. Based on their specific needs, they can choose among options that include:

  • Autonomously managed Oracle databases: This type of database eliminates the complexity of operating and securing Oracle Database, while simultaneously ensuring high levels of performance, scalability, and availability for users.

  • Oracle Database on Exadata: Users who seek particularly fast platforms can select this type of running solution. Exadata is a computing platform that is optimized for running Oracle Databases and it serves as the fastest platform for Oracle Database.

  • Oracle Database on-premises deployment: The product allows for deployment on-premises for clients who have data residency and network latency concerns. This option also offers customers the benefit of updated Oracle Cloud technology, including Exadata and Autonomous Database.

  • Oracle Database in the cloud: Organizations can use a specific version of this tool in the cloud, benefiting from complete control over the versions they run and when these versions change.

Part of this product is a fully automated database service called Oracle Autonomous Database, which facilitates the development and deployment of application workloads for organizations. It is built on Oracle Database as well as on Oracle Exadata. This service supports various data types and simplifies application development and deployment from modeling and coding to extract, transform, load process (ETL), data analysis, and database optimization. The service achieves high results in:

  • Performance
  • Availability
  • Security for online transaction processing (OLTP)
  • Analytics
  • Batch
  • Internet of Things (IoT) workloads

Oracle Database Features

Oracle Database has various features which users can utilize in their work with the solution. Among these features are the following:

  • Backup and recovery: Oracle Database ensures the integrity of users' data in system failure situations. This feature utilizes a tool named Recovery Manager (RMAN), which allows administrators to perform cold, hot, and incremental database backups, as well as point-in-time recoveries.

  • Clustering: This feature enables high availability of systems in order to run without interruption of services on occasions when one or more servers in a cluster fail. Included is a tool called Oracle Real Application Clusters.

  • Data dictionary: Through this set of internal tables and views, Oracle Database can be administered more efficiently.

  • Logical data structure: Through its feature for logical data structure, Oracle Database stores data in a way that allows users to interact with the database without knowing where the physical storage of the data is located.

  • Memory catching: Through the memory caching architecture feature, users can scale up very large databases and still perform at a considerably high speed.

  • Partitioning: This feature allows users to divide large tables into different pieces and store the pieces across storage devices.

Oracle Database Benefits

Oracle Database offers its users various benefits. Some of these include:

  • The solution decreases costs for organizations and provides a high return on investment (ROI) through the multiple services and features it offers.

  • Oracle Database has high-security protection which includes encryption, key management, data masking, and activity monitoring, that secures organizations' data within the tool.

  • The tool offers users the ability to use a single database for all data types, simplifying the process for them.

  • Oracle Database can be deployed in multiple places, including data centers and public and private clouds, which allows great flexibility for users.

  • The product allows applications from different platforms to communicate with the database through its networking stack.

  • Oracle Database is ACID-compliant, which helps maintain data reliability and integrity.

Reviews from Real Users

Paul S., president at Advance Consulting Enterprise, likes Oracle Database because it gets the job done, doesn't fail, and suitable for massively scalable applications.

An Oracle DBA at a computer software company describes Oracle Database as reliable with good performance and very good stability.

Oracle Database was previously known as Oracle 12c, RDBMS.

Oracle Database Customers

Agncia Nacional de guas, Anbima, Aria Systems, Asiana Airlines, Astelit LLC, Australian Finance Group, Banco Occidental de Descuento, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, BT, Caja de Seguros S.A., Casas GEO S.A.B. de C.V., Comic Relief UK, Corsair Components Inc., CSAM Health AS, CSOB Group, Datacraft Solutions, DenizBank A.S., Department of Treasury and Finance WA, Office of State Revenue, Deutsche B_rse AG, Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Deutsche Messe AG, Digicel Haiti, DPR COSEA, Essar Group, Essatto Software Pty Ltd, Farmšcia e Drogaria Nissei Ltda., Fomento Econ‹mico Mexicano S.A.B. de C.V. (FEMSA), FundaÊo Petrobras de Seguridade Social, Future Group, GFKL Financial Services AG, Grupo Posadas S.A.B. de C.V., Grupo Sinosserra, Guerra S.A. Implementos Rodovišrios, Hanatour International Service, Hays plc, Henan Mobile Co. Ltd, Hochschule Hof, Hong Kong and China Technology (Wuhan) Co. Ltd (Towngas Technology), Industries Corpa_al C.A., Infrastructure Development Finance Company Limited, Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatstica, Instituto Mexicano de la Propiedad Industrial, Kcell, LinkShare Corporation, MercadoLibre Inc., MetLife Inc., Nextgen Distribution, €BB-IKT GmbH, Octagon Research Solutions, Pacific Lutheran University, Paragon Data GmbH, Ping ltd., PJSC Trustbank, Prodaub _ Processamento de Dados de Uberl_ndia, Purdue University, Redknee Inc., Robi Axiata Limited, Shanghai Infoservice Technology Co. Ltd, Shanghai Sihua Technologies Co. Ltd, Sistema de Aguas de la Ciudad de M_xico, Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council, Suddenlink Communications, Suprajit Engineering Limited, Tallink Grupp, Terminales Ro de la Plata S.A., Therap Services LLC, Think Passenger Inc., Trafigura, Transmed S.A.L Lebanon, ValeShop, VelQuest Corporation, Vodafone Group plc, West Virginia Network, WIND Hellas Telecommunications S.A

Oracle Database Video

Archived Oracle Database Reviews (more than two years old)

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Project Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Complete with features and functions suitable for complex business models
Pros and Cons
  • "Oracle Database has many useful functions and features suitable for big programs and complex business models."
  • "Oracle Database could be easier to use."

What is our primary use case?

We use this solution for our applications that deal with online trading and data analysis. 

Currently, we have two customers using this solution. 

What is most valuable?

Oracle Database has many useful functions and features suitable for big programs and complex business models.

What needs improvement?

Oracle Database could be easier to use. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Oracle Database for five years. 

Buyer's Guide
Oracle Database
March 2023
Learn what your peers think about Oracle Database. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2023.
688,083 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Oracle Database is very stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Oracle Database could be more scalable.

How are customer service and support?

The support is quite slow. It would be nice if they could respond faster. 

What about the implementation team?

Deployment and maintenance are handled by an Oracle team. We pay them for this service. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Our customers buy licenses from Oracle directly.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend this solution to others. Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give Oracle Database a rating of eight. 

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Integrator
PeerSpot user
Consultant Peoplesoft at NYS Consultoria
Real User
Top 10Leaderboard
The solution is definitely very good for our consultancy on payroll and human resource.
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution is definitely very good for our consultancy on payroll and human resource."
  • "Oracle could improve the finance system."

What is our primary use case?

20 people in our organisation use Oracle. We are an Oracle partner. We are using Oracle version 8 and 9. We use it for finances, human resources and payroll.

What is most valuable?

The solution is definitely very good for our consultancy on payroll and human resource.

What needs improvement?

Oracle could improve the finance system. Oracle is also very expensive.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Oracle for 18 years. It is implemented on-premise.

How are customer service and technical support?

Oracle support takes a very long time to respond.

How was the initial setup?

The deployment and setup can take up to 6 months to be operational. It takes a very long time for our needs.

What about the implementation team?

It takes several consultants to enable implementation.

What other advice do I have?

We recommend the solution from Oracle and I would rate the solution 8 out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Oracle Database
March 2023
Learn what your peers think about Oracle Database. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2023.
688,083 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Kevin Honde - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Solution Architect at Econet Wireless Zimbabwe
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Great performance, very scalable, very stable, and easy backups
Pros and Cons
  • "I found the ease of backup, partitioning, and robust indexing most valuable. The main feature of Oracle is the structure of the database. The way your backups are taken on the online backup system and the way it restores and handles partitioning of your data are also valuable. Its performance is great, and it is also very flexible."
  • "It should have flexible licensing across different platforms. It has got different licensing models for Intel Power and SPARC servers."

What is our primary use case?

We are using it for different applications. We are using it for our data warehousing, ERP, and EBS systems.

What is most valuable?

I found the ease of backup, partitioning, and robust indexing most valuable. The main feature of Oracle is the structure of the database. The way your backups are taken on the online backup system and the way it restores and handles partitioning of your data are also valuable. Its performance is great, and it is also very flexible.

What needs improvement?

It should have flexible licensing across different platforms. It has got different licensing models for Intel Power and SPARC servers.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for more than 15 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is very stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is very scalable. You can start with a small server, and you can scale it up by just increasing your licenses.

In terms of the number of users, for our data warehouse, there is only one application user. Other users interact with the database through the application. After you log onto the application, the application logs in to the database with a single user ID.

How are customer service and technical support?

Oracle technical support is a bit tricky. They want you to first use all the available resources, such as the online knowledge base and so on. After you have exhausted those, you can approach your technical person by logging in to the system.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have used other database systems, such as MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server.

How was the initial setup?

Its installation requires someone who actually knows the database setup, such as an Oracle DBA. For a production system, you would need an experienced person.

You first need to set up the environment such as servers, storage, etc. It might take you two days to set up the environment. The installation of the database might take you a day or two depending on the features that you want to add. If it is just a straightforward database, it would normally take a day. If you want to do partitioning and replication, it would take another two or three days.

What about the implementation team?

I handle the installations. Its deployment and maintenance are minimal. You need three people: one specialist in hardware, one specialist in operating systems, and one specialist in database software.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

You buy it initially, and then you pay for yearly support if you need support. If you don't need support, you can also use it without the support.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend this solution. We plan to keep using this solution. 

I would rate Oracle Database a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Architect at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
Stable and scalable, recommended for formatted and structured data, and works well for a huge amount of data
Pros and Cons
  • "As compared to SQL Server, Oracle Database performs better when you have a huge amount of data. We didn't face any problems when we had a huge amount of data. There were also no issues with importing/exporting and migrating the data."
  • "We faced some difficulties in the network configuration area. All these things can be fixed with the support of Oracle's networking team. We didn't face any other major problems. Its deployment can be easier. It should be easier to configure for a developer. If a developer is planning a database and trying to configure it, it should be easy for him because many times, we cannot directly get help from DBAs."

What is our primary use case?

Over the past seven years, we have done many projects, and in many of those projects, we have used Oracle as a source. We are using an ETL tool from Informatica, and we have used Oracle as a source for our projects. For our configuration and repository databases, we normally use SQL Server. We are not using Oracle Database for that.

What is most valuable?

As compared to SQL Server, Oracle Database performs better when you have a huge amount of data. We didn't face any problems when we had a huge amount of data. There were also no issues with importing/exporting and migrating the data.

What needs improvement?

We faced some difficulties in the network configuration area. All these things can be fixed with the support of Oracle's networking team. We didn't face any other major problems.

Its deployment can be easier. It should be easier to configure for a developer. If a developer is planning a database and trying to configure it, it should be easy for him because many times, we cannot directly get help from DBAs.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. Around 40 to 50 customers are using Oracle Database.

How are customer service and technical support?

Their technical support is fine.

How was the initial setup?

Until version 11g, I didn't face any problem. You can completely set it up in about two hours. I tried version 12c installation once, and it was slightly different than earlier versions. Oracle Database has worked well from version 8 to version 11. These versions have the same type of things, but I faced some difficulty with version 12c, but that could be because we are not used to it. I need to go through it properly. 

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend this solution to others if they are very particular about formatted and structured data.

I would rate Oracle Database a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Implementer
PeerSpot user
IT Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Exceptional features with good availability, and reasonably priced
Pros and Cons
  • "All of the features offered by Oracle, more than meet the expectations."
  • "As of now, Oracle is branded to Oracle only, the option of migrating to other databases is not available."

What is our primary use case?

We have 5 Oracle servers having 3 RAC and 2 Stand Alone servers.All using Oracle 12c R2 SE.

1 DR standalone server is also there .

How has it helped my organization?

Oracle was the first choice at the time of creating our application because of our very low load.

Now when our application has become mission-critical, Even with the SE version we are able to deal with a complete load very efficiently and effectively.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features of this solution are the performance and its inbuilt services.

In Oracle we can find out most services are inbuilt. scalability, high availability, split brain handling , Null handling  ,it working of execution plan . All these features have helped us many times . 

What needs improvement?

As of Now Oracle has gained an image of Customer binding database.

Once some one opted for Oracle database , it becomes very difficult in many ways to move on other database.

As of now oracle can be considered as Top of the list and many of the database are not enough close to oracle concepts and it's standards so it's kind of responsibility to Oracle to bring a fair competition in market. 

In return ,it will help Oracle itself. Take an Example of Football. Consider Oracle a high level Club who have it's own Practice and playing Area but only his own rules are implemented. Any player who is a beginner and cannot afford such a high clubs will start practice in small arenas which have some what similar rules .Once Player's practice gave him confidence to go for a big club ,he will feel comfortable in choosing a club whose rules are known to him , Not someone for whom he has to change his playing technique. 

So Oracle should consider working in this direction so that he can keep the control over the wind of Market. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for two years.

We are currently using Oracle 12c SE Release 2.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

In terms of stability, we know that Oracles releases quarterly batches but we have still been faced with many bugs over the last year.

I cannot say that it is stable.

This is an area that needs improvement.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's a scalable solution.

As known to everyone, One of the best.

How are customer service and technical support?

This is one of the portion where Oracle have to be little bit loose .I have raised only around 7-8 tickets including 2 P1 , but it always looks like I am talking to a bot with pre recorded  statements when the person is not able to answer. Most of the times information is attached , but they still insist very hardly to send it in there format so that there machine can read it .

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Nope , Oracle was used from Starting.

How was the initial setup?

All is easy, given that you must know what are you using it for.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Depending on the services included, it seems little bit expensive. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

In starting we didn't evaluate much, but giving the condition of ending support , we do not have any choice so we are looking for other options including upgradation as well.

What other advice do I have?

Oracle is good for large scale environments.

New startups MUST always think of other options before going to Oracle.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Developer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
Reliable, stable, and easily scalable
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution can scale well."
  • "It takes a significant amount of time after submitting an initial SR with Oracle Tech Support before your case reaches a technical expert with whom you can actually work on the issue resolution. Before that, you have to deal with people who are not experts."

What is our primary use case?

The solution is primarily used for support servicing. The whole IT infrastructure uses Oracle. Oracle is a focal point. It's transactional processing as well as data warehousing.

What is most valuable?

The solution's most valuable aspect is its reliability. It just works. You never have to worry about it.

I've worked with the solution so well, I have a very strong understanding of it as a whole. I know everything about it. I'm very comfortable with it.

The solution can scale well.

The stability of the product is excellent.

What needs improvement?

Installing, configuring, and supporting an Oracle RAC system is a very complex task that requires special skills. A novice who has never done it before will struggle. Therefore, I think that in the future all Oracle RDBMS customers will gradually switch to cloud databases, preferably, to Oracle cloud.

It takes a significant amount of time after submitting an initial SR with Oracle Tech Support before your case reaches a technical expert with whom you can actually work on the issue resolution. Before that, you have to deal with people who are not experts.

Oracle RDBMS is expensive.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been working with Oracle since 1994. I have a long history with the solution.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of the solution is excellent. The performance and reliability are great. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's very good overall.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Oracle is very, very scalable. If a company needs to expand the solution, it can do so.

Our organization is quite large. There are hundreds of IT personnel using Oracle.

How are customer service and technical support?

I've dealt with technical support in the past and I personally do not find them to be very good. 

Usually, it starts very slowly. Before you get to the right people, you go through the people who hardly understand the problem and they keep asking stupid questions. Then only after a couple of weeks, you finally get in touch with the person who really understands. It's at that moment that your work starts. However, before that, you have to go through the process of finding someone to answer your question. 

They need to make the process faster or hire people who understand the solution better.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Currently, our organization is moving away from Oracle. They're moving to Amazon AWS and they're considering several databases, as a potential alternative. This is due to the fact that Oracle is very expensive.

In truth, I'm not sure the company will ever be able to get rid of Oracle, as it would require rewriting everything. Currently, Oracle is the basis for everything. Just to switch to something else, they would have to rewrite everything. It will be a huge undertaking, and it would take several years.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is not exactly straightforward. Real-life Oracle installation is very complex and a regular non-proficient person can hardly do that. I am not an Oracle DBA, however, many years ago I was an Oracle DBA. I don't have the certification. However, when I tried to install Oracle on a cluster of Linux machines to do some cleaning, it took me several weeks. I had to go through Oracle documentation, and I was trying and failing. Finally, I made it work, however, it was really difficult. Even for me, with so much knowledge of the system, Oracle installation is really difficult. Years from now, likely nobody will be doing it at all. Everybody will be using Oracle cloud instead.

We have quite a few people maintaining the solution, as we are a sizable organization.

What about the implementation team?

It's best to have a professionally licensed individual assist in the implementation process.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing is extremely high. It's one of the reasons our organization is looking for an alternative. They would like to move away from Oracle to lower their costs.

What other advice do I have?

I'm a customer and end-user.

I would advise organizations considering Oracle to not do on-premises. The best way, nowadays, is just to pay money to Oracle and use Oracle-managed databases from the cloud. They don't require a data center for the hardware. Cloud computing, is what people should do instead.

I'd rate the solution at a ten out of ten. That said, I am aware that it is quite an expensive option for most organizations. Even our company, which is quite sizeable, finds the overhead costs high.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Chief Financial Officer at a pharma/biotech company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Easy to use, works well, and integrates well
Pros and Cons
  • "I am not an IT person. I am an end-user of this solution, and based on my experience, it is comfortable to work with. Everything is okay, and the data is timely available. It can also be easily integrated."
  • "Their local support can be better. Local support is a challenge in Africa for all IT companies."

What is our primary use case?

This is our database for ERP and all other things.

What is most valuable?

I am not an IT person. I am an end-user of this solution, and based on my experience, it is comfortable to work with. Everything is okay, and the data is timely available. It can also be easily integrated.

What needs improvement?

Their local support can be better. Local support is a challenge in Africa for all IT companies.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for a couple of years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have approximately a hundred users in our organization. We plan to keep using this solution.

How are customer service and technical support?

Their technical support is good, but there is no local support. Local support is a challenge in Africa for all IT companies.

What about the implementation team?

For deployment, we have three full-time employees and a few consultants.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We have bought a license, and it was a one-time cost.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Oracle Database a nine out of ten. My experience as an end-user has been good with this solution. I have not used any other product or have knowledge of any other product.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
ERP Database Administrator at a non-profit with 201-500 employees
Real User
Top 10
Optimal performance, seamless install, and highly stable
Pros and Cons
  • "I have experienced good performance from the solution."
  • "Since the solution is from Oracle it tends to be complex when trying to integrate with other solutions."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solutions as a backend, essentially it runs the database. We have the database to support the ERP, which is our customers, and it is running on Java.

How has it helped my organization?

The original Oracle Database is good for us, especially because even if the ERP is running on Java, we still get good performances. We are able to tune the database to get more optimal performance out of it. For example, we are storing information on the database and we have not had anybody complaining about lag or degradation, it is really good for our company.

What is most valuable?

I have experienced good performance from the solution.

What needs improvement?

Since the solution is from Oracle it tends to be complex when trying to integrate with other solutions.

In a future release, I wish it was easier to run on other cloud services, not just Oracle Cloud. It is possible to run it on other cloud services but it is incredibly difficult to plan and deploy it. However, it is supported by many other cloud services, it is just not easy, but I think maybe that is the direction they are headed.

Additionally, they could make management for security a little more intuitive. It is good so far but it could be easier.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution has never crashed. I have never needed to call Oracle to get a support ticket.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have a really lightweight set up, we have the solution configured for 400 people.

How are customer service and technical support?

We were using Oracle partner support and they have been very good.

How was the initial setup?

The installation was easy, we had a lot of documentation. We installed the solution on Red Hat Linux and there were sufficient documents informing us on what to expect, hot to install it, and what to set up before you install. The install was seamless.

What about the implementation team?

The deployment did not take long because we installed the solution in our primary location. We did not have to co-locate, the total time was approximately two hours.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price is a little high for the solution, especially when you try and configure it in certain ways. We are using the application-specific user license, which is a little inexpensive. We pay approximately $4,900 USD annually.

The licensing model is complex, you are charged for many configuration setting used. You could deploy the solution and expect a cheaper rate but you might have deployed the solution with some of the costly features and now have to pay for them.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Oracle Database an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Consultant at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Consultant
We can optimize the database for authorizing expenditure and other resource-heavy functions
Pros and Cons
  • "The database performance. We can optimise the database for authorising expenditure and other resource-heavy functions."
  • "They could improve the storage and network overhead."

What is our primary use case?

We use this on-premise and cloud technology for our client databases.

How has it helped my organization?

Oracle thinks about the global customer, but the technology is only part of the solution.

What is most valuable?

The database performance. We can optimize the database for authorizing expenditure and other resource-heavy functions.

What needs improvement?

They could improve the storage and network overhead. They could minimize the storage to improve performance further. You have to optimize the resources according to your project.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using the Oracle Database for a few years. I am the Customer Service Manager. Claro Colombia is the first telecommunications company in Colombia and a subsidiary of an American company based in Mexico. It's considered to be the third-largest company in South America outside China.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Oracle Database is stable and reliable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Oracle Database is scalable and can be used with various sizes of projects.

How was the initial setup?

We have to plan to simplify the setup, as it includes integration. The traditional infrastructure needs to adapt to the new technology, and Oracle introduces extra data into the mix. You have to establish if the project is small, large, or medium. This means the system is designed for the size of the customer or project.

What about the implementation team?

We used integrators and consultants, including internal resources and external consulting. We used our internal install team with external consulting assistance.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I would rate the Oracle Database an eight out of 10 as a solution.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
BU Delivery Head at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Robust, with good security capabilities, but the programming interface needs improvement
Pros and Cons
  • "I like the backend robustness of the database, and the security capabilities inherently that are in the product itself."
  • "The adaptability to various APIs is something that needs to be improved."

What is most valuable?

I like the backend robustness of the database and the security capabilities that are inherently in the product.

What needs improvement?

The adaptability to various APIs is something that needs to be improved.

Also, the programming interface needs some improvement.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Oracle Database for five years.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We typically use Oracle Suite for our databases and Microsoft for our OS platforms. 

We are also considering a partial move to Microsoft Azure. This is our plan but it has not yet happened.

What other advice do I have?

We are currently evaluating solutions to purchase. Some of the solutions that we are considering are AlgoSec, Skybox, and Toughen.

We are currently managing our firewall manually, which is why we are looking for an automated tool.

I would rate Oracle Database a seven out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Oracle DBA at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Reliable with good performance and very good stability
Pros and Cons
  • "Especially with VMs, the solution can scale well."
  • "The initial setup is a bit complex."

What is our primary use case?

The solution is the main database storage for the application that we have. We offer an online purchasing system to our major customer, which is a government. They deal with their purchasing through the solution.

How has it helped my organization?

The organization can't function without it working properly as there would be a lot of upset people complaining. It's fairly integral to the overall functionality of the company.

What is most valuable?

The solution's most valuable aspect is its reliability. In about 17 years, I believe I may have lost about 15 minutes worth of data.

Overall, the solution works very well. It has excellent performance. 

The solution is very stable.

Especially with VMs, the solution can scale well.

What needs improvement?

I'm not crazy about their new version plan that they've just started. It seems like it turns over too quickly. We may have to upgrade within the year, and I really am not crazy about that. I don't want to upgrade so soon. We may not have a choice.

The initial setup is a bit complex.

Technical support could be more consistent.

They used to have something called a database console in version 11. That was very good. It seems like they reduced its functionality over the past couple of versions. I'd like to see that back to the way in which it used to be.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for 17 years. It's been over a decade - in fact, it's almost been two.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is very stable. There aren't bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's quite reliable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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

When you were just with bare metal, it wouldn't be as good as it is now with virtual machines as it does not take a lot to spin up another virtual machine and put Oracle on it and have it working. In the old days, when you had a piece of metal, you had to find another piece of metal, get it installed, and then start scaling up from there. With the VM, it's a lot better.

How are customer service and technical support?

I'd rate technical support seven out of ten. They could improve it a bit.

There've been times in which it's been absolutely tremendous. Then there've been other times where it just seemed to take too long. Either the person didn't know enough and had to go to other people and such, and it just took way too long. It's been mixed in terms of results. It's not exactly consistent.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

It's my understanding that the company has always used Oracle. The company I've been with has been with Oracle for pretty much all of its life. I haven't seen any other solutions.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup isn't straightforward. It's a bit complex. 

With the setup of it, you need operating system people, whether it be Linux or Windows or whatever operating system, and they need to be coordinating with you. Usually, we're just putting the software on top of an operating system. However, with this, it's just not something that you can just throw out there. You need to have some preparation done, whether it be a VM or a piece of metal.

In implementing the product, the product has gotten simpler to implement over time. Whether you choose to use the cloud or whether you choose to have it on-premises, it has gotten simpler to install. However, that doesn't mean that there isn't preparation that you need to do in regards to the operating system and having everything ready for it.

We have two DBAs, myself and another person. As far as mainline support, we have a couple of units admins that manage the VMs and the hardware that we still have at the moment. And we have some Windows admins, which help with the web interface to the database with the application.

What about the implementation team?

It's best to have some professionals assist with the setup.

What other advice do I have?

We're just a customer and end-user.

I've used various versions of the solution, starting with 10 and moving to 18. We're still a few versions back, and therefore aren't using the latest. The latest is 20 and they are about to release 21.

I'd advise those considering implementing the solution to do some preparation beforehand. This will help ensure a successful setup.

I would rate the solution nine out of ten. There are some improvements that can be made here and there. However, it's largely stable and works well.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Information Security Engineer at a security firm with 11-50 employees
Real User
A stable and scalable solution with good performance, but it is expensive and difficult to install and administer without prior knowledge
Pros and Cons
  • "Its performance is good. It is also stable and scalable."
  • "Its administration side is very difficult. To install Oracle Database, you need to have some prior knowledge. You must learn their commands. I was new to this, so I found some difficulty in it. Its installation should be easier. It is expensive, and it should be cheaper."

What is our primary use case?

It is for my personal use. I am using it for implementing data loss prevention (DLP), for which Oracle Database had to be installed first. I didn't use it for any other product.

What is most valuable?

Its performance is good. It is also stable and scalable.

What needs improvement?

Its administration side is very difficult. To install Oracle Database, you need to have some prior knowledge. You must learn their commands. I was new to this, so I found some difficulty in it. Its installation should be easier. 

It is expensive, and it should be cheaper.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for around six months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. I will continue to use it because it is required for implementing DLP.

How are customer service and technical support?

I haven't used their technical support.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I installed SQL Server.

How was the initial setup?

You need to have prior knowledge to install Oracle Database. The deployment took three to four hours.

What about the implementation team?

I installed it myself.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It is very expensive. Oracle licenses are expensive.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend it if it is necessary, but you need to have the budget to purchase it.

I would rate Oracle Database a six out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
AI Data Architect at a media company with 11-50 employees
Reseller
Safe, with good technical support, but they need more patches and better stability
Pros and Cons
  • "There is a lot of information available on the internet, so problems can easily be fixed."
  • "I would like to see more patches."

What is our primary use case?

We are resellers. We are Oracle Vendors. We provide products for our customers.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features of this solution are that it's stable, and it's safe.

There is a lot of information available on the internet, so problems can easily be fixed.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see more patches. 

While the stability is good, it could still be better.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been selling Oracle Database for more than ten years in our company.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's a stable solution, but it could be better.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have 115 customers who are using Oracle Database. We have small to medium-sized companies and we have approximately five large-sized companies. 

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is good.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is complex. It is not easy to install.

I do the maintenance and support for our customers.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Oracle Database a seven out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: reseller
PeerSpot user
Software Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Fast, stable and scalable, with Syntax options available in Google
Pros and Cons
  • "It's fast compared to other databases."
  • "The initial setup should be improved."

What is our primary use case?

I mainly work on business intelligence with Qlik and use Oracle Database for the reporting and replicating. Together, we use Oracle Database and Oracle MySQL for this PoC.

We use MySQL to feed the data to the Qlik compose.

What is most valuable?

The procedures work very well. 

It's fast compared to other databases.

The syntax options are available in Google.

What needs improvement?

The initial setup should be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Oracle Database for three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have not worked on Oracle Database a lot, as I concentrate on business intelligence. However, I have not experienced any issues or limitations.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's a scalable product.

How are customer service and technical support?

I have not contacted technical support. It's is handled through my internet team.

How was the initial setup?

During the installation, we had to install certificates, but it was not mentioned in the documentation.

What other advice do I have?

Definitely, I would recommend this solution to others.

I would rate Oracle Database a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Chief Engineer at ministry of electricity
Real User
Reliable and stable with excellent features
Pros and Cons
  • "It is reliable. It's very stable."
  • "The solution can be quite expensive."

What is our primary use case?

I use Oracle in two systems. The first one is called the Complaint Management System, and the second one was for Human Resources for the Ministry of Electricity in Iraq. 

The Complaint Management System is related to a call center. There is a call center responsible for writing down the complaints from the customers about their network electricity. If there is an error they reach out to us. There is an operator there writing down this complaint using his terminal. There are many different call centers in the country and all of them write up these complaints using the Oracle Database.

What is most valuable?

Oracle has always been a wonderful database. 

It is reliable. It's very stable. 

The solution has everything you are looking for in terms of features on offer. It's very complete. 

What needs improvement?

The solution can be quite expensive. It would be ideal if they could work on the pricing model in order to figure out how to lower the licensing.

It takes time to learn Oracle. There's a bit of a learning curve. It's not easy to use at first, however, slowly, day by day, you can get and develop your skills. 

There are a lot of YouTube videos and tons of material on Google that you can access. You can also easily find so many training institutes all over the world if you really want to understand aspects of the product. It would be ideal if Oracle could initiate some sort of learning center in Iraq. Even if it's just on Youtube, if it can be catered towards Iraqis to showcase the technology in the form of online Youtube videos or webinars, it would be extremely useful for expanding the solution within the Iraqi market. Right now, competitors like Microsoft can easily come in and just say "here's what we do, and at less cost than Oracle".

The initial setup is a little complex.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for about ten years at this point. It's been around a decade, and therefore I've used it for quite a while.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable most of the time. Unfortunately, I faced a few different issues. I was luckily able to solve them.

It's very important, if you choose Oracle as a solution, to also get the support as well. You can technically live without it, however, if you run into issues, Oracle can help you when you have the support that they offer.

In my case, I didn't have support so I had to kind-of feel around for a solution. I made the mistake, after the first year, of not renewing my support and I really should have.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable. If a company needs to expand it outward, it can do so.

How are customer service and technical support?

While it's my understanding that technical support is good, frankly, for the first year, I didn't ask them for any help. Therefore, I don't have any experience with Oracle support.

That said, I have full faith that they will respond very well to any issues.

In my case, I had support for the first year of service and then did not renew it. You really should renew though. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was not really so straightforward. It's actually rather complex.

There are two ways to start with Oracle. You can go in by yourself and try to learn as you go or you can study a bit at an institute or school so that you can get pretty comfortable with the product. If you have some knowledge, there's less of a learning curve during installation.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The support does cost extra, however, it is worth the extra money. It really comes in handy if you run into problems.

What other advice do I have?

We're just customers and end-users. We don't have a partnership or special business relationship with Oracle.

I really enjoy using the solution. It is stable and reliable. 

It's more expensive than Microsoft's options, however, I personally prefer working with it. It's worth the extra money. 

Aside from stability issues and a certain level of complexity, it's quite a good solution. I would rate it eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Data Analytics and Business Intelligence Manager at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Feature rich, stability like a shield and installs fairly easy
Pros and Cons
  • "When we are not able to solve a problem we immediately contacted Oracle support team to help us solve it."
  • "If you just install a database, it's easy but if you install some other programs it can be a little bit longer and difficult to install."

What is most valuable?

I would refer to Oracle's solution like a shield, it is very stable and has many features.

What needs improvement?

They could improve on making changes to their software faster, they are a large company and sometimes changes are slow. Also, Oracle can improve themselves in the cloud for Microsoft Azure systems.

For how long have I used the solution?

I started using the solution 12 years ago.

How are customer service and technical support?

When we are not able to solve a problem, we immediately contacted Oracle support team to help us solve it. They normally respond in a timely manner.

How was the initial setup?

The installation can be easy. It depends on what you install. If you just install a database, it's easy but if you install some other programs it can be a little bit longer and difficult to install. 

What about the implementation team?

We have a team of approximately 10 technicians working on the deployment. Sometimes the deployment of the product can reach some barriers, not because of a fault of Oracle but sometimes the hardware systems being installed on are older and can cause some problems. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It would be a benefit if there were different pricing levels to help different size businesses. The product is a bit expensive compared to other competitors. 

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend Oracle Database, I love Oracle. 

I rate Oracle Database a ten out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Data Architect at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
MSP
Simple to use and stable, with detailed documents for easy install
Pros and Cons
  • "it is very easy to use the product."
  • "Customer support could be faster, you currently have to write your issue to them and then they will get back to you after 24-hours."

What is most valuable?

It is very easy to use the product.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the product for many years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We currently have 18 people in our organization using this product. I find it to be a stable product.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer support could be faster, you currently have to write your issue to them and then they will get back to you after 24-hours.

How was the initial setup?

Depending on the product used, the installation time can vary. The installation was easy and straightforward. The supplied instructional documentation for install is clear to follow.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Oracle Database a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Integrator
PeerSpot user
Regional Head Customer Experience at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Scalable and stable but queries performance needs improvement
Pros and Cons
  • "It is a stable product. In terms of recovery, if there is a failure or some kind of fault, we can recover the data. We do not lose it."
  • "The queries performance could improve compared to other products."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution to store all of our application's data in the database. 

What needs improvement?

The queries performance could improve compared to other products.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for over 15 years, almost 20 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable product. In terms of recovery, if there is a failure or some kind of fault, we can recover the data. We do not lose it.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is depending on your infrastructure, if you have the hardware then you can expand it, it is all configurable. Our whole database house is running it and it has been fine.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have used Aruba previously which was faster at processing queries.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend this product.

I rate Oracle Database a seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
DBA Dept. Manager at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Flexible, with helpful features such as Application Clusters and Data Guard
Pros and Cons
  • "Oracle Database is very flexible."
  • "The price of the Oracle Database should be cheaper."

What is our primary use case?

You can put any application on Oracle, but it is especially used for financial and billing use cases.

What is most valuable?

Oracle Database is very flexible.

Two of the valuable features are the Application Clusters and Data Guard.

What needs improvement?

The price of the Oracle Database should be cheaper.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Oracle Database for approximately 20 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is good, and we plan to continue using it in the future.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This is a scalable product. You can grow, and you can add things to do. We have approximately 10,000 users in our organization.

How are customer service and technical support?

I use technical support once in a while and I find that they are improving. Over the years, there has been a big improvement in terms of support.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Prior to Oracle, I ran Adabas. Currently, I also use MySQL.

How was the initial setup?

We have done hundreds of installations. Some of them are quick, whereas others take a long time. There is no one answer as to how easy or difficult it is to set up.

What about the implementation team?

We have five database administrations who maintain it.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing is expensive, which is a major issue. We pay a yearly maintenance fee.

What other advice do I have?

The Oracle Database is a monster, with many faces and many parts. It can be used for everything. I cannot see any room for major improvement, other than perhaps the price.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Sr. Professional Security Compliance at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Endless capacity and a stable platform; licensing formulation is unfortunately complicated
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution has an endless capacity."
  • "The licensing formulation is too complicated."

What is our primary use case?

We use this solution as a customer database for our client so all customer information is available through this product. I'm a senior professional security compliance officer and we are partners with Oracle. 

What is most valuable?

I like that the solution has an endless capacity, there are no limitations and it's a stable platform. 

What needs improvement?

The licensing formulation could be improved; it's too complicated and very rigid. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for a very long time. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's a stable solution but there are bugs which I think is related to standards compliance. There are limitations in monitoring. 

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is somewhat limited. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was complex. Compared to the implementation of Microsoft SQL, we needed skilled people to manage Oracle. Implementation took some weeks. 

What other advice do I have?

I think this is a good solution because it's easy to administer and manage but it requires the right skilled people. It's not ideal for our requirements but it's improving, whether it's encryption or security, I know they'll get there eventually. 

I would rate this solution a seven out of 10. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Oracle Database Administrator at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Easy to scale, excellent stability with good performance
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features are stability, its backup and recovery, and its performance."
  • "I am not very satisfied with the support at times. You don't always get the support at the time you want and need it."

What is our primary use case?

We mainly use the Oracle Enterprise Edition, and in the first days of 2021, we will be installing Oracle Exadata cloud for our customers.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are stability, its backup and recovery, and its performance.

What needs improvement?

I am not very satisfied with the support at times. You don't always get the support at the time you want and need it.

The price could be better. 

My experience has been perfect, but there is always room for improvement for everything.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with this solution for more than 20 years.

When I first started I was a developer, now I work as a database administrator, consultant, and integrator.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This solution is very stable,

Stability is one of its main advantages. 

I would rate the stability of this solution an eight out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

In terms of scalability, it's a very powerful tool.

If you are using real application clusters, now after many years, it's very easy to expand your environment.

When you compare it to scaling 10 years ago, it's much easier now to expand the environment.

I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten.

How was the initial setup?

Now after many years it's straightforward.

With the many different environments, it can get complicated at times.

When there are too many operations systems with too many hardware platforms, such as HP-UX, Solaris, UNIX, and Windows.

It's common at times to have some issues, but it's not something that can't be resolved.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It's not cheap, but sometimes, you get what you pay for. 

It's expensive.

What other advice do I have?

Depending on the budget and the device, I would recommend this solution to others who are interested in using it. 

If you have the money, then you should invest in this product, because you can't compare it with anything else on the market as far as a database is concerned.

I would rate Oracle Database a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Lead Developer at a healthcare company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Stable, with good real application security and support but the setup needs to be simplified
Pros and Cons
  • "What I like most is the real application security."
  • "The initial setup can be simplified."

What is our primary use case?

We are third-party administrators and we use Oracle Database as our main Database.

What is most valuable?

What I like most is the real application security. I have been working with it recently.

What needs improvement?

The initial setup can be simplified.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with this solution since the beginning, for more than 20 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability is not a problem. It's more stable than other solutions.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's a scalable solution. We haven't encountered any problems. We use partitioning and sharding.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is not a problem. We receive all of the technical support that we need.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is complex. 

The installation of Oracle products is not usually as straightforward as dealing with Microsoft products for example.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It's expensive. I would say that it is more expensive than other competing products.

What other advice do I have?

I recommend this solution to others who are interested in using it.

I would rate Oracle Database a seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
PeerSpot user
Delivery Head IT & IS at a non-tech company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 5
It provides scalability, stability, reliability, performance, and security
Pros and Cons
  • "Scalability, reliability, and performance are what we are getting with this solution. It is highly scalable and has very good performance. It also has in-built monitoring and optimized optimizer. It is quite stable and secure. When it comes to integration, you can integrate it with other tools as well. However, we have been using Oracle Database within our own premises. So, it is kind of difficult for us to basically do a kind of integration with the outside software. We prefer to do things within our own premises."
  • "There are SQL plan flips that are happening with version 12c. We would basically like to have the next version wherein we don't see such plan flips because they create performance issues. There are quite a lot of features that I would like to see, but this is the main one for now."

What is our primary use case?

We are primarily using it for software. We have a lot of software applications that are connected to this database.

What is most valuable?

Scalability, reliability, and performance are what we are getting with this solution. It is highly scalable and has very good performance. It also has in-built monitoring and optimized optimizer.

It is quite stable and secure. When it comes to integration, you can integrate it with other tools as well. However, we have been using Oracle Database within our own premises. So, it is kind of difficult for us to basically do a kind of integration with the outside software. We prefer to do things within our own premises.

What needs improvement?

There are SQL plan flips that are happening with version 12c. We would basically like to have the next version wherein we don't see such plan flips because they create performance issues. There are quite a lot of features that I would like to see, but this is the main one for now.

For how long have I used the solution?

It has been over 20 years since we have been using Oracle Database.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is absolutely stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is highly scalable. It is scalable to the best of our needs. We have around 10,000 to 12,000 users.

How are customer service and technical support?

We have three levels of technical support. The L1 level support is in-house. For L2 level support, we have an infrastructure team. For L3 level support, we have a contract with Oracle, and whenever we need it, we get their input.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have been using Oracle since the time I have been working in this organization. I am not sure what was used previously. I am aware of 20 years, which is quite a long time.

How was the initial setup?

It was very easy to install. It takes around two hours. This is a production database, so there have been a lot of validations. We do a lot of pre validations and post validations.  

What about the implementation team?

For these kinds of installations, we have an infrastructure team. We have people here who do the installation. We have four trained Oracle Database administrators.

What other advice do I have?

I would definitely recommend this solution. Oracle is already an established product. It doesn't depend on my recommendation. 

We will keep using this solution because we need to keep our data within our premises for our business model. As of now, we have no plans to go to the cloud and use any of the cloud services.

I would rate Oracle Database a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Product Manager at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
MSP
The integration is a good aspect but the CRM could be improved.
Pros and Cons
  • "The integration is a good aspect of Oracle."
  • "CRM could be improved."

What is our primary use case?

Our users access the database via a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. It provides the basis of all the information in the company including information about suppliers, customers, and end-users. We have about 300 users.

What is most valuable?

The backup system is good. We back up all our key marketing data. The integration is a good aspect of Oracle.

What needs improvement?

CRM could be improved. What I mean by that is the CRM is composed of NetSuite and the Oracle database to perform the functions of a CRM. Both of these need to be improved. It is not very user friendly and there is not enough customization.

For how long have I used the solution?

I joined the company two years ago. The Oracle database is the only one we use that I know of. The database is deployed on a private cloud.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability is good. It is a very stable product.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is good. 

How was the initial setup?

The setup is difficult.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Oracle database 7 out of 10. To get this up to 10 they would need to improve the interface.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Technical Delivery Manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Feature-rich, very secure, robust, and scalable
Pros and Cons
  • "The database is very secure, robust, and scalable. It has all the features that you need, such as disaster recovery, replication, backup, etc. It comes with all the features."
  • "When it comes to Oracle, the only complaint that I have is their support. For business-critical cases, finding support is a little bit difficult because of the timezone difference. They should provide faster support to resolve issues on time."

What is our primary use case?

I used it on-premises to implement core solutions for sandbags. Most of the time, I use the 11g version, but of late, I'm using version 12.

What is most valuable?

The database is very secure, robust, and scalable. It has all the features that you need, such as disaster recovery, replication, backup, etc. It comes with all the features.

What needs improvement?

When it comes to Oracle, the only complaint that I have is their support. For business-critical cases, finding support is a little bit difficult because of the timezone difference. They should provide faster support to resolve issues on time.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Oracle Database for nine to ten years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. The number of users using this solution depends upon the business. For example, a bank might have 4,000 or 5,000 community users.

How are customer service and technical support?

They should provide faster support to resolve issues on time.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is very straightforward. It takes a maximum of two hours, but it depends on your experience. If you know what you are doing, you can automate the entire process, and leave it to be done. From my experience, it usually takes 45 minutes to an hour.

What about the implementation team?

I implement it on my own.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It is expensive. 

What other advice do I have?

We are definitely going to keep using it. There is no better product than this. I would 100% recommend this solution to others as long as they can bear the cost. It is the best product, and it covers most of our needs.

I would rate Oracle Database a ten out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Implementer
PeerSpot user
Domain architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 5
Easy to set up on their engineered systems, but the support needs improvement and they are pricing themselves out of the market
Pros and Cons
  • "It is easy to set up on their engineered systems."
  • "It needs to be more stable, as recently we have experienced some issues."

What is our primary use case?

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

What is most valuable?

It is easy to set up on their engineered systems.

What needs improvement?

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.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Oracle Database for a few years.

We are using the latest version.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have the necessary number of people using the application.

How are customer service and technical support?

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

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

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

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.

How was the initial setup?

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.

What about the implementation team?

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.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

They are pricing themselves out of the market.

What other advice do I have?

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.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Product manager at Metrodata Electronics Tbk PT
Real User
Competitive pricing, stable, and scalable
Pros and Cons
  • "The pricing is very competitive. Oracle is still the number one database company. From the technical aspects, Oracle Database is the best solution for small, medium, and big industries."
  • "I'm in Indonesia. From what I know, Ali Cloud has already built a center in Indonesia, and Google also has a data center in Indonesia. I have heard that Amazon will also build a data center in Indonesia, and the same will be with Azure if they deal with the Indonesian government. I'm quite appreciative of what Amazon has done by deciding to have a local data center. I expect Oracle to do the same, but Oracle doesn't seem to have plans to build a data center in Indonesia. This is something that needs to be improved. Oracle should follow all the other cloud providers who see a potential market in Indonesia. It would be better for Oracle to be equal to other cloud providers and have a data center in Indonesia so they can compete. Having a local data center means that they can avoid performance issues, the latency of the network, and all the things that are related to the network for internet-based solutions. Customers in Indonesia expect a local data center."

What is our primary use case?

I have been using as well as selling Oracle Database from version 8 till version 19C. We have on-premises and cloud deployments.

I am working on cloud-based solutions. We are introducing Oracle Cloud infrastructure to our internal sales teams to show that Oracle has an Oracle Cloud as well, and it is called Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

What is most valuable?

The pricing is very competitive. Oracle is still the number one database company. From the technical aspects, Oracle Database is the best solution for small, medium, and big industries. 

What needs improvement?

I'm in Indonesia. From what I know, Ali Cloud has already built a center in Indonesia, and Google also has a data center in Indonesia. I have heard that Amazon will also build a data center in Indonesia, and the same will be with Azure if they deal with the Indonesian government. I'm quite appreciative of what Amazon has done by deciding to have a local data center. I expect Oracle to do the same, but Oracle doesn't seem to have plans to build a data center in Indonesia. This is something that needs to be improved. 

Oracle should follow all the other cloud providers who see a potential market in Indonesia. It would be better for Oracle to be equal to other cloud providers and have a data center in Indonesia so they can compete. Having a local data center means that they can avoid performance issues, the latency of the network, and all the things that are related to the network for internet-based solutions. Customers in Indonesia expect a local data center.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Oracle Database for almost ten years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable and scalable. Stability and scalability are our prerequisites for all cloud solutions. A solution must be stable and scalable to be used. Oracle has already covered that part.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. Many customers of ours are using Oracle Database as their database infrastructure. Our customers are from all industries, such as communication, manufacturing, distribution, retail, etc. We plan to keep selling this solution.

How are customer service and technical support?

We have our own technical support to help customers to implement or maintain Oracle solutions.

How was the initial setup?

The deployment and activation process is similar to other cloud providers. The cloud deployment takes around 45 hours because you need to activate the services after Oracle provisions the services. After a customer orders for the cloud, Oracle provisions the services. The service is ready maybe in a week. Oracle sends us an email to activate the services.

What about the implementation team?

We have consultants to deploy Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Oracle solutions in our company. We have around 20 engineers who are Oracle Certified or Oracle Database Professionals. 

We provide services for implementation as well as for after-sales and maintenance if customers take our technical support. We have enough technical support to help customers to implement or maintain Oracle solutions.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Its price is already low. Oracle has a competitive and cheaper price as compared to others. Oracle Cloud is cheaper than other clouds. The pricing is very competitive for Oracle Cloud to be in the market. Their pricing makes customers interested in using this product even though Oracle doesn't have a local data center at this moment.

What other advice do I have?

It is the cloud era, so everyone is talking about cloud solutions. Oracle must improve its solution to be equal to other cloud providers. Oracle Cloud still has a data center out of Indonesia as compared to other competitors who already have a local data center in Indonesia. A provider with a local data center will be the best if you are using an internet-based product or a cloud-based solution. 

Customers will prefer a solution that has a local data center because it eliminates the problems related to the network and performance. If Oracle has a local data center, the only thing that a customer will have to consider is the pricing. Oracle already has cheaper pricing than others, but cheaper pricing is not enough for a cloud solution at this point. Customers also expect good performance when they are accessing the cloud.

I would rate Oracle Database a nine out of ten. I cannot give it a ten because there is no perfect product.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
PeerSpot user
Divisional Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
A robust solution with valuable concurrency, consistency, and security features
Pros and Cons
  • "The concurrency, consistency, and security features are the most valuable. It is also a very robust solution."
  • "There are plenty of options and features in this solution, but they are, somehow, not being used very well. Therefore, training and support should be increased and improved for this solution. They can make people aware of how to make proper use of their server so that people can optimize it because its cost is just too much. They can provide training on the policies and procedures to be used for archiving and all such things. There should be some kind of segregation in licensing. With a full license, all options should be available. There should also be a basic license with limited functionalities. This kind of basic license would be useful for us because we don't use most of the functionalities."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for our business purposes.

What is most valuable?

The concurrency, consistency, and security features are the most valuable. It is also a very robust solution.

What needs improvement?

There are plenty of options and features in this solution, but they are, somehow, not being used very well. Therefore, training and support should be increased and improved for this solution. 

They can make people aware of how to make proper use of their server so that people can optimize it because its cost is just too much. They can provide training on the policies and procedures to be used for archiving and all such things.

There should be some kind of segregation in licensing. With a full license, all options should be available. There should also be a basic license with limited functionalities. This kind of basic license would be useful for us because we don't use most of the functionalities.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Oracle Database since 1988. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is absolutely stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. We have around 2,000 users, and they use it daily on a 24/7 basis.

How are customer service and technical support?

We don't use Oracle support. There is an administration team, and they get in touch with Oracle. I only get in touch with our administration team.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We are also using Microsoft SQL Server. Oracle Database has more advantages, but Microsoft SQL Server provides value for money.

How was the initial setup?

I don't set it up, but from what I know, it is not very difficult.

What about the implementation team?

We take the help of the agents from whom we buy the support. For its maintenance, we have two people. One person is from our company, and the other person is provided by Oracle.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It is very expensive. We pay in dollars, so the inflation and conversion cost is also there for us. They charge on a yearly basis for the license.

What other advice do I have?

They are coming up with lots of features that will allow a lot of work to be done with respect to the database. They are going to give JSON storage, where JSON objects can be directly stored.

I would rate Oracle Database an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Database Administrator Engineer at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Straightforward to install, stable, and scalable
Pros and Cons
  • "Oracle is a stable product and we plan to continue implementing it."
  • "The cost needs to be reduced because right now, all of our customers are asking us about how they can migrate to any open-source database."

What is our primary use case?

I support the backend and administration tasks for the databases in my organization, and for our clients, and Oracle is one of the products that I work with. The tasks I perform are things like creating the database and then maintaining it. I do not work with specific use cases but rather, provide support for them.

All of our databases are accessed remotely and are hosted on Linux servers. It is not always easy to manage, considering things like the firewalls that are in place, so we have our own scripts for this.

What needs improvement?

The cost needs to be reduced because right now, all of our customers are asking us about how they can migrate to any open-source database. This is a very common question and I have been checking our ability to migrate, as well as the tools that we have for doing so, to a product like PostgreSQL.

Oracle is an RDBMS, although most of our customers are now moving towards Big Data. There are open-source databases and you don't need a schema. You can store whatever you want. I would like Oracle to do more for Big Data in the future.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Oracle Database for more than 12 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Oracle is a stable product and we plan to continue implementing it.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This is a scalable solution.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We deal with many database products including Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and others.

How was the initial setup?

The installation is straightforward. We have both on-premises and cloud-based deployments.

The amount of time required for deployment depends on whether it is a single instance. This time of installation may take 30 minutes. Our installation scripts make it easy to do.

What about the implementation team?

We handle all of the administration tasks including implementation, installation, daily operation, as well as backup and recovery procedures.

In some cases, we have to provide high availability for our customers. Some of them may already have a cluster, so we would implement it. We also provide technical support to them.

We are a team of 10 database administrators.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

This is an expensive product.

What other advice do I have?

This is certainly a product that I recommend for large enterprises. However, for smaller companies, we can use an open-source database. That said, if you need something that is highly available and scalable then you have to choose Oracle Database.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Implementer
PeerSpot user
Manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Reliable solution that is transparent to the end users
Pros and Cons
  • "It is a reliable database warehouse solution that is transparent to the end user."
  • "The pricing is the one sticking point for the solution because it is very expensive."

What is our primary use case?

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.

What is most valuable?

Oracle is simply a reliable data warehouse for us.

What needs improvement?

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. 

For how long have I used the solution?

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

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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.

How are customer service and technical support?

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.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

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.

How was the initial setup?

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

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

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.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

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

What other advice do I have?

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.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Great performance, very easy to use, and extremely stable
Pros and Cons
  • "The performance of the solution is impeccable."
  • "While working with 20-30 terabytes is okay using this solution, if you have Big Data, data that's much bigger than that, you will run into issues. It's a problem I have right now. They should support much more data."

What is most valuable?

The performance of the solution is impeccable.

The simplicity and ease of use is fantastic. Compared to other databases, it's not a complex tool to manage.

What needs improvement?

While working with 20-30 terabytes is okay using this solution, if you have Big Data, data that's much bigger than that, you will run into issues. It's a problem I have right now. They should support much more data.

Aside from that, the solution isn't lacking any features that I can think of. It's an almost perfect solution, aside from the data issues we face.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for many years. It's been a long time.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is extremely stable. There are no problems with it there. There aren't bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or fail. It's completely reliable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is a problem for us. We need something that can handle Big Data. By Big Data, I mean more than 30 terabytes of data. Anything under that, and the solution might scale okay, however, for us, scalability is a problem because of the vast amounts of data we need to work with.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is excellent. They're really great. I have no complaints in regards to the level of support they provide to us. We've been satisfied with their service.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I've looked at Axway Data, and it is a very good solution as well, however, it is a bit expensive and offers little support for very Big Data.

What other advice do I have?

We work closely with many integrator companies, however, we don't have a business relationship with Oracle. I'm a technical architect, so I just make some recommendations, and that's all.

I'd recommend the solution, so long as you aren't working with very very Big Data like we are. I could also recommend Axway, which I believe is also good.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Integrator
PeerSpot user
Head, Database Administrators at Ecobank Transnational Incorporated
Real User
Very robust, ideal for companies that need mission-critical databases, and extremely mature
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution has very robust integrity due to how it is designed and implemented."
  • "The solution can be quite expensive for small and medium-sized enterprises. Not too many companies can actually afford the pricing."

What is our primary use case?

We work with a bank and our core banking application sits on Oracle Database. Most of the applications in our ecosystem are all developed on Oracle RDBMS, so Oracle Database. They are all running mostly on Oracle Database. I'd estimate that 75-80% of our applications all run on Oracle Database in our environment.

What is most valuable?

The solution has been around for a long time, so it's very mature. We've used various versions, from 8 to 12 c. The RDBM has a strong reputation.

The solution is able to run on different types of machines, from IBM AIX to UNIX.

The solution has very robust integrity due to how it is designed and implemented.

The security is very tight. Users can be very sure of Oracle's safety. It has a variety of different security layers that make it very, very safe.

Oracle offers a great disaster recovery tool called Oracle Data Guard, which is fantastic.

The solution has very good failover capabilities. You can do it manually or automate the process if you like. It's all very transparent.

You can query around the rack as well you call it the rack cluster. There's great availability. It helps to handle high availability within the nodes. Even if you have a problem with one server, the others are still available and will continue the job without going down. 

We work in a back-end environment that is mission-critical, and we cannot afford downtime. Oracle is a perfect solution, as it will never go down. Customers will always be served at any point without experiencing a delay, which is of vital importance to banking.

Oracle is constantly working to improve its products. It now offers AI and machine learning capabilities to run queries.

There's lots of research and development being done constantly. This ensures they are always one step ahead of other databases.

What needs improvement?

The solution can be quite expensive for small and medium-sized enterprises. Not too many companies can actually afford the pricing.

The way it is designed, there are a lot of constraints on the solution. Everything doesn't just happen at once.

Oracle doesn't handle SQL. You can use other products for that instead, including another Oracle product. If you need SQL, you can use MongoDB, MariaDB, or the Cassandras.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for fifteen years now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Oracle Database is 200% stable. Most of the time when you have issues, it's not with Oracle but with the applications that are running on it that are not properly tuned. Oracle, however, if absolutely reliable.

The causes on the application end need to be properly looked at and tuned up properly, to reduce the overhead costs that are there. The loads are something we can have effect if we need to, and that's where we usually see problems.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We do a lot of scaling. When we need to scale, we need to go through the Change Application Board at the company to make sure everything is properly documented, and everyone is made aware of the changes. When you scale or make changes on the system, it doesn't lead to downtime. that's extremely important to note. We use a rank model where you do changes one node at a time.

Ultimately, the solution is very easy to scale.

How are customer service and technical support?

We are satisfied with technical support. 

However, people need to know how to manage Oracle support. Around here, we added what we call Advanced Customer Support, Oracle ACS. This is white-glove service for items that are of critical importance.  

With Advanced Customer Support, if they need to fly down, they will fly down and come directly to you to help you look at further into very critical issues. With their premier support, which is still quite good, I would rate them 90%, however, with ACS, I would rate them 100% satisfactory.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I've worked with other databases in the past.

In terms of the ruggedness of the database, especially in relational databases, I find Oracle design very strong. I want to believe that so many of the other databases that started coming up were trying to imitate what Oracle had. However, when you talk about databases holding data, they are managing very large databases, Oracle is still what you would want to go for.

For smaller data, there are other relational databases that are good. However, if the customer must have a response that will be like the speed of light, then you still have to go for Oracle.

How was the initial setup?

The difficulty of the initial setup varies. It depends on the company and who is setting it up. The truth of the matter is that you need a little bit of experience to be able to manage Oracle. That is why not every Database Administrator that does it for Oracle is a specialist in running it on a Unix level environment. Once you are able to get to that level, there is a pretty good graphical user interface that brings you through the selection process. You need SPS to do some form of tuning.

Were paid to set up the solution appropriately. We try to mitigate any performance issues and to lay out the parameters. You really need to look at memory and to look at your LGA to have a successful implementation. It all requires quite a bit of knowledge. You can't just be experienced in databases; you need to be experienced specifically in Oracle. In that sense, overall, it's not too straightforward.

To deploy the solution, the amount of time also depends on a lot of factors, including the person's experience with Oracle, and the company's overall requirements. With my experience, I can do it within a few hours.

For deployment, you would need a small team to assist in the process. You must always ensure the continuity of the business, so it's smart to not just rely on one person. If your database has two terabytes of data, you'll need a solid team with a minimum of five people on it. That way, everything is managed competently and everything is proactively monitored. For the bank, we have a team of 15 people managing the entire database for the group.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

This solution is definitely geared towards larger enterprises. It's quite expensive.

What other advice do I have?

Currently, we're using the 12c version fo the solution and we're migrating over to the 18c version soon. We're mostly using the on-premises versions, however, we're likely to migrate over to the cloud in the future.

Having used other products, I can say that hands down Oracle DB is a fantastic product.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Product manager at Metrodata Electronics Tbk PT
Real User
Great for building disaster recovery systems, very stable, and offers good scalability
Pros and Cons
  • "On-prem, Oracle is the number one database technology."
  • "Oracle needs to improve its cluster technologies. They need to improve in the cluster technology using ARC due to the fact that sometimes people think that they have a redundant server when they are using ARC with the cluster and think that will increase the performance. In reality, if they are using ii with a big workload, sometimes the performance is not increasing, and can sometimes actually impacts it in such a way that there's some degradation in the performance."

What is most valuable?

The best feature on Oracle Database is the Data Guard. It's great if you want to build some sort of disaster recovery solution.

ARC is one of the best features. It's quite simple and flexible. It offers really simple guidance that helps make using it a breeze.

On-prem, Oracle is the number one database technology.

What needs improvement?

Oracle needs to improve its cluster technologies. They need to improve in the cluster technology using ARC due to the fact that sometimes people think that they have a redundant server when they are using ARC with the cluster and think that will increase the performance. In reality, if they are using ii with a big workload, sometimes the performance is not increasing, and can sometimes actually impacts it in such a way that there's some degradation in the performance. 

Oracle has covered all the aspects of the market requirement. Let's say someone who searches for a security solution that has high availability, security, manageability, and performance. That's all of the IT requirements, basically, and they are all covered by Oracle. There aren't features lacking, in that sense. That said, while that's a true statement in terms of on-premises deployments, and Oracle really is is the number one database technology, when it comes to the cloud, it's still a question about how good Oracle really is. Most of our customers are using Azure or maybe AWS. Not Oracle. That's the one area that Oracle should improve.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been working with the solution for 11 years. I mostly only handle the core technology.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Right now, I would say that Oracle is one of the best solutions for our customers in terms fo stability. If they handle big productions or process a lot of paper, this is the perfect choice for them.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

If they need to, companies can easily add more nodes to the cluster. It's easy to use its cluster technology to scale. I would say it's rather easy to expand the solution if you need to.

How are customer service and technical support?

If we talk about the MOS, My Oracle Support, it's more of a self-service. Currently, sometimes it's not as reliable as we wish it was. Mostly, our internal team handles support as we can't really rely on Oracle. We'd only go to them if the problem is related to the product, for example, if it's got some bugs or something like that. For troubleshooting, our customers come to us for assistance. From a technical aspect, we are quite confident that we can support all of the customer's needs ourselves without using Oracle.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We previously used MySQL, although that too is an Oracle solution. It's part of our portfolio alongside Oracle DB.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

When people talk about Oracle, especially Database, most of them mention that Oracle is an expensive product. However, if it's suitable or not or if it really is "expensive" depends on their requirements. Today, Oracle is one of the best choices, regardless of pricing. 

Even though on paper their pricing looks expensive, everything can be negotiated. Companies may be able to come to an understanding with Oracle at a price point they can accept.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

In our market, there are a lot of open-source products like EnterpriseDB. There are also commercial products like PostgreSQL. With Postgre you have to have MySQL with it right now. 

If a customer prefers to use an open-source product, I'm quite confident with MySQL.

What other advice do I have?

We are an Oracle Platinum Partner.

I'd first advise any company considering Oracle to learn the benefits first before they talk about the pricing. We like to do an assessment with the customer right away. The first thing we need to know is their pain points and basic requirement and also if they have a common problem in their system. I will judge that against the benefits of Oracle's technology, which is in the database. At the end of the day, if the features can solve your problem, then money comes as a secondary concern. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. There isn't a perfect solution on the market, however, this comes pretty close.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
PeerSpot user
it_user1026435 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Transactional data storage that can be traced and directed to an FTP server
Pros and Cons
  • "The feature that I worked with and that excited me the most is one that is not available in other databases, and it involves the use of Java Runtime."
  • "The integration with other vendor solutions needs improvement. It is difficult to connect to other hardware."

What is our primary use case?

The primary use case of this solution is in a financial institution to store our transactional data.

What is most valuable?

This product has a number of features. The feature that I worked with and that excited me the most is one that is not available in other databases, and it involves the use of Java Runtime.

There is also a feature that will trace the transaction and direct them to an FTP server. That was excellent. It is provisioned with very little additional cost.

What needs improvement?

The database has a lot and not everything is known to every user. The licensing is a bit complicated. 

I am trying to configure the GoldenGate and I find that you have to connect to the classic one in big data, I should use only one instead of two to stream the data to streaming platforms.

The integration with other vendor solutions needs improvement. It is difficult to connect to other hardware.

I would like to see more focus on the features that are supporting the new technology, rather than just focus on the hardware.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Oracle Database for approximately seven years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This solution is stable and we have not had any issues. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's a scalable solution.

How are customer service and technical support?

We have subscribed to the site, where we can ticket the problem. There is a library of issues that have been recorded worldwide. You can search the library resources to find your problem and follow that research to resolve it.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward. The challenge comes with performance tuning, where you need more experience.

What other advice do I have?

I do more than 70% of work on an Oracle database, which is why I would recommend it to others.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Consultant at a recruiting/HR firm with 501-1,000 employees
Consultant
Good database with good processing and very good stability
Pros and Cons
  • "From a database product perspective, I would say, they're good in what they provide. There's not much concern."
  • "If their database encryption features could come in bytes, that would be a major improvement. They should bring the encryption model to their standard databases as well."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution for auditing purposes.

What is most valuable?

The best feature of the solution is the capability of running extreme processes for database processing requirements.

From a database product perspective, I would say, they're good in what they provide. There's not much concern.

What needs improvement?

For our organization, the price is the main factor that needs improvement. They charge you exorbitantly for a license, and, I would say, they are not doing justice to today's industry requirements when it comes to a pricing model. They talk about cloud hybrid on-prem solutions, and they tell you that you have a cloud solution that will benefit your company considerably, however, it's just a lot of cut-throat pricing that they offer.

From the perspective of using the database in a legacy product, some people are usually stuck with it, and they need to continue working on that. That's a new thing they have not been able to change. The licensing model works in a different way altogether. It's not really very friendly for management to take decisions when it comes to executing licensing right for a product like this.

If their database encryption features could come in bytes, that would be a major improvement. They should bring the encryption model to their standard databases as well.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using the solution for about seven years now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

In terms of stability, it's got a little bit more stability than it used to be. It's good. It's been quite stable, however, I believe the stability is limited to a standard model of licensing that we are provided.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support has been very good for us. We have no complaints. We're satisfied with the level of service we've been provided. They are very helpful.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The licensing costs are very high. We feel the solution is price gouging its customers.

The solution has a standard license, which is different from an enterprise license. If you need the encryption feature, you need to go up to enterprise licensing which has a whole lot of other features that you may not even be using. Encryption is a top requirement in the industry, however, you're forced to use the enterprise edition if you need to use anything like this. That said, it is always better to go to a standard edition, which has more limited capabilities but can still fit into your product perspective.

What other advice do I have?

I'm not reselling this product. I'm using this for designing my own product, and I'm giving it as a solution to my customer. If I need to work out pricing for my customer, there may be my own raw materials that come into play.

The raw materials that come into play should be considered in order to make a better pricing model, which in turn can help me get a better solution for my clients. If the base product that you use is so expensive, like this is, it doesn't make sense. I would start looking at other products. That's what I'm doing. I need to better scale my capabilities.

I'd recommend Mongo Database over this product for that reason.

I'd rate the solution overall eight out of ten. It's very good. It's just a bit too expensive for my purposes.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Infrastructure Manager at Lactanet
Real User
Reliable and robust with good support
Pros and Cons
  • "The reliability is the solution's most valuable feature. We've had great success with the solution."
  • "The main thing we find could use improvement is the licensing costs. It is quite expensive relative to other database vendors. Cost always comes up as an issue for us as we consider upgrade paths. It's not as easy as we would like it to be."

What is our primary use case?

We work in agriculture, and where we're located we have two sites in two separate cities in Canada. These are all transactional databases and they have information in them about the dairy industry in our country. We use it for storing data related to dairy cows, dairy farmers, or farmers in general, and we have all the information in the transactional database that holds everything from billing to individual animal data. We probably have about 12 terabytes of data on the Oracle databases.

How has it helped my organization?

The reliability and the ability to store all the information we need is how it helps us the most. I don't know the metrics of the top of my head, I just know it works. 

We decided to use Oracle from the start because of its reputation of robustness. It provided us with everything that we needed. 

What is most valuable?

The reliability is the solution's most valuable feature. We've had great success with the solution.

The ability to do all the programming we need in one solution is great.

The support has been very good over the years.

What needs improvement?

The main thing we find could use improvement is the licensing costs. It is quite expensive relative to other database vendors. Cost always comes up as an issue for us as we consider upgrade paths. It's not as easy as we would like it to be. 

While we really like Oracle, it's difficult sometimes to upgrade from version to version.

I'd like to see the high availability option become available in the standard edition. We have a couple of databases that are still in the standard edition, and we'd like to be able to back those up and have higher availability.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using Oracle for a long time. We originally started using it in 1999 just before the Y2K crisis.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is very good. I'd rate it ten out of ten. We have some databases that run for a year without rebooting or anything, so I would describe it as very stable.

We do have a couple of international projects for our users that will be accessed from other countries, but it's currently stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There's no problem with scalability. It's quite easy for an organization to expand if they need to.

We have many users on the solution, including myself, and I have an administrator role. We have five database administrators that manage the day to day operations of the database. Then we have about 20 developers that develop different applications or make changes to the database for us. There are also internal users. We probably have, I'd say, 500 employees that have access at any given time. Our customers also have access. In total, we have about 15,000 people on the solution.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support, on a scale of one to ten, I would give a seven. There are some things that take a little bit longer to resolve than others, however, overall, I would say it's good. It's not very good. It's not excellent. It's good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We haven't gone anywhere else and tried any other database software. We did previously use IBM's Mainframe 20 years ago.

The reason why we switched was because we were changing our data center. It's a little bit complicated, but there used to be four organizations that did the same thing we did. And due to the Y2K scare, we decided to merge all these organizations into one data center. It was more of consolidation from different technologies into one Oracle technology.

I was not really involved in that migration. I was there, however, I didn't have a role in it. Oracle was ultimately chosen based on the robustness and they had. 

How was the initial setup?

It was a very big undertaking. We moved from an IBM mainframe. With regards to Oracle, the set up was, I would say, easy, however, when you're building a database, there's a lot of things to think of. That's not really the database's problem. You have to think of and plan out your table structure. You have to think of how you're going to set up your database. 

The deployment happened 20 years ago. It was a very big project. The implementation took a year to migrate our existing data into an Oracle database. It went well, although it did take about a year to implement.

You need about five people to handle maintenance on the solution.

What about the implementation team?

We used a consulting firm to assist us in the implementation at the time. The experience was good at the time. Still, it was 20 years ago. They're actually out of business now. They may have gone out of business ten years ago, or merged with another company.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Our licensing costs are between $40,000 and $50,000 per year. Those are the costs that cover maintenance and licensing. 

We have an enterprise edition. We pay extra for features that are only available with this particular tier.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did evaluate different databases, including IBM's Db2. And that was it at the time. Microsoft didn't exist back then for databases.

What other advice do I have?

We started using version 7 of Oracle, and now, after so many years on the product, we are up to version 12.

We have six different main production databases that we use for various things. They're all on-premise. They either run in a Linux environment or IBM AIX Unix environment. And we also use a backup Oracle cloud for backing up some of those databases.

The main advice I would give other organizations would be to prepare for the costs. Oracle is kind of more expensive than in most other database software. It's also important to have a good understanding of how Oracle works and the programming. It's quite specialized. However, if you're implementing a big database environment, you need to know that anyway. 

Oracle is, I would say, probably the top database provider in the world. Having a big name, for us, was good because we've got other contracts from outside firms that trust us because we house our data with Oracle. 

At the end of the day, you get what you pay for, and we don't mind paying more for the peace of mind we get from this solution.

I would rate the solution nine out of ten mostly due to the fact that it's a very solid platform and it's robust and it's scalable. It's the Cadillac of the database world.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Systems Analyst at a logistics company with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Robust, stable, and easy to use
Pros and Cons
  • "We find technical support to be very responsive. They briefly describe everything on phone and we handle the operations. I'd say we've been more than satisfied with their level of service. They're quite helpful and knowledgeable."
  • "We don't really find that any features are lacking."

What is our primary use case?

We mainly use the solution for database purposes. We are maintaining the standard edition version and normally not on a very big scale.

What is most valuable?

We are only really utilizing the solution for database purposes and only taking the database for backup purposes, on a daily basis. The database and getting the required data on the database have been very helpful. 

It's easy to use, it's robust, and it offers good security that we can count on. 

Most importantly, our users are familiar with the interface and the operational capability of this product. That's why we chose to use Oracle.

While we don't interact too much with the database and interact more with our front-end application, we get good reports as it simply runs in the back end.

It's a very comprehensive database, although we are using only the standard version, not the enterprise version. Even the standard version is quite good. It's very reliable. 

What needs improvement?

It all depends on the requirements we have. Right now, it's fulfilling our current ERP requirements.

We don't really find that any features are lacking.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using it for the last 10 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is very stable. I haven't experienced bugs or glitches. There haven't been crashes. It's quite reliable. An organization shouldn't have to worry about it's stability at all.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's scalable.

However, in terms of our usage, it's quite limited. We are using only three to four modules of this application. We're a very small scale operation. It's the reason why we are using the standard edition and not the enterprise one.

We only have about 10 to 15 users that are using these applications.

It's not used on a daily basis. It's just occasional use. 

How are customer service and technical support?

We find technical support to be very responsive. They briefly describe everything on phone and we handle the operations. I'd say we've been more than satisfied with their level of service. They're quite helpful and knowledgeable.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

It's my understanding that we've always used Oracle. I can't recall if there was something before that was used.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is very simple. It's not complex at all. To deploy it only took about one hour. It's quite quick and easy.

It's a very good application. Once we installed it and it started running, we haven't needed to perform regular maintenance on it and we haven't faced any issues. We installed it four or five years ago. It's been a long time and it's been in perfect working order since we launched it. The solution is seamless.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We're just a customer and we have the licensed product. We are continuously updating the license on an annual basis.

It's a standard license, with a worldwide standard licensing cost for Oracle that we are paying. The fees are at about 22%.

What other advice do I have?

It's a very good product. I'd recommend it. It's very robust. It's scalable. On side of security, it's a very secure product. And support is available from Oracle via their local partners. We are already very satisfied with this product and I would recommend it to other users as well.

I'd rate it eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user971502 - PeerSpot reviewer
Product Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Good database and storage with a straightforward initial setup
Pros and Cons
  • "Overall, from a technical perspective, the solution is very strong."
  • "The database environment needs to be cheaper. By making it less expensive, Oracle would be more competitive with other database vendors."

What is our primary use case?

The solution is used mainly for the database.

What is most valuable?

The database is very good for holding our client's data.

Oracle has a very good RIC (Retail Integration Console). It gives good visibility.

Overall, from a technical perspective, the solution is very strong.

What needs improvement?

The licenses are quite expensive. They should work on making it more affordable for their customers and it needs to be simplified. The database environment needs to be cheaper. By making it less expensive, Oracle would be more competitive with other database vendors.

For how long have I used the solution?

We don't use the solution ourselves. We're an Oracle partner. We deploy the solution for our customers.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of the solution is okay. I don't recall experiencing bugs or glitches. The solution hasn't crashed on me before. It's quite reliable. Stability is never an issue.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We deployed the Oracle database on the HCI environment. We can expand and scale it easily. It just requires expanding the hardware itself.  

How are customer service and technical support?

Typically, if a customer has a problem with the solution, we will look into the issue. We are the ones that maintain the solution for our clients.

However, technical support is good.

The only downside is that occasionally when we do need to communicate with the technical support team, we need to do so via one of our engineers. There's a bit of a language barrier, so a little translation is often needed.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup isn't complex. It's quite straightforward. We do, however, have an expert in Oracle on staff, so that may make things easier for us. 

Deployment took about one month from beginning to end.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Pricing on the solution is higher. There are less expensive database options on the market.

What other advice do I have?

Our organization is partners with Oracle.

We mostly implement the solution on-premise because our customer is a governmental agency. The protocol is that they cannot store information on the cloud as it is far too sensitive.

I would advise other organizations to try it out. I'd recommend the solution.

I would rate the solution about eight out of ten. I would rate it higher if the licensing costs were not so high. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Head of IT Division at Industrial Property Institute
Real User
Easy to use, relatively straightforward to implement and very stable
Pros and Cons
  • "I've never faced any stability issues with the product. I don't recall any bugs, glitches, or crashes. I'd say it's fairly stable and shouldn't cause anyone issues in that regard."
  • "It could be slightly more intuitive, but other than that, we really like it as a solution."

What is most valuable?

One of the best aspects of the solution is that it is very easy to use. In my opinion, for how I use it, I find it quite straightforward.

What needs improvement?

Occasionally I do have some technical issues. However, there are very good communities that can help solve problems, so It's not too bad.

It could be slightly more intuitive, but other than that, we really like it as a solution.

For our type of usage, we don't have any particular requirements or needs that the solution doesn't provide. I can't speak to any features that may be lacking in general. Right now, I don't find that it's lacking in any regard.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Oracle Database for about five years now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I've never faced any stability issues with the product. I don't recall any bugs, glitches, or crashes. I'd say it's fairly stable and shouldn't cause anyone issues in that regard.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We are working with the software that moves the current update store. We don't have problems with any new features or applications or integration, so I believe it to be very scalable.

Currently, we have about 3 people using the database. There is only one developer and the rest are admins that are simply connected to the database.

How are customer service and technical support?

We have never faced many issues in terms of having trouble with the solution. For that reason, we haven't really dealt with technical support, so I can't speak to how good or bad they are.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did previously use a different solution, however it was associated with a company that gave us the software and when they switched to Oracle, we, by default, did as well.

How was the initial setup?

At the beginning, I may have found it a bit tricky, and other new users might too. At this point, after a number of years, I don't think it's too difficult. However, it may be because I'm used to the system. Those coming at it completely new may find it a bit complex.

The initial setup is quite quick. For us, it didn't take more than an hour or so. It was probably less than that.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I don't deal with the accounting, so I can't speak to the pricing of the solution.

What other advice do I have?

We're not an Oracle partner. We're just a customer.

We're quite comfortable with this solution at the moment. It provides us with everything we need.

I'd highly recommend Oracle Database to other companies and users. We haven't had any issues at all using it aside from a few small technical issues. It's good software. It's very stable and reliable.

Personally, I would rate the solution nine out of ten. It's almost perfect.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Lead Oracle Developer and DevOps Engineer at Versent
Real User
An easy-to-use Data Warehousing solution, but the pricing needs improvement
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features of this solution are the cost optimizer and partition exchanges."
  • "The cost of this solution needs to be improved."

What is our primary use case?

We use this RDBMS for OLTP, OLAP, and Data Warehousing.

How has it helped my organization?

This solution is easy to use, provides good tuning options, backup & recovery, and overall a professional network.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features of this solution are the cost optimizer and partition exchanges.

What needs improvement?

The cost of this solution needs to be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution for twenty years.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Consultor de TI at Ultragaz
Real User
Secure and easy to use, but the cloud-developer options need to be improved
Pros and Cons
  • "Oracle Database is fast and easy to use."
  • "Cheap and easy solutions for startups need to be made available."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case is Oracle EBS using Oracle Database 8.

How has it helped my organization?

Oracle Database is the base of all local solutions in the company. Oracle Database is fast and easy to use. I have been using geospatial solutions for a long time, too.

This is the last solution before cloud and cloud developers no longer have knowledge about the Oracle database.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are Velocity, security, and compatibility.

What needs improvement?

Solutions for cloud developers are in need of improvement.

Cheap and easy solutions for startups need to be made available.

We would like to see Oracle Apex as an independent and paid solution.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Director Of Services at Dinamika Berkah Abadi
Real User
Handles high transaction volume, good data protection features
Pros and Cons
  • "Oracle enables us to handle more than a million daily transactions."
  • "The price tag is very high and most cannot afford it."

What is our primary use case?

This is used as the main core for our financial service and is running on an Exadata server.

How has it helped my organization?

Oracle enables us to handle more than a million daily transactions.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are the Oracle Data Guard and Transportable Tablespaces. These features are useful when you need data protection and in case you need to move data around quickly.

What needs improvement?

The price tag is very high and most cannot afford it.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Oracle for ten years.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Database Analyst at Talbots
Real User
Good performance, stability, and scalability, but the documentation needs to be improved
Pros and Cons
  • "This solution has the best performance, bar none."
  • "The documentation needs improvement because as it is now, providing support is a headache."

What is our primary use case?

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

How has it helped my organization?

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

What is most valuable?

This solution has the best performance, bar none.

What needs improvement?

Oracle needs to stop suing users.

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

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for twenty years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This is a stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This solution is extremely scalable.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Security Specialist at a energy/utilities company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Whenever we need to add new space it is easy to extend and increase our performance
Pros and Cons
  • "The feature I find most valuable about this solution is the reliability."
  • "The product is very expensive."

What is most valuable?

The feature I find most valuable about this solution is reliability. Whenever there was a problem, like hardware that failed, the data was still okay and not corrupted and that is very important for us. 

I am also really impressed by the scalability of this product. For example, whenever we need to add new space, Oracle makes it easy to extend and increase our performance. We don't have any corruption issues and we can add new space and without having to restart our database. 

What needs improvement?

I would like to see an improvement in the upgrade process. Sometimes it's very complicated to upgrade from one version to another. We are currently running the Oracle version 12 and we may need to upgrade in the future. These upgrades are not very simple and should be made more user-friendly.

If it could be more affordable, it would be a plus. Because the product is very expensive.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using this solution since 1995.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of Oracle is absolutely perfect. We've had no problems since we started using it in 1995. One time we had power problems and we had to restart the server. The data was automatically corrected and reconstructed, without any problem at all.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Oracle is very scalable. We have no issues with that, even though we have a large database. We currently have about a hundred users.

How are customer service and technical support?

Oracle has a support portal where you can get help and where they issue you a support ticket. It is, however, expensive.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We are using Oracle mostly for digital business data. But we are also running Microsoft SQL, mostly for simpler, small applications. Microsoft SQL is also a good database and our company's second alternative for SQL data storage. As a second option and for minor applications, we use open source, PostgreSQL or MySQL. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was really complicated and complex. We always use our partner for installation and then we prepare and analyze install scenarios. Then we go through the approval process and start with the installation. I believe the process is complex and complicated when you have a large database. For smaller users, it will be simple, but for most production data, this process is rather complicated. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Oracle is expensive, but very good. You get quality for the price you pay.

What other advice do I have?

The enterprise Oracle Manager is very good. It is an expensive solution, so I will rate this product a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Member at Idaho National Laboratory
Real User
A multiplatform solution offering high availability and improved performance
Pros and Cons
  • "It has automatic memory management capability and large file capability."
  • "The Oracle Database could improve on integration with other infrastructure systems like Active Directory."

What is our primary use case?

I use Oracle Database to manage my organization's data stores.

How has it helped my organization?

Oracle Database has made my organization's data highly available.

What is most valuable?

It runs on scalable operating systems like Linux, AIX, and Solaris. It uses very many different types of indexes to improve performance. It has automatic memory management capability and large file capability.

What needs improvement?

The Oracle Database could improve on integration with other infrastructure systems like Active Directory.

For how long have I used the solution?

Thirty-six years.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Associate Consultant Oracle DBA at ATOS GITSS Pvt. Ltd.
MSP
Good recovery manager, but needs support services for more production access
Pros and Cons
  • "The features that we find most valuable are Data Pump, GoldenGate, and the RMAN (Recovery Manager)."
  • "This product would be improved with Support Services for more production access."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use for all Oracle Activity is to maintain and monitor six database servers.

How has it helped my organization?

For the past nine years, we have been supporting our client's company database fully with developer and database support.

What is most valuable?

The features that we find most valuable are Data Pump, GoldenGate, and the RMAN (Recovery Manager).

What needs improvement?

This product would be improved with Support Services for more production access.

For how long have I used the solution?

Four years.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Cloud Expert | DevOps | Oracle Consultant at confidential
Consultant
Top 10Leaderboard
The most valuable feature for me is the pluggable database because it provides database consolidation and the solution for utilizing your resource.

What is our primary use case?

I have been working with Oracle products for more than 10 years, and as a consultant, I did a lot of implementations that include different database vendors. To be honest, Oracle Database provides you with different features that don't exist in any database, or you can find relevant features in other vendors, but it will not give the same capability Oracle Database has. Let's take for example RAC or real application cluster that provides HA for Oracle Database, it's considered as one of the best solutions for the database.

I have worked on different environments for different big client names since it's my job role, and Oracle provides a different solution for DR, performance tuning, security, and HA.

How has it helped my organization?

Talking about this will be unfair because regarding my experience (which is on related services), Oracle Database improved client solution by discussing what they want first, and then finding what database is the best solution for them. Most of the time an Oracle Database license is so expensive if you want to compare it with different vendors, but on the other hand, if you're looking for the best features that a database could provide to you, then Oracle is considered as the number one database of all time.

What is most valuable?

  • The most valuable feature for me is the pluggable database because it provides database consolidation and the solution for utilizing your resource. On the other hand, I find security products that are provided by Oracle very strong and not in comparison with any database vendor.
  • The encryption, database reduction, audit vault, database firewall: All of these products provide an extra layer of security when they are implemented in the right way.
  • Let's also mention real application cluster, and disaster recovery solution.

What needs improvement?

The additional features that should be included in the database: I would like to see improvements for database security products.

For how long have I used the solution?

More than five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

one of the most stable database i ever seen, but to be honest the Support when you will have a bug or something it will make your life very hard.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The Performance for the database in general is good and the tools to analyze the performance in case you have some issue it's perfect and make it easier for you.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Yes, I used a different solution. The migration was to Oracle because we had to find the best for the client. It was a production database, and we needed 24/7 HA which other databases provided, but not as good as Oracle Database.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The cost of Oracle Database is so high if you compare it to other vendors. Therefore you have to study your solution and know exactly which features you want; this will minimize the cost and licensing price. For that, Oracle provides different types of DB such as EE, SE, SE1, etc. depending on what the clients want.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Yes, I worked on SQL Server, MongoDB, MySQL, and MariaDB.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user811680 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
A good source for relational databases
Pros and Cons
  • "We use the relational databases for government contracts."
  • "It is expensive."

What is our primary use case?

We use the relational databases for government contracts.

For how long have I used the solution?

More than five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a very solid and stable product.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. This is probably why it is so expensive!

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It is expensive.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Lead Database Developer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Gives us good performance on large amounts of data while AWR helps us find problems
Pros and Cons
  • "I really appreciate the performance of Oracle. When using AWR records you can really see where a problem is. You can get advice about which queries are the heaviest for the database. You also can see advice for indexes. If an index isn't used, then you can just remove it to improve performance. This is a really good feature. Also, the JDBC connection is quite good. Finally, the object types are really good, the types of tables you can use in PL/SQL are also really helpful."

    How has it helped my organization?

    Oracle Database is really good for a distributed system and the scalability is really good. We use it for a large amount of data and it gives us good performance. For really complex, distributed business cases, it's a really good choice.

    What is most valuable?

    • I really appreciate the performance of Oracle.
    • When using AWR records you can really see where a problem is.
    • You can get advice about which queries are the heaviest for the database.
    • You also can see advice for indexes. If an index isn't used, then you can remove it to improve performance. This is a really good feature. 
    • The JDBC connection is also quite good.
    • The object types are really good, the types of tables you can use in PL/SQL are also really helpful.

    What needs improvement?

    Its performance could always be better and better but, other than that, I can't think of any additional features I would like to see.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    More than five years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    It's stable. It's good. But I think it could be better.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    The scalability is quite good. We have experience in many countries with distributed systems and it has really satisfied us, and our clients are satisfied as well.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We did not have a previous solution, as far as I know.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    It's not really good from the pricing point of view.

    What other advice do I have?

    I would recommend Oracle Database if you have enough money and you need a big, stable system in which performance is important.

    We are starting to think about other solutions because of money and because of the cloud. Oracle is on the cloud, but we have started thinking about another cloud, which could use PostgreSQL and Microsoft Server. That may be our solution in the future.

    The most important criteria when selecting a vendor are their ability to handle a huge volume of data, security, and then price. Price is not the first one, but it's an important one. And finally, the cloud could be important.

    I would rate Oracle Database at nine out of ten because of the stability and because they try to improve the product in every release. The next release is always better than the previous one. From release to release, we get more performance, which is really good. Even if you aren't a DBA, there a lot of features that you can put to use by yourself.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    DBA Team Leader at Hadassah Hospital
    Real User
    We are more organized and make less mistakes using it, but it is very expensive
    Pros and Cons
    • "Using the product, we make less mistakes, are more organized and faster than if we did it any another way."
    • "There are a lot of bugs in the Oracle Database, and it would be better if the bugs would be solved more quickly than they are today."
    • "In general, the support is not good since most of the time the person whom you are given to is not so professional."

    What is our primary use case?

    We are using the database mainly at the hospital, where I work now. We have been working with Oracle Database to save all the data related to the patients.

    How has it helped my organization?

    Using the product, we make less mistakes, are more organized and faster than if we did it any another way.

    What is most valuable?

    • Stability
    • Name recognition of the database in the world, as it is maybe the best one.

    What needs improvement?

    There are a lot of bugs in the Oracle Database, and it would be better if the bugs would be solved more quickly than they are today.

    The bugs could be anything. They could be related to any problem. For example, we had a problem with the physical standby, and the bugs had already been there for a few years in the databases, but not solved in the newer versions.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    One to three years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    Since we moved to Linux two years ago, it has been much more stable. We were very happy that we moved.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    We are already working in Iraq. We also bought Oracle Database Appliance, and we are happy with that product too.

    How is customer service and technical support?

    In general, the support is not good since most of the time the person whom you are given to is not so professional. Though, the last time that we had a big problem with our Database Appliance, we received support from Oracle US, and it was much better.

    How was the initial setup?

    It is not so straightforward, but it is not so complex.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    The price is very expensive for the support.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    When I started to work at my company, they were already working with Oracle Database.

    What other advice do I have?

    Oracle has a very good database, but it is very expensive today, and there are a lot of competitors.

    Main criteria for selecting a vendor: 

    • Name
    • Release of new versions
    • Stability.
    Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
    PeerSpot user

    Im using oracle with my basic knowledge its been about 4 years and I think that oracle DB is a great product,
    with pluggable DB, datapump utility, alerts, speed, etc..
    except the princing wich is so expensive.

    Senior DBA & IT Consultant at MA Consulting
    Real User
    Top 5
    Enables us to combine all the sophisticated architectures in the market
    Pros and Cons
    • "Compared to other databases, Oracle Database is very simple to manage in terms of the database itself."

      What is our primary use case?

      We’re using Oracle Database at our customers and for any vast applications, for data warehouses, online transaction processing applications, with packaged applications like Siebel and SAP that work with Oracle. Oracle is the main enterprise database for the finance sector today, in general.

      How has it helped my organization?

      It fits any kind of model that we would like to incorporate in our organization, whether it's a data warehouse, implementing data models, CRMs, or online application processing. We can use clusters, we have very sophisticated, high-availability solutions. We have everything.

      We generally incorporate all the solutions in an enterprise so that we can help the enterprise to have a better, high-availability solution, faster databases. 

      And, compared to other databases, Oracle Database is very simple to manage in terms of the database itself.

      What is most valuable?

      Oracle is one of the most advanced systems when compared with other databases in the market. Oracle has the ability to combine all the sophisticated architectures that we have today in the market and bring them to the customer.

      One more nice thing that Oracle is bringing in is cloud on premises. This allows you to have a big Exadata machine in your enterprise and use it as a cloud, using all the available Oracle features, which is very nice. It gives you the ability to begin according to your needs and grow very fast when you need to do so.

      What needs improvement?

      Oracle is going now to what we call autonomous databases. Personally, I don’t believe in autonomous databases that will manage themselves. It might be that in the cloud versions they actually have the ability of doing that for you, managing the infrastructure, fixing all the patches that you need, and so on. Still, the tuning business has a long way to go to be completely autonomous. There is still a need for a person to manage the database, especially the performance and tuning. 

      It might be those future databases - not in the near future but in the distant future - will be autonomous completely. Oracle could be one of the first to incorporate that.

      For how long have I used the solution?

      More than five years.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      Oracle has new versions, and with them it becomes more stable. Compared to other databases, especially when dealing with vast numbers of records, Oracle is one of the leading databases; it performs much better.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      Scalability is one of the biggest features of Oracle Database. We can scale out or scale in using clusters, using the shard solutions that we have in the market today. Oracle brings a large number of methods for scaling.

      How are customer service and technical support?

      Support is one of the most advanced. I work with other vendors besides Oracle. If I compare the support that we have with Oracle to other leading providers -  I don’t want to say the names - Oracle usually gives me answers quickly. With other vendors, I can wait for ages until I get answers, if I can get a solution at all. Oracle has a vast knowledge of problems and solutions.

      For 80 percent of problems, you can find already built-in solutions. But if such a solution doesn't exist, Oracle support is prompt. They come in and discuss the problems with you and try to figure out very fastest solutions.

      Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

      We didn’t switch. Oracle has always been a leader in the field of relational databases. Today, in Israel especially, all the finest companies have their major databases in Oracle, in spite of the licensing, because it is one of the best databases in the market. The big companies can still afford the licenses.

      How was the initial setup?

      Setup has become easier and easier with Oracle. It used to be a bit complicated in the beginning, but with the new versions, while you still need a bit of knowledge, it’s quite doable to install it and manage it.

      What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

      The main issue where I feel that Oracle still has a problem is with the licensing. Licensing is still expensive and the reason why today most startups use other, cheaper databases. Those other databases are much less sophisticated than Oracle. I hope that in the future, Oracle will reach a level where it can introduce its database with different compliances and different licenses so that companies will be able to use to it and it will be competitive with other databases in the market.

      Which other solutions did I evaluate?


      What other advice do I have?

      When selecting a vendor, the most important thing is that they have people who know the business. We have some databases, for example, for which it is very rare to find a person who knows something about them. Knowledge is important. Support of the product is very, important as well. We need to know where to go, who to ask, who will actually help us out with the problems. Of course, bringing new innovations and being out front with what is happening in the advancing of the technology are also important.

      My advice, especially for big companies today, would be to go to the cloud on-premises when starting out, which allows you to incorporate all the latest versions from Oracle yet have the infrastructure managed by the Oracle Cloud support team. It gives you the ability to utilize the best of Oracle and to scale when you need to. 

      For smaller companies, the main reason they are not going with Oracle today is the pricing/licensing. I hope that, in the future, Oracle will do something about that so we'll once again see small companies beginning with Oracle, something that we don’t see today.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user809523 - PeerSpot reviewer
      DBA at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
      Vendor
      We have seen an improvement in stability

      What is our primary use case?

      Storage of data and alerts.

      How has it helped my organization?

      In the past we used another product. Since the switch to Oracle the stability has improved.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      We had some issues with the scalability but we managed to find a solution without overturning everything or having to go back to the basics.

      How is customer service and technical support?

      The reason I do not give this product a 10 out of 10 is because of the technical support. This is an area where they need to improve. It takes too long. If you have an issue that is very complicated, not something that you can find a solution for on the internet, that you need an engineer to help with, it takes too long. Very often, I find the solution by myself and give up on the support.

      What other advice do I have?

      When choosing a vendor it's important to me that it is a good brand, that they have a good name in the market, and that the solution comes closest to meeting my needs.

      I would definitely recommend this solution.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user809490 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Software Engineer at a media company with 10,001+ employees
      Real User
      Stores a lot of data in a short time
      Pros and Cons
      • "It stores a lot of data in a short time."
      • "Integration with big data would be helpful since we are planning to load a lot of big data."
      • "A lot of features have bugs or choose the wrong way to process data."

      What is our primary use case?

      We store our data in a database. We have a lot of data. We load it in our database everyday, then use it for reports.

      How has it helped my organization?

      This is the main database that we have.

      What is most valuable?

      Stores a lot of data in a short time.

      What needs improvement?

      • Integration with big data would be helpful since we are planning to load a lot of big data.
      • A lot of features have bugs or choose the wrong way to process data. Sometimes, we struggle with that.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      It is very stable.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      For our needs, scalability is okay.

      How is customer service and technical support?

      We have a DBA who does our support.

      What other advice do I have?

      I would recommend the product.

      Most important criteria when selecting a vendor:

      • The product should be good.
      • Features
      • Its stability.
      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      PeerSpot user
      Operations Engineering Manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
      Real User
      Very secure, Highly scalable and high performance enterprise database

      What is our primary use case?


      • Security and Scalability
      • I have used Oracle technologies for last two decades apart from other similar vendors like MS SQL Server, IBM DB2, etc.


      How has it helped my organization?

      It helped build a strong core application layer

      Its a natural choice for any complex enterprise relational system

      What is most valuable?

      • Security and Scalability
      • I have used Oracle technologies for last two decades apart from other similar vendors like MS SQL Server, IBM DB2, etc.
      • Power of Oracle combined with robust Unix platforms like Linux or AIX makes it powerful and secure as compared to MS SQL on Windows 
      • IBM DB2 needs indepth technical expertise and lot of workarounds or automation to build a strong solution, MS SQL is on Windows and that makes it not the best choice

      What needs improvement?

      Support and Patching.

      I found MS SQL Server support more helpful in many cases where in they internally rope in technology experts from different layers rather than pushing back on the clients, something Oracle can incorporate for sure.

      For how long have I used the solution?

      More than five years.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      Multiple issues, but mostly triggered from lower layers like OS, Network, storage layers.

      Oracle GRID is sensitive to underlying network and disk timeouts and node evictions may happen if disk and network systems are not optimized

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      Oracle systems are highly scalable, Backup and Recovery strategy needs to be tweaked and is not as scalable as core database system. It needs some special attention to meet your RTO

      How is customer service and technical support?

      Customer Service:

      I would rate it 6/10. Many times the support is not able to solve the problems and they would put you into loops and escalate to their dev team which may take months to come back with a solution. Sometimes the solution never arrives and you are forced to upgrade to higher version.

      Technical Support:

      I would rate it 7/10.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user515592 - PeerSpot reviewer
      it_user515592Operations Engineering Manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
      Real User

      My experience with IBM support is that they rarely admitted a new bug but rather provided workarounds like updating internal tables, Putting scripts to clear locks etc.
      Also we found layers like TSA and RSCT issues are not handled or fixed end to end

      See all 2 comments
      it_user850737 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Head Database Administration at Co-operative Bank of Kenya
      User
      High availability using real application clusters
      Pros and Cons
      • "It is flexible, scalable, and a true Enterprise RDBMS."
      • "High availability using real application clusters."
      • "Auditing could be improved, especially granular auditing. The unified audit trail in 12c is great, however its extraction in a highly busy environment is quite a challenge."

      What is our primary use case?

      Enterprise systems for financial institutions hosting both core systems and business support systems. This includes both OLTP and data warehouse databases. 

      How has it helped my organization?

      It has improved my organisation with the stability of its systems. The team is well-versed with the management of Oracle more than any other database. It is flexible, scalable, and a true Enterprise RDBMS.

      What is most valuable?

      • High availability using real application clusters.
      • Disaster recovery using Oracle Data Guard.
      • Scalable storage using Automatic Storage Management.
      • Security is watertight. Database Vault is my favourite.

      What needs improvement?

      Auditing could be improved, especially granular auditing. The unified audit trail in 12c is great, however its extraction in a highly busy environment is quite a challenge.

      For how long have I used the solution?

      More than five years.
      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user798342 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Asst. Manager in production at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
      Real User
      Cloud installations using Oracle are not supported by SAP.​​ It gives DB consistency, supports DR, and handles large DB sizes.
      Pros and Cons
      • "It gives DB consistency, supports disaster recovery (DR), is tunable, and handles large DB sizes."
      • "The compression does not give much value-add or provide performance benefits as was highlighted."
      • "Cloud installations using Oracle are not supported by SAP.​​"

      What is our primary use case?

      Oracle RDBMS is being used for our SAP ERP, analytics, SAP SRM, SAP SCM , SAP BOBJ, and SAP Solman.

      How has it helped my organization?

      It is reliable and well accepted. 

      What is most valuable?

      It gives DB consistency, supports disaster recovery (DR), is tunable, and handles large DB sizes.

      What needs improvement?

      The compression does not give much value-add or provide performance benefits as was highlighted.

      For how long have I used the solution?

      More than five years.

      How was the initial setup?

      Cloud installations using Oracle are not supported by SAP.

      What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

      The license cost needs to be optimized. The licensing cost is very high compared to other RDBMS

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      PeerSpot user
      Team Leader at a tech consulting company with 501-1,000 employees
      Consultant
      It provides Exadata, the engineered system where you can achieve maximum performance
      Pros and Cons
      • "You can install Oracle Database software, patching, and create/configure Oracle databases in silent using scripts"
      • "Performance is the best key value. Oracle provides Exadata, the engineered system designed for Oracle Database, where you can achieve maximum performance."
      • "​Upgrade is the most critical phase for the lifecycle of a database. In order to be sure that the migration succeeds, you need to be up-to-date. Therefore, regularly install the patchset and security updates."
      • "Be informed of the known issues using My Oracle Support.​"

      How has it helped my organization?

      Oracle Database is cloud ready, not only for the software standardization, but also for the scripting. You can install Oracle Database software, patching, and create/configure Oracle databases in silent using scripts. Therefore, you can easily automate everything in cloud.

      What is most valuable?

      Performance is the best key value. Oracle Database is suitable for OLTP applications or data warehouse. You can run Oracle Database software on-premise or in the cloud. Also, Oracle provides Exadata, the engineered system designed for Oracle Database, where you can achieve maximum performance.

      What needs improvement?

      Upgrade is the most critical phase for the lifecycle of a database. In order to be sure that the migration succeeds, you need to be up-to-date. Therefore, regularly install the patchset and security updates.

      For how long have I used the solution?

      More than five years.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      No. The most critical error was due to a bug on database policies, so selecting it got the wrong results.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      No issues.

      How are customer service and technical support?

      I would give technical support a seven out of 10 rating.

      Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

      As of now, I use different database solutions depending on the use case (for example, MySQL or Microsoft SQL Server).

      How was the initial setup?

      It is not complex, but you need to be aware of the best practices provided by Oracle. Therefore, I recommend to read the official documentation before starting a new Oracle installation. Also, be informed of the known issues using My Oracle Support.

      What about the implementation team?

      If it is the first time implementing, contact a partner or an expert in order to install/configure your Oracle Database. This is the best way or think about Oracle PaaS in the Cloud.

      What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

      Not in my scope.

      Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner since 1998.
      PeerSpot user
      PeerSpot user
      Technical Project Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
      Real User
      RAC clustering allowed us to improve performance and provided additional redundancy
      Pros and Cons
      • "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."
      • "It provided better insight and diagnostics when data problems were encountered by the application."
      • "RAC clustering allowed us to improve performance and provided additional redundancy."
      • "Initial setup was complex because of the odd way the application used the database, the application vendor's conversion tools, and our stringent requirements."

      What is our primary use case?

      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.

      How has it helped my organization?

      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.

      What is most valuable?

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

      What needs improvement?

      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.

      For how long have I used the solution?

      More than five years.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      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.

      How are customer service and technical support?

      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.

      Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

      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.

      How was the initial setup?

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

      What about the implementation team?

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

      What was our ROI?

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

      What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

      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.

      Which other solutions did I evaluate?

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

      What other advice do I have?

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

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user521772 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Vice President, Global Technology at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
      Vendor
      Performance is the key point for us, keeps us within SLA and increases customer satisfaction

      What is most valuable?

      • High availability 
      • Performance 

      Those are the topmost.

      How has it helped my organization?

      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. 

      What needs improvement?

      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.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      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.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      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.

      How are customer service and technical support?

      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.

      Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

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

      How was the initial setup?

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

      What other advice do I have?

      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.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user522141 - PeerSpot reviewer
      DBA Lead at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
      Real User
      Streamlines data retrieval and incorporates many security features

      What is most valuable?

      The best thing about Oracle Database is its being a relational database. There is no other database that can meet the benefits it provides. The data retrieval and access are the main keys, the best features within Oracle.

      How has it helped my organization?

      I'm a technical guy so how I look at data is, it needs to be accessed quickly, preserved safe and secure. Basically, the product should give you peace of mind within the corporation. There shouldn't be any worries as such.

      It facilitates a lot of security benefits.

      What needs improvement?

      The only major thing that we see right now is the downtime. Whenever there is an upgrade, whenever there is planned, scheduled maintenance, the downtime could be a huge impact for the business itself. That is where other companies are trying to compete, in terms of providing solutions, to avoid the downtime or minimize it.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      There aren't really stability issues. Oracle does have a physical real application cluster, RAC. It does minimize the downtime.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      It's absolutely scalable. The 12c version is way more scalable than how it was in the 11g version. It does solve that problem.

      How is customer service and technical support?

      I'm the one who resolves the tickets. We don't use tech support.

      Which other solutions did I evaluate?

      I'm pretty new to working here at PayPal. But they have had Oracle for so many years. And so many companies that I've worked for in the past, like Best Buy, Cargill, Cisco, all these companies have Oracle at a very large scale.

      What other advice do I have?

      Even though it is really expensive compared to other databases, like SQL and other non-SQL databases out there, Oracle has been like a monopoly. They are very high, premium. Still, consumers want to use it because it meets customers' needs. 

      It's pretty simple to use. You pretty much find all the technical stuff online even if you are a newbie, for you to get up to speed. It just takes your willingness to learn and understand it.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      Vendor
      Row Locking and the reliability are what make it valuable for us

      What is most valuable?

      Row Locking, which is probably the reason why Oracle is number one.

      How has it helped my organization?

      Oracle database is more reliable than anything else.

      What needs improvement?

      From my point of view as a DBA, the administration tools, especially the database administration tools and the developer tools. They are still behind compared to Toad or anything else.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      It's pretty stable.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      In terms of scaling, I haven't seen any issues. I don't really like RAC. From our experience, the single instance was better for us than the RAC. We do have RAC and the single instance, but we are actually moving our RAC machines to the single instance because the overhead by direct was not really acceptable. One of the main reasons was because now you have to use ASM, and we didn't find ASM very efficient.

      How is customer service and technical support?

      It's probably the worst tech support that any company has, compared to anything that I have worked with.

      It's a nightmare if I have to open a service request. I opened a simple service request with a question about two months ago. I found the workaround, but the service request is still open. No one ever even bothered to answer anything, and it was level-2.

      What other advice do I have?

      Go through the concepts. Once when you get the concepts, then you can easily figure it out. Everything is available, but you have to know what you are doing with the database otherwise you can screw up very badly.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user522093 - PeerSpot reviewer
      DBA at CSG
      Vendor
      Containers and pluggable databases give us more control of resource levels and planning

      What is most valuable?

      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.

      How has it helped my organization?

      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.

      What needs improvement?

      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.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      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.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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

      How is customer service and technical support?

      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.

      How was the initial setup?

      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.

      Which other solutions did I evaluate?

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

      What other advice do I have?

      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.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user522036 - PeerSpot reviewer
      System Admin
      Vendor
      Delivers High Availability and reliable database functionality

      What is most valuable?

      • Reliability of the database
      • High availability

      What needs improvement?

      It is good as it is. I've seen the product evolve over a period of time so it is great as it stands right now.

      There's always hope for improvement because it's getting bulkier and bulkier. I wish that it would get a little smaller, smaller inside the footprint.

      The only other thing I can think of is, perhaps, a voice control command.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      It's always been stable and we believe it will continue to be stable.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      In my organization we don't have the need for scalability as much because we are a fixed size. We grow very organically so scalability is not an issue for us.

      How are customer service and technical support?

      Absolutely, support is huge for us, to be able to get the best quality support. They are pretty reliable. We have good Oracle support, direct Oracle support. OTN (Oracle Technology Network) we use them a lot, so Oracle support and the online, those two.

      In terms of getting to the right person, sometimes it's a hit or a miss but mostly, eventually, it works out.

      Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

      No, this was the first solution that was implemented. It has stood the test of time, always a good thing.

      How was the initial setup?

      It's straightforward.

      What other advice do I have?

      When it comes to choosing to work with a vendor we look for the value proposition. Price to performance, the ratio, that is the biggest thing to look at.

      Oracle Database is value for money.

      Choose the vendor, horses for the courses. Choose the right vendor and just move forward.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user521715 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Database Admin
      Vendor
      I find it easy to use and it's scalable, it will meet our company's needs

      What is most valuable?

      Ease of the database. 

      What needs improvement?

      I can't think of anything to improve the database features.

      For how long have I used the solution?

      More than 12 years.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      Stable, absolutely.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      It's scalable, it will meet the needs of our company, moving forward.

      How are customer service and technical support?

      I had some issues that were resolved by the Oracle support team. There was an issue that I reported myself and the response time was adequate, within expectations. Eighty percent positive.

      Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

      I don't know. From the time I was employed here it was already installed and working and up and running.

      How was the initial setup?

      At first, when I was in the learning stage it was a bit difficult to install with Linux or Unix in the environment. Only with Windows can you can install it using a wizard. 

      You should have some knowledge, to be familiar with it, the product for installing and plan managing. It was not easy.

      What other advice do I have?

      We were using Oracle Streams, that is deprecated right now. Before we changed it to Oracle GoldenGate we were just using Streams.

      I recommend this product. It's stable, advanced, I think it's the number-one database.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user521766 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Program Manager (Software Asset Management) at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
      Real User
      Mature product means there are many who have the skills to use it

      What is most valuable?

      • It's a leading relational database brand; that makes it valuable
      • There's a good amount of knowledge on the market
      • Availability of skills
      • It's quite a mature product
      • Very advanced now
      • Market leader.

      What needs improvement?

      It is already a market leader. The latest comparison to products like SAP HANA, and in-memory computing, and container computing, container-based database structures; these are the areas where I think there is good competition.

      For how long have I used the solution?

      I've been using it about 20, 25 years.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      It's a very stable solution. You have to configure it to your requirements. It's one of the leading databases. You can have a mission-critical database system to make it available 24/7.

      We have 24/7 platforms, from development databases to mission critical databases, they all run on Oracle.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      Very scalable.

      How is customer service and technical support?

      Good. Their normal ticketing system, their incident management system is quite responsive. All their large accounts have a technical Account Manager. You have your OCI, your Oracle Customer Identifier. Using your OCI, customers can put in their tickets, incidents.

      What other advice do I have?

      I would recommend it

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user158715 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Sr Oracle Database Administrator at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
      Vendor
      Oracle 12c, A Cloud Ready Database

      Oracle released the latest version of its flagship database product last year. The release was a big one because Oracle changed the fundamental architecture of the database. This was done to provide flexibility to manage and provision a database in the Cloud environment.

      In 12c, Oracle introduced the much touted Multitenancy feature consisting of the Container and Pluggable database concept. Even though five hundred other new features were released along with it, every discussion of 12c will revolve around the new Multitenant Databases Architecture.

      One of the requirements when developing the Multitenant Database was that it should allow organizations to consolidate multiple databases into a single database instance, with ease. This allows for efficient sharing of Operating System resources at the database level and reduction to the Oracle Licensing and other infrastructure costs.

      Another important feature required in the world of Cloud is the ability to rapidly provision a database when required. Reduction in upgrade time is also very important.

      In the past, Multitenancy has been implemented at the Application level. However Multitenancy implemented at the Operating System is more common. It is achieved by moving individual database instances onto a few large servers. This does provide benefits but not at the same level of consolidation and flexibility as the use of the Multitenancy with 12c.

      When announcing the Oracle 12c release, Larry Ellison commented, “I have always been against the idea of implementing Multitenancy at application layer. It should always be at OS level via virtualization or at database level. In our tests database level Multitenancy outperformed OS level Multitenancy.”

      So How is Oracle 12c Different?

      Oracle 12c consists of the CDB container database (CDB). The CDB container owns the traditional memory structure (SGA), the background processes, SYSTEM and SYSAUX tablespaces. The CDB$ROOT root database structure in the CDB container stores all the metadata. One of this Container Database can host up to 250 pluggable databases.

      The PDB databases are similar to the traditional database but plugged into a CDB Container. Previously, in a non-CDB database only one database can be mounted by the SGA. In Multitenancy though, multiple PDB databases can be attached to a single CDB SGA and all the resources of the CDB are available to all PDBs. The PDBs are completely self-contained.

      There are other numerous features but the greatest selling point is the above mentioned Multitenant feature. Tests have shown that Oracle has done a great job in making sure that this major architectural shift does not impact the overall product stability. Oracle has been working on this version for last four years. As a fruit of the hard work, the 12c database has proven to be very stable.

      Additional cost?
      The only major concern for organizations, who are thinking about embracing this option, is the additional licensing cost. In spite of this concern, consolidation at the database level will in fact increase the savings by allowing efficient sharing of resources.

      Conclusion
      The new oracle 12c database design has made it possible to move a database around on other servers with ease. The option to quick provision a new database at the tip of s single command is not hear of before. Oracle 12c has truly revolutionized the way a database can be managed and maintained. All these features can be used without having to make a single application change!

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user

      It's a very informative blog On Oracle 12c and It is useful article thank you for sharing with us, keep posting learn more about Oracle Certification
      https://onlineitguru.com/oracle-soa-online-training-placement.html

      See all 4 comments
      PeerSpot user
      Senior Hyperion Systems Architect at County of Loudoun Virginia
      Real User
      The advantage of using Oracle's RDMS solution is that it is integrated with Oracle's other products, including our ERP and EPM solutions.

      What is most valuable?

      The best aspect of Oracle Database is that it allows integration of our ERP and EPM suite of applications and databases. It's integrated tightly together, and we prefer that, as we think it's best to stick with a single vendor as much as possible to avoid dealing with multiple vendors in case of any issue. We can scale it up, upgrade and it is supported by Oracle's customer support program. It is secure and reliable, which gives us peace of mind. If we went with a third-party tool, there's always the issues of compatibility. If we do upgrades and there are issues, we'd have to talk to both the third-party vendor and Oracle.

      I think that avoiding complications and compatibility issues is the biggest advantage of keeping our Oracle ERP and EPM products together. I work with a lot of the compatibility settings, and Oracle has done a great job with the matrix inter-dependencies and patch-up ligation. For example, I just upgraded our Hyperion system so I had to got through all the settings and configurations for databases, browsers, Java, OS, and servers. I, as an administrator, have to have enough technical knowledge to understand all the inter-dependencies.

      That's the advantage of using Oracle's RDMS solution -- we can use other Oracle products.

      What needs improvement?

      It needs a better, less technical interface. I'm not an expert on our RDBMS as we have our own database administrator, so especially on a Linux environment Oracle needs to make progress on the user-friendliness of the UI.

      In my opinion, I've found Microsoft SQL Server to be more user-friendly than Oracle Database. Even though the latter is more complex, more robust, and has more capacity, from a user perspective, especially those who are naive or functional, it needs to be more user-friendly.

      I've asked my DBA to do something for me so I can try to learn from him, but if it were more user-friendly with a more graphical implementation that tells you all the variation criteria and failure messages, that would be much better.

      What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

      We've had no issues deploying it. It's quite simple.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      It's quite stable for being capable of doing so many things. It's powerful, fast, reliable, and secure.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      We have had no issues scaling it for our needs.

      What other advice do I have?

      You should consider whether you're going to go physical or virtual, Windows or Linux, etc. You should do your due diligence and know what you want.

      We decided to put Essbase and Database on Linux. We put everything else on Windows, the reason being that our databases needed more resources and liability. Linux provides more security for databases, and it's a more robust setup for a Linux admin. So be sure to consider this before jumping into an implementation of the Oracle RDBMS solution.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user517677 - PeerSpot reviewer
      it_user517677Senior IT Specialist at a government with 10,001+ employees
      Real User

      Good information.

      it_user516438 - PeerSpot reviewer
      System Architect
      Vendor
      Some of the valuable features are flash back, RMAN, and Oracle secure backup.

      What is most valuable?

      Some of the valuable features are flash back, RMAN, and Oracle secure backup.

      How has it helped my organization?

      It has reduced our backup time.

      What needs improvement?

      I would like to see Oracle support fix issues faster after we log a complaint.

      What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

      I did not encounter any issues with deployment.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      I did not encounter any issues with stability.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      I did not encounter any issues with scalability.

      How are customer service and technical support?

      Customer Service:

      Customer service is very good

      Technical Support:

      Technical support is not very good.

      Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

      We did not evaluate another solution.

      How was the initial setup?

      The setup was easy.

      What about the implementation team?

      We implemented in-house.

      What was our ROI?

      The ROI is unknown.

      Which other solutions did I evaluate?

      We did not evaluate other solutions.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user522111 - PeerSpot reviewer
      ERP Architect at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
      Real User
      Some of the valuable features are Oracle Wallet and Data Guard. We are also using the GRANT feature for high scalability.

      What is most valuable?

      Some of the valuable features are Oracle Wallet and Data Guard. We are also using the GRANT feature for high scalability.

      How has it helped my organization?

      It has helped us in terms of the higher scalability, higher response time, and good performance with the other features. It is also stable.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      The I would give the stability a rating of 8/10.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      It's highly scalable, I would say.

      How are customer service and technical support?

      We did use technical support. You just call Oracle support and they are good.

      Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

      We have been using Oracle database for a long time. We prefer Oracle database, because it is more stable and has lot of support for most of the application. When looking for a vendor, I look to see if it a stable solution, if it has good support, and if the initial installation is well-documented.

      How was the initial setup?

      The setup gets complex sometimes, when you don't use the products that are supported. If I used REL, versus Oracle Linux, you get no support on Oracle Linux, rather than REL.

      We couldn't go for Oracle Linux, because we have everything on REL. That took time to setup.

      Which other solutions did I evaluate?

      We chose Oracle because it has more features than the other products. The integrations points are easy. It is better than many other products because it has better integration.

      What other advice do I have?

      I think they'd need a little bit of training, but once they know the ins and outs, it is more robust. As long they have the training, and understand the basic architecture, and then it is easy to use.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user521847 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Territory Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
      Vendor
      The most valuable features are security and stability.

      What is most valuable?

      The most valuable features are security and stability.

      What needs improvement?

      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.

      For how long have I used the solution?

      We have been using Oracle database for almost 15 years.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      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.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      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.

      How are customer service and technical support?

      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.

      Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

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

      How was the initial setup?

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

      What other advice do I have?

      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.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user515451 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Vice President of Global IT at a logistics company with 5,001-10,000 employees
      Vendor
      It has given us the ability to scale.​ I would like to see lower costs.

      What is most valuable?

      It has given us the ability to scale.

      What needs improvement?

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

      For how long have I used the solution?

      We have been using this solution for three years.

      What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

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

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      It has excellent scalability.

      How are customer service and technical support?

      Customer Service:

      Customer service is very good.

      Technical Support:

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

      Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

      We did not have a solution prior to this one.

      What about the implementation team?

      We implemented this solution in-house.

      What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

      It is expensive.

      Which other solutions did I evaluate?

      We did not evaluate other options.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user436032 - PeerSpot reviewer
      ERP Manager at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
      Vendor
      All our financial data, as well as sales, revenue and all other data is there, and it's easily accessed.

      What is most valuable?

      Our backend Database is for JDE. Complete enterprise system runs on JDE Oracle Database. But the original, older v9 does support JDE the older platform because all our financial data, as well as sales, revenue and all other data is there, and it's easily accessed.

      How has it helped my organization?

      Everything, because we are the customer for database ... all our applications not only JDE, ERP or some third party applicants APK's also have the backend for Oracle. Because of the flexibility as well as performance wise and as well as data volume, we have huge volume stored. So, other databases cannot provide that kind of flexibility.

      What needs improvement?

      Right now, we are very happy. I mean, I don't know what R&D are doing. We are not any looking specifically for anything else. As right now what is available is great.

      So far we didn't find any demerits, I mean false reproductions in the database.

      So, it's running very well for us.

      For how long have I used the solution?

      I've used it for 16 years.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      It's very good because Oracle supports very nice and releases some versions and as well as technical support from Oracle itself is very good.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      There was no issue with scalability. If you talk about database size it can store high volumes of data.

      How is customer service and technical support?

      They are very responsive and as well as knowledgable. If you have any questions or issues, you can search the questions and find the answer yourself, without even talking to a representative. If there is something else they need to know, they call immediately.

      How was the initial setup?

      It's easy.

      What other advice do I have?

      There's no other database that supports us like Oracle. My recommendation is, if you are starting a new system for example, I recommend a backend database because it's a universal support. Any applications you can use in the Oracle Database. For example, if you go for iSeries, it supports only db2. Oracle is not like that. It supports SAP, it supports JDE, it supports any. So, it's a universal database.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user521568 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Principal Software Architect at a transportation company with 501-1,000 employees
      Vendor
      It provides accessibility and speed for retrieving data.

      What is most valuable?

      The most valuable features are it's accessibility and speed for retrieving data that I need, along with the ease of use. That's the most important thing: getting the data out. It’s logical, it makes sense, it’s intuitive.

      How has it helped my organization?

      I'm able to provide analytical data to end users easily, quickly, using a lot of built-in functionalities that the database provides. I don't have to export data to Excel and run a bunch of macros on it in order to get the average column or something like that. The built-ins that they have are helpful.

      What needs improvement?

      The biggest area for improvement for me is the error messaging. When it returns errors, it gives you a number; here's why I can't insert a character into a number field. One of the most annoying things for me is that it says, for example, "Value too large to insert column" but it doesn't tell you, "Okay you know what you're trying to do. Tell me what you're trying to do so that I can go fix it a lot easier".

      So, more information in the error messaging would be nice.

      For how long have I used the solution?

      I've been using Oracle database for more than 30 years.

      I love it. I've been progressing with it ever since. It's nice, it does change a lot every year; there are new features. Oracle's always coming out with new stuff and so it's good; keeps you on your toes, keeps you going to OpenWorld.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      It is always up. If the database is down, it's more likely something to do with the hardware.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      It has scaled well to our needs. We have replication occurring at our office. We use Exadata, and we have clusters. It's replicated across production, dev and two QA instances, so it's nice.

      How is customer service and technical support?

      I really don't have much knowledge about technical support because I never have to really do that. If something did go wrong with the database, that'd be more of a database administrator's function.

      How was the initial setup?

      I was not involved in the initial setup. I'm more of an end user of the database.

      Which other solutions did I evaluate?

      I did not look at any other products before choosing Oracle's database.

      What other advice do I have?

      It's well worth the investment. It might scare you up front because, yes, there are other, less-expensive options out there for your database, but if you plan on building an enterprise application, it's what you have to do. Spend the money.
      I love it; it's the best.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user521886 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Programmer Analyst Team Lead at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
      Real User
      ​The high availability and the performance are the most valuable features.​

      What is most valuable?

      The high availability and the performance are the top-most valuable features.

      How has it helped my organization?

      Because we are servicing the end clients, I need to meet the SLA. The performance is the key prize for us. When a customer comes in and logs into the website, that needs to happen within a few seconds for the SLA. That's how it's helped us; improved performance and, ultimately, gain the customer’s satisfaction.

      What needs improvement?

      Right now, we are on the version that is just one 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.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      It's easy to scale; you can add more memory or more storage if you need to scale. Horizontally, you can add one more node. It's a pretty scalable product.

      How are customer service and technical support?

      We have used technical support when we have had some issues. It's pretty good; a very good support model. You create a service request and they, depending on the priority, call us back. It's pretty good support.

      Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

      I did not previously use a different solution; we've been using this one.

      How was the initial setup?

      Initial setup was complex; it's very complex work.

      Which other solutions did I evaluate?

      We decided to choose this product because it is a very solid, robust product, and because of the better features and so on; that's why.

      What other advice do I have?

      I definitely encourage checking out this solution. Work with Oracle; they're pretty good at coming to your site, giving demos and so on.

      The top-most important criteria when I’m choosing a vendor such as Oracle is the support model and the willingness to work with us.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user522033 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Oracle Exadata /Oracle 12c Multi-Tenant/Oracle Golden Gate Consultant at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
      Real User
      With multi-tenancy, you can set up background processes and memory at the container level.

      What is most valuable?

      The most valuable feature we have found is the multi-tenancy. You can set up background processes and memory at the container level, not at the pluggable level. he second thing is, I can set up a disaster recovery solution for the container database, not at the pluggable level, so that if I have more pluggable databases, I do not need to worry about disaster recovery setup at the pluggable database level. I only have to set it up one time at the containment level. I can reduce my time, effort, cost, everything. I feel this is one of the best features in 12c, multi-tenancy.

      Another valuable feature Oracle has released is the Flex ASM in RAC. In 10g and 11c, if something goes wrong for you with A, some instance, your database will go down. But in 12c, if something goes wrong for you with A, some instance, your database will not go down. You automatically use the next two machines, A, some instance. These are two wonderful features that we have used in database 12c.

      One more very cool feature is called Information Lifecycle Management, ILM. It is one of the best features right now.

      How has it helped my organization?

      Instead of maintaining multiple servers, multiple databases, multiple disaster recovery solution setups for several levels, if you implement the 12c multi-tenancy, I only have to set it up for one container, not for all of the pluggable databases. I can reduce my support, my time, my effort, my cost, my server cost.

      What needs improvement?

      Upgrades.

      For how long have I used the solution?

      We have been using 12c for 10 months.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      We have been using it for the past 10 months. We have not had any stability issues, at all. We updated the PSU patches, just the CPU patches; it's up and running for months.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      We haven’t exactly scaled it right now. Once we upgrade the remaining databases, we can go ahead with scaling it.

      How is customer service and technical support?

      We raised a couple of SR requests with the Oracle team, and they responded quickly. We have successfully upgraded one database to 12c.

      We are really pretty happy. In the coming months, we are going to upgrade three to four databases to 12c. I attended an Oracle OpenWorld conference to get some information about how I can upgrade with nearly zero down time. I was looking for that.

      How was the initial setup?

      Upgrading it is not easy, because application to application could be different architecture. Before upgrading to 12c, we have to go into QA and development, from us to QA and development. Once that is successful, you can go ahead with production. Until now, out of six databases, we have upgraded to 12c on one platform; it was smooth.

      What other advice do I have?

      When you upgrade from 11g to 12c, consider your execution plans. Before upgrading, check it out in the QA and development environments. The third thing is, when you go about upgrading from 11g to 12c, plan how many databases you are going to make as pluggable, and how much memory it requires, and what flat file from exactly you are moving to upgrade. These are the three things you have to keep it mind when it comes to upgrading from 11g to 12c.

      Although it is smooth coming into production, you have to be careful. Until now, it has been very smooth. We didn't raise any issues, but we have raised a couple of SR requests. Oracle has provided a smooth solution.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      PeerSpot user
      Founder at a tech company with 1-10 employees
      Real User
      It's stability means we spend less manpower on buggy maintenance.

      What is most valuable?

      The most valuable feature is the database core in general, of course.

      How has it helped my organization?

      A good DB favors a good solution and also a stable one, so less manpower is spent on buggy maintenance.

      What needs improvement?

      Let us say that Enterprise Manager (Web admin) is an area with room for improvement. I have seen it stop working many times. They say it is improved in Enterprise Manager 13 (released with DB 12c R2).

      For how long have I used the solution?

      I have used it since 1999.

      What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

      It is almost always a perfect install; some small issues here and there; mostly few small pre-configs to be done right before install.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      So far, I have never encountered any stability issues.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      We have not seen any scalability issues so far.

      How are customer service and technical support?

      Customer Service:

      I have not given it a perfect rating because of customer service. It has decreased a little bit in the last decade: more time spent (TAR average) on support than before, and more posts (and time) spent to reach a definitive answer.

      Technical Support:

      Technical support is very good; refer to my answer regarding customer service.

      Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

      We did not previously use a different solution. We have used it until now. We won't switch until Oracle does. :-)

      What about the implementation team?

      An in-house team has implemented it every time.

      What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

      "We're not rich enough to buy cheap things." - English proverb.

      Which other solutions did I evaluate?

      Sure, I have worked with other DBs: MS SQL Server, MySQL, PostGreSQL, etc. are good examples.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      Altin Karaulli - PeerSpot reviewer
      Altin KaraulliFounder at a tech company with 1-10 employees
      Real User

      :-)
      To say the truth, I was not thinking straight on MS SQL, although truly I put it behind Oracle in rank. In my mind I had two main topics that can impact Buggy Maintenance:

      1. Instability of the system - crashes, bugs.... Oracle has many, but others have more. This is translated in more maintenace time.
      2. Lack of features. I recall one time, I was programming in one free RDBMS and it had only few (very few) built-in average functions. Can you imagine your developers spending time to create libraries on such common things ? What about the rest ?

      See all 2 comments
      it_user521931 - PeerSpot reviewer
      IT Analyst at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
      Consultant
      The asset properties feature is the most valuable feature.

      What is most valuable?

      The asset properties feature is the most valuable one since none of the other databases are able to match this particular aspect. This product has the correct way in which asset transactions are being handled.

      What needs improvement?

      There is need for improvement in the Oracle support. We get good support only when we have severity in cases and otherwise it's really tough to get. Thus, they need to improve their support for the lower level programs.

      For example, for the SRS over the weekend, there is no support available. Sometimes what happens is that these things are not business critical but those are the ones that are driving the business; we have to hold that.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      We have not experienced any downtime. It is very stable.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      This product scales well. Exadata, which is giving it, is a powerful machine in regards to storage and so on. For a single instance, we need to have good hardware underneath; only then, it can scale. However, it's doing quite well if we have that.

      How is customer service and technical support?

      Oracle support is really good. If we have some issues, we open a case and we get good support from them.

      What other advice do I have?

      You should use it. I would recommend it.

      I would also recommend to do some certification programs so as to get the best out of this product and get a detailed exposure of the core issues.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user521736 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Master Software Designer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
      Vendor
      It's scalable and easy to figure out. Basic database knowledge should be sufficient.

      What is most valuable?

      The most valuable feature is the scalability of the database.

      How has it helped my organization?

      I see an increase in efficiency and reduction of man hours. There is faster response time on the queries and better performance on them.

      What needs improvement?

      I would like to see improvements with caching. I know there are some technologies within Oracle which could deliver more in-memory caching.

      Which other solutions did I evaluate?

      We looked into Microsoft SQL. We didn't like it nor see it as an enterprise-level solution. Oracle has more features in terms of administration.

      What other advice do I have?

      I would recommend this solution based on the track record, performance, and the support. It's really easy to figure out. I wouldn't think anybody needs any training on it. The basic knowledge of any database should be sufficient.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      PeerSpot user
      Technical Trainer at a non-tech company with 501-1,000 employees
      Vendor
      Container Databases help reduce server sprawl and improve resource management.

      What is most valuable?

      Container Databases (CDBs) help reduce server sprawl and manage resources in a much better way. It's a feature that consolidates all your application data with Oracle database metadata, still keeping a strict role to manage each of them respectively. With the CDBs, it's become easy to deploy, clone and administer Oracle databases.

      Application Continuity simply helps application to be highly available by doing a lot fewer application code changes.

      How has it helped my organization?

      It helped consolidate most of our database servers, and saved annual maintenance costs of up to 23% on physical servers.

      What needs improvement?

      Oracle could provide a few extra features as part of the standard offering in their main license.

      For how long have I used the solution?

      I have used it for a few years.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      It depends on the kind of database solution you are applying, but I have not yet encountered any stability issues.

      How is customer service and technical support?

      Customer Service:

      10/10 MOS Support is actually something you can heavily rely on.

      Technical Support:

      Technical support is 9/10, very proactive and very helpful.

      What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

      Use licensing with caution, read the fine print. :) ?This is an important point and usually it's not skipped by the companies paying for the license. Nonetheless, Oracle supports your applications and database only if Oracle has certified the ?hardware and software that the companies have used to build and deploy their applications and databases on; which basically means that you have to use industry-standard hardware and software.

      It is possible that your hardware is not supported or has been desupported for a specific version of the Oracle product, so just remember to read the fine print before you deploy your applications.

      Which other solutions did I evaluate?

      MS SQL Server was also under consideration, but we had more Oracle DBA's to work with and Oracle’s training requirements were also more favorable.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user501645 - PeerSpot reviewer
      it_user501645Senior Oracle DBA consultant at a government with 10,001+ employees
      Vendor

      There is no doubt that multi-tenant feature is awesome and I have also implemented in my current project or peoplesoft HRMS upgrade , where user always request more DBs during the upgrade path.

      See all 4 comments
      it_user480213 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
      Vendor
      Performance, Durability, Security.

      What is most valuable?

      • Performance
      • Durability
      • Security

      How has it helped my organization?

      For a long time I've been working as a performance tuner for Oracle and Java. The tuning of the performance is very important for me.

      What needs improvement?

      I want the price to be lowered.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      Oracle solutions are the most used, so we don't need to do verification of the product on our own. We can assume that the product's reliability is high enough. Based on Oracle products we are able to run our own developed applications at very high performance levels.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      What we do is that based on a certain understanding about the product speck, based on the maximum transaction we can assume for our businesses, we are going to decide the sizing and then we confirm the capability and we decide the threshold. Then after that we do the scale up. Based on the recent cloud environment, I cannot really say that it's easier for us to do the scale up.

      How is customer service and technical support?

      The people who used to work in Oracle are responsible for the tentative troubleshooting at the 1st stage. Then if we need more further investigation, then we exchange the technical support contract. Based on that agreement they will provide us with support. Once we purchase the product from the Oracle, then they offer the knowledge. The structure of the knowledge is quite well-shaped.

      What other advice do I have?

      For colleagues who are in the financial business and are looking into what kind of product they want to use for their databases - I would recommend using the Oracle Database because in terms of the security and in terms of the audit process it's top notch. When it comes to audits, as long as we say we are using Oracle Database, then they give us a certain assurance. They're confident about it.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user517437 - PeerSpot reviewer
      it_user517437User at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
      Vendor

      The Oracle Performance monitor tool is good for diagnosing performance issues.

      it_user522009 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Database Architect at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
      Vendor
      A combination of stability, scalability and transportability.

      What is most valuable?

      It's stable, scalable, transportable – all of that combined together; it's a reliable platform; more knowledge base; and more pertinent support.

      What needs improvement?

      I think Oracle could provide some more user-friendly, front-end toolsets. Even though it's for techies, that would be nice. I know they have some, but those are all licensed products.

      For how long have I used the solution?

      I have been using Oracle Database for 20 years; a long time; since college.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      Knock on wood, there hasn’t been any downtime to the point that is noticeable, but we do plan downtime to do stuff; it has seldom choked up on us.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      I think it will meet our company’s needs going forward; so far, looking good. 12c has more promise and cloud is the next frontier. Being in healthcare, just being cautious, but I think there are signs they are getting ready to move to the cloud; gradually, not 100%.

      How are customer service and technical support?

      Technical support is good. It should be more direct, but now, it's a little indirect. I still rate them high. When I need them, I can demand and they'll respond. Sometimes, the challenge is the time zone. You have to be careful when you're opening a case; how to make sure you have the right people in the right time zone.

      Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

      This product came in before I joined my current company. I think it was influenced by their ERP system which they brought over in 1998. Lawson recommended running on Oracle.

      How was the initial setup?

      Setup is straightforward, but it requires some knowledge. Otherwise, it will turn out to be complex. It's not like anyone can do it. You have to know what you're doing. That involves training and knowledge transfer.

      What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

      Everything is good but pricing-wise, it's still struggling with that. It's very difficult to justify their costs sometimes in the board room.

      Which other solutions did I evaluate?

      We also use SQL Server, MySQL, and a little bit of MongoDB.

      What other advice do I have?

      I would recommend the products I have experience with. I don't just say yes or no, or give just one or two options; I give you a bit more. I recommend the product I have, Oracle RDBMS Suite. I think they're still trustworthy, if not more.

      When I select working with a vendor like Oracle, I look for the sum of their accomplishments. I don't really go for companies because they have been in business for 50 years. I also look for agility; what they bring; transparency; the offering, of course; what they're bringing in and the ideas behind it. Is it going to be sustainable for five years or more? Is it going to diversify itself across the industry? I rate thsee factors high.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user436146 - PeerSpot reviewer
      President at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
      Consultant
      It has been around forever, so the scalability is the most valuable feature.

      What is most valuable?

      Of course, it has been around forever, so the scalability of Database is, in my experience, the most valuable feature. The fact that there's so many applications written for it is great. We've seen others who have used other databases, but they don't have nearly the suite of applications and APIs to work with as RDBMS has.

      How has it helped my organization?

      It is such a mature product with the ability to handle many things. The newer version, 12c, has some features that people have been asking for. It was the same way going from 10 to 11 to 12, as they always seem to be listening to the customers and adding in some more features that they need.

      What needs improvement?

      With Oracle, the complexity of Database makes it a little bit more cumbersome. You're going to generally have more of a senior DBA to handle the intricacies when you get a large, very high, and intensive database that needs to be up all the time. You have to have a little bit more expertise in there.

      What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

      We've had no issues deploying it, but, again, it requires expert administration from a more senior DBA.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      Usually, you don't see any stability issues, but that really depends on the level of expertise of the DBA handling it.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      There are no scalability issues, so long as the DBA is experienced.

      How was the initial setup?

      The more expertise you have, the more the interfaces and UI become straightforward and easier to use in the initial setup.

      What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

      If you look at the price point with it and how they structure the licensing, it is definitely going to be one of the more expensive ones. You do get everything with it because they throw everything in with the kitchen sink. If they could pare down the solution, then you could just choose the pieces that you want and maybe pricing might be a little bit more along the lines of what customers could use. It is definitely on the more expensive side.

      What other advice do I have?

      In terms of scalability, make sure it's going to be what you need. Know exactly what purpose you're going to be using your database for. I'm one of the few people who knows a lot of different kinds of databases and which is best for what you want to do.

      Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We're partners.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user521868 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Oracle DBA at Roketsan Missiles Inc.
      Real User
      It has had a multiple-concurrent-user control system from the very beginning.

      What is most valuable?

      Oracle Database has had a multiple-concurrent-user control system from the very beginning. Most enterprise database solutions have recently become aware of this. Oracle's approach was the true approach to isolate users. Databases have some isolation levels and some anomalies. Oracle's database has solved them in a very brilliant way. From the beginning, 20 years ago, Oracle solved those problems. It is the most ACID-compliant database.

      It has a multiple-concurrent-user control system, and it is the most ACID-compliant database.

      How has it helped my organization?

      We have the opportunity to easily open service requests and get answers from the professional Oracle teams. We have the advanced customer support team in Turkey. If there is a problem, it is easily and elegantly solved. It adds value; we trust Oracle.

      What needs improvement?

      We have not been using the new release yet, we are running on 11g. We haven’t had much opportunity to deeply examine 12c yet.

      See my comments in the initial setup section.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      Oracle database is stable. When Oracle slows down or if you can't use data, it means you are doing something wrong. The architecture is in the logs, the logging mechanism. If you know how to configure the database, it is impossible for you to lose data. It has the Data Guard disaster solution.

      The Oracle database was first designed by people who left the Central Intelligence Agency. They knew how to implement security in the core of the database. I find it reliable and stable.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      We are using a three-node RAC database; it is highly scalable. If we want to add another node, we just buy the hardware and add it to the RAC system. It is highly scalable.

      How are customer service and technical support?

      When you have Oracle products, you have the right to use the Oracle support. We are able to open service requests. If it is urgent, we can open level-one service request. Somebody calls you and tries to find a solution to your problem. It is very useful.

      Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

      When I was hired by my current company, they were already using the Oracle E-Business Suite, which obviously works with same database.

      How was the initial setup?

      I myself installed the RAC database. I migrated from the old system to the new system with RMAN. We used the Oracle recovery tool to install the RAC and migrate our data to the new RAC system.

      For those parts, to be honest, Oracle Database requires more effort than the other databases. It is a little complex. You have to know what you are doing. With RMAN, recovery, backup and restore - those kinds of operations - are a little bit more difficult than with other databases. You need slightly more manpower to run an Oracle database than the other databases.

      Which other solutions did I evaluate?

      The Microsoft SQL database now has an option to deal with data anomalies, for example, lost updates. Lost updates are a kind of anomaly with consistency. How do you support this with consistency? Those are all design issues. Microsoft has very recently implemented it in their database. There could be some anomalies in the database. You have to enable this option.

      Years and years ago, Oracle already had this implementation designed into their database. I was working at a bank before my current company. The reason why they chose Oracle was the approach to data consistency.

      What other advice do I have?

      Oracle is the most ACID-compliant database, and it is the most professional proficient OLTP database in the world today.

      Look at the prices for additional add-ons. For example, partitioning costs in Oracle are a little high and partitioning is a very powerful tool of Oracle Database. Be aware of that partitioning option.

      Look at the disaster solutions, for example, because that involves a data dump. Look at whether it is SQL compliant or not.

      Determine whether you really need an OLTP database. Oracle Database is an OLTP, ACID-compliant database, and maybe you do not need that; maybe you need some type of document-based database. It depends on how you conduct your business.

      When I am looking at vendors to work with, tech support is very important. We are in Turkey and sometimes it is difficult to find a lot of companies. Oracle is very active in Turkey. In Turkey, the banking and telecommunications sectors are very heavily dependent on technology. Most of them are using Oracle technologies. Sometimes. we can't find support easily.

      We also look for stability, of course.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user521862 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Oracle DBA at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
      Consultant
      We're operating an Oracle RAC system, so we can scale when required.

      What is most valuable?

      It's the only database you can operate at a very high professional level and that offers what the customers need from the product, ACID.

      How has it helped my organization?

      It's a crucial and critical part of our everyday business. That's what it does.

      What needs improvement?

      Real zero-downtime patching, that's what I want.

      When you have a fallback system with RAC and Data Guard, the autonomous help framework could support it, but collecting the logs and reading the logs is still a nightmare. Improving this would be very good. The way Oracle does it today is OK, with in-memory options, with NoSQL database integrated and so on, but it could be a really good feature for the future.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      We have scaled it, but not to a very high extent.

      I think as we start to get into the IT business more and more, we will see how we need it. We are now operating an Oracle RAC system, so we can scale when required.

      How are customer service and technical support?

      Technical support is kind of different because at some point, you reach the point where you can't proceed any further with stand-up processes. You need to have context and background information about the company. We're lucky that we can get in touch directly with the development team. We get help there.

      Normally we have very complex problems when we have them. When we communicate with them using the standard channels, it does not fit. But, as I’ve mentioned, we have the direct line of communication with the development.

      Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

      It's like, how do you decide that you need electricity at home? It’s a given requirement from the business. We've been working with Oracle for many, many years and using the product for many, many versions.

      How was the initial setup?

      We did the initial setup ourselves. We have a huge framework in which we did the complete setup. We installed the clusters. It was not straightforward. For such as huge company like ours, it’s not straightforward. There are too many management processes around and too many specialties in the company.

      Which other solutions did I evaluate?

      We do not have any other vendors on a shortlist at this time.

      We have three flavors of relational databases: MS SQL, Oracle, and MySQL. MySQL should fit the open-source aspect, and then we have two huge relational databases. Therefore, MS SQL is more for the smaller deployment and Oracle is for the huge deployments. SAP release 3 runs on Oracle, too. It was in the company. We didn't decide to use Oracle or not. It was there.

      We just offer it to our customers and they choose. The mission-critical stuff runs on Oracle.

      What other advice do I have?

      It's very professional and there are good structures implemented there. When you are willing to pay, you can get everything. Basically, what you pay for with Oracle is the maturity of the product, and that is something you can rely on.

      Know how Oracle works. They say it's always been like that: you first sell, then you fulfill. You have to know that and that it's okay. You have to know that the new features will not work immediately.

      When we're looking at a vendor like Oracle, we look at two areas. One is the technical part and the other is that it's a huge company. When we have problems, there is a huge organization behind it that can support it. We have a lot of ways to escalate issues. We look for a really huge company with a lot of people with whom we can get in contact. When we go to open-source projects or to smaller projects and we have problems, it's not as easy. Communicating with Oracle is easier to manage.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      PeerSpot user
      Senior Principal Engineer/Architect, Oracle ACE Director at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
      Video Review
      Real User
      Implementing a tiered storage strategy with Heat Map and Automatic Data Optimization features

      What is most valuable?

      So what happened is that today IT is facing a lot of challenges, because the data has grown so fast. They have to find a way to manage the cost, the performance, and the capacity. So that's why we have this strategy called information management: a strategy to manage this data within a reasonable cost.

      Oracle 12C introduced these two new features, called ADO, Automatic Data Management, and Heat Map and combine together to implement information management in the database. We found that it is very useful to implement a tiered storage strategy. Today, we all know that SSD, (which) stands for Solid State Drives, really can help improve database performance by reducing a lot of storage IO bottlenecks. But it is not very cost-effective to put a large amount of non-active data into SSD because they  are not seriously impacting the performance, and also they tend to be in a large volume, and it can be very costly to put them in the SSD. That's why we introduced (the) tiered storage. 

      The idea is we put (the) active data in the tier one storage and put (the) non-active data in the tier two or three storage. We want to use ADO and the Heat Map together, to implement this tiered storage strategy. We found that it's very useful, because these features allow the database administrator to write a policy, and then, this feature will automatically move the data around you don't have to physically copy it, and the feature will do this for you. Your only manual work is to write policies. We already implemented this in one of our tiered storage solutions. We have this one, with the PCI storage, as the tier one storage. We also have the tier two storage using the traditional spinning disk. We used this ADO and Heat Map features to manage the data around the tired storage, and it turned out to work very well.

      What needs improvement?

      So this is a very good tool, but I would like to add some more features. One thing I would think about is that, the database lets me write some new rules. Right now, the data moving is mainly based on how much this tier one storage is full. Like, if 80 percent of full? Then it starts moving the data. What I really want is, based on how much the data has been used. So it's possible to do that, but today, the database administrator has to manual write up the custom solution to check that. So I would like it to allow us to use plain English like, no modification in 30 days, and so instead of writing the complex PL/SQL procedure to do that this is already implemented in data compression. There is another feature for ADO that is to compress data, instead of moving data.

      And it's not moving data. That condition is already implemented in the compression. But I would like to implement the same way in the data movement. Another thing is that right now, currently, when they check data, they only check data the last time the data was used, instead of frequency. So I want to have some way to go and say this data has not been used, has been used only one time, Even data was used yesterday I still want to move, but (according to today’s ADO implementation) even if they use it (data) one time, as long as in recently like yesterday, it is equal to 1000 times usage, (so the data will not be moved.) So I would like to have some way to do that (to tell the difference). 

      Another feature is that this ADO, currently does not apply to multi tenant databases, which is a very important part of a database. I would like to implement that. by adding this feature, to support that (the multitenant database)

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      It's a very, very stable product. It's part of our 12C new features, I didn't see or feel a lot of issues, but I do recommend it because the data moving could serious impact to your database performance - so test it, before you move the production. So this comes to, not exactly how stable the product is, but how stable your rules are.
      If you write the wrong rule, you move the active data to tier two storage, you will suffer your performance. And also, another thing is, when moving data, be careful because all DBAs know that, if you move data across the storage, potentially your index becomes invalidated. Then all your database query will go to the full table scan. Then you actually get a worse problem than ever.

      So ADO, they tried their best to re-enable the indexes. But just be careful because in our experience, it's not 100 percent covered. So my advice is, check that. So after they move, use single query to check the index's status. If you found some index not valid, rebuild it (with) another single command, you can do that. That will ensure that you only get a good part of it, not the issue.

      So the scalability has something to do with how much data you move around, so that's why you need actually scale. You need to have some idea about how much data (to move). You want to schedule a good time window, so that off your peak time, so you can you do data moving. The DBA is the one who knows this most, you need to plan ahead and test it ahead.

      What other advice do I have?

      I would rate it, eight to nine. Because, one of the areas for improvement, for me to write a PL/SQL procedure, that can be implemented for the product. They already have this for compression. Why didn't they implement in the data movement? The writing procedure was not easy to write, yes. I would like to have that, yeah.

      Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We're partners.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user521754 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Sr. Database Consultant at IGT
      Consultant
      It provides reliability, in terms of handling large volumes of data.

      What is most valuable?

      The most valuable feature is how evolved the solution is right now. It's been around for a while, and I think it's been servicing a lot of different use cases. I think it's really stabilized, evolved, and you can actually put it to use in multiple scenarios. It adapts itself just as well to most business use cases.

      I think the best part about Oracle is it keeps evolving. It's not adding any more features to it. There's a big move toward custom cloud services - big databases in the cloud - and obviously there are people with apprehensions in terms of what will happen if that data is shared. They are working towards addressing that issue. They are kind of compartmentalized, and kind of made some of the domains private, to maintain the security for certain critical domains. You still have the power of using the cloud. That's the great thing about it: It keeps evolving. It doesn't stay still. It's very compelling.

      It also provides reliability, in terms of handling large volumes of data. I don't believe there's another database server that people would pick. Given a choice, everybody would like to go with Oracle.

      I think those are the two big features that really stick out.

      How has it helped my organization?

      It has definitely improved the way my organization functions. It's our database management tool. We have a lot of sensitive information. Different business verticals have a lot of sensitive information that they want to reliably preserve somewhere, and also be able to call back upon in a very secure manner. Oracle does just that.

      At the same time, it has a lot of the algorithms where it tries to optimize itself in terms of how fast you can get the data out, and also how fast you can write to it as well. I think it's definitely improved and provides benefits to the industry; not just for the gaming industry that I'm part of, but generally for all verticals in the business world. As I’ve mentioned, it’s the database of choice for most business verticals.

      What needs improvement?

      I’d like to see them include a certain amount of intuitiveness in the optimization of the queries, and the algorithms for that could be better. There's still room for improvement in those areas.

      One of the things that is also mentioned about Oracle is that with the RAC architecture, the storage is shared, and that sometimes becomes contentional. It's not so much the processing on the nodes; it's the data processing that becomes a point of contention sometimes – if they could do something so we can customize the RAC in some way, and also implement sharing, something along the lines of what Perl OOP has, where the storage is also exclusive to the nodes. I'm sure something like that can be brought in. Having mentioned that, I'm pretty sure they're already researching into it. That's something from my experience that can be improved.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      I don't think you would pick another database for stability; for financial data, or anything related to money transactions, where you want to reliably store data, and you don't want to lose any data. You don't want to try to save something in the database and then go in the next day and not have it, obviously. Oracle is right up there in terms of stability.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      Obviously, the scalability factor was increased with the Oracle Real Application Clusters (RACs). You have multiple instances of Oracle, with the shared storage, so you can spawn multiple processes to do large volume data lifting. You don't want to rely on one instance alone. You don't want to load that one node alone. It can do everything. You can spread it across nodes. The RAC solution gives you that.

      In terms of the data scalability itself, if you don't want a shared storage, you have solutions such as Exadata. It provides very good storage and gives you great performance.

      In all respects, Oracle on all fronts is doing great, including scalability. I don't see any issues with it right now. As I’ve mentioned, the great thing about the product is that it keeps evolving and tries to improve.

      I think it's great to have those features.

      How are customer service and technical support?

      Technical support is a little sketchy. It depends on who you get on any particular day. Oracle is a worldwide organization, so I guess there are certain sections that are not really well covered, in terms of building up a knowledgebase, and trying to go back and see how a problem was solved in the past, which should be an easy thing to do.

      I think sometimes it comes down to doing that: going back, looking at the issue you are reporting, determining whether you've faced it before, and what the solution was. If there isn't a solution and if this issue hasn't been reported earlier, then be intuitive about it. That part was missing in the few instances where I've had the opportunity to call support.

      As I’ve mentioned, it’s a worldwide organization. They're available around the clock, covering different time zones. All those aspects are covered. I think a little more intuitiveness in the solutioning for the support issues would go a long way in improving the experience.

      Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

      We previously used plenty of solutions. Oracle was an easy choice. If cost is not a constraint, I would recommend Oracle ten times out of ten.

      How was the initial setup?

      Setup is never straightforward. It's a pretty complex piece. I have actually overseen it, but it's mainly the database administrators, the DBAs, who actually worked on it. They do come back and work closely with us architects and engineers, in terms of how to best configure the infrastructure.

      I wouldn't say that it is straightforward, but at the same time, it's been done so many times, there are so many use cases to fall back on. I'm pretty sure that if you get stuck somewhere, you will get the knowledge base, go back and get past that issue that you're facing at that moment.

      It's all down to being so evolved. Oracle has been around for a while, so you have those benefits.

      Which other solutions did I evaluate?

      We moved from another solution, knowing the history of Oracle. We earlier conceptualized to be on Informix. Informix was one of the options we really considered. There wasn't much of innovation happening in Informix. It was more legacy. I think that is a reason why we moved to another database system that is more active with more innovation covering different aspects: scalability, data volume management and those kinds of things. At that point, Informix was definitely the only other option. Subsequently, we looked at other solutions such as MySQL for cost purposes, but having explored each of those, they don't really match up with Oracle for me; the scalability, the data volume management, those features, along with the reliability. There's a lot of hand-holding support that needs to go into those products to be able to match what Oracle offers.

      What other advice do I have?

      In terms of data security and reliability, if that is of paramount importance, I would definitely suggest Oracle. If cost becomes a factor, in terms of the licensing models I’ve mentioned, then probably I would recommend a cheaper solution - maybe even open source - but that comes with a tradeoff of the data not being reliable.

      For financial institutions, financial organizations, you would not want to put your data at risk. I think it's tradeoff with those aspects when making your choice.

      The most important criteria when I’m looking at a vendor such as Oracle are the support and licensing. I look at the licensing model, in terms of whether there are certain things that they can do to support a company like ours, who've been engaging with them for so long. We have different business models. If they can offer some licensing options that would be more attractive to meet those business models, maybe offer some innovative solutions, that's something that I would look for.

      In terms of the support aspects I’ve already mentioned, there are specific business use cases we're trying to solve, and not just rely on the knowledge base that's already accumulated.

      Those are some of the things I look for.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user463047 - PeerSpot reviewer
      it_user463047Digital Marketing Executive at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
      Vendor

      I like the post. With lots of great features, there are few chances of data corruption in Oracle database.

      We faced the corruption issue in our organisation. Stellar Phoenix Oracle Database Recovery software repaired the corrupt database. Read more about this software from here: http://www.stellarinfo.com/database-recovery/oracle-recovery.php

      it_user521907 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Senior Solutions Architect at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
      Vendor
      Our customers are interested in the high availability features.

      Valuable Features

      Especially with Oracle, you have the high availability features. That specifically is very interesting to customers. When it comes to DR, I don't use high availability. Nonetheless, according to different strategies, it also provides features such as recovery, not the same as production, in different formats. That's a good feature about Oracle.

      Room for Improvement

      I provide disaster recovery services; they should look at how to recover production systems during disaster recovery. They are not focusing on that. They don't do that.

      I’m in this industry doing recoveries. I don’t see an feature to easily recover all of the databases, especially RAC systems. That’s where they could come up with some kind of snapshots or technology that would make recovery easy.

      Stability Issues

      The stability is completely amazing. It's been the industry standard for many years, so it is very stable.

      Scalability Issues

      As far as scalability, we can go from two nodes to I don't know, maybe 256 nodes. We can scale out, scale up and so on.

      Customer Service and Technical Support

      Technical support used to be not that great, but they are changing. They used to follow the Sun model. They are changing; it's better now.

      Initial Setup

      They have developed automated systems. You don’t do anything. Basically, you turn it on and it brings up all of your stuff. It's easy to use.

      Other Solutions Considered

      When they look at databases, I don't think people look at any other vendors. You have only Microsoft and IBM DB2, but they are not that good. No one goes with them now.

      Other Advice

      I think when it comes to the product, the mindset is switching. Oracle is like a legacy RDBMS. People are switching to open systems. We have all of the new SQL databases, with no license costs. Especially if you also look at cloud solutions, that's where I think you need to have NoSQL or the latest technologies. That’s where they need to focus.

      I'm not an end user of Oracle. We don't run any products on it. We have thousands of customers, and they come to us for disaster recovery. That's our business. We use all of the database solutions. In a previous life, I was an Oracle DBA, and I know what it can be used for. It can store large amounts of data. You can do all sorts of RDBMS data features and it’s the industry standard; there is no other database that can compare to Oracle.

      When I’m choosing a vendor such as Oracle, I look at the licensing; other costs; and the help from technical support and even from sales. Sales people say yes to everything, except when it comes to implementation. It shouldn’t be that way.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user521667 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Software Developer at a security firm with 501-1,000 employees
      Vendor
      The small things that it does compared to the free alternatives are valuable. Its optimization could be improved.

      What is most valuable?

      I can't think of any specific features that are the most valuable, but all the small things that Oracle does compared to the free alternatives, such as MySQL, are valuable. I do appreciate having that power to do it. Even though 90% percent of the time I don't use those features, it's nice to have them should I need them.

      How has it helped my organization?

      It actually kind of fractured our organization. Half of us use Oracle for some things and the other half use MySQL for the other. I really don't care; I use both. We use Oracle a lot for authentication. I can't think of anything specific that is all that great about it. I'm not bashing Oracle, I just can't think of anything. I can't think of anything that makes me think, “Oh, we have to have it.”

      What needs improvement?

      I can't think of any but I know my manager was unhappy with certain features that we use, but we had to pay for those features along with a bunch of other ones that we didn't use. He wanted an option to not bundle a lot of the features. Other than that, I don't know the specifics about what he was talking about.

      It's got a lot of good features, but at the same time sometimes certain niche things aren't mentioned. Some things break and I don't know why. Then when I Google it, there are thousands of reasons why they break, so it takes me a while to really pinpoint why. Its optimization could be improved a little bit, but it's good for the most part.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      It's very stable, we've had no problems with that.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      For the most part, as long as you do your research and don't screw up your table structures, I don't have any scalability problems.

      How are customer service and technical support?

      I haven't used technical support; every issue I've run into I've been able to Google it and figure it out. I haven't had to call in or anything.

      Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

      I believe we used MySQL for a while, it was free and that was the only reason we were using it. It wasn't the most stable, it was a little slow, and it doesn't scale as well, so we decided to go with a more professional solution.

      Which other solutions did I evaluate?

      I don't know why we chose Oracle, but I know we were debating between Oracle, MongoDB, and PostgreSQL. For whatever reason, I'm not sure why my manager went with Oracle, but we did.

      What other advice do I have?

      Take cost into consideration and pick whichever really suits your needs. Every single database has its strong and weak points. I wouldn't say it's an end-all, be-all solution, but it just happens to work for us.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user521589 - PeerSpot reviewer
      DBA at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
      Consultant
      PCI compliance, high availability, and high performance are the features I most appreciate.

      Valuable Features

      I think that Oracle today is the most powerful relational database, especially for PCI compliance, high availability, and high performance. Those are the Oracle database features I most appreciate.

      Room for Improvement

      I am waiting for Oracle to provide an interface between NoSQL and the Oracle database, so I don't have to go deeply into NoSQL. I just need to have an interface between them; to use SQL language to check that NoSQL or Hadoop is not down, and so-on.

      Use of Solution

      We have been using it for more than 15 years.

      Stability Issues

      The most important down time you can have for developers is when we upgrade from one version to another.

      Otherwise, we have not had any stability issues, especially with 10g or 11g.

      It's a very, very strong database.

      Scalability Issues

      It is scalable, especially with RAC. We can add more had more processors on the machine and through Oracle, I can use only part of the CPU on the server, so I don't have to pay too much.

      Customer Service and Technical Support

      Technical support is good, very good. It's a little bit expensive, but very efficient.

      Initial Setup

      Initial setup is not difficult. For me, it's very easy, because I have a lot of experience on it.

      The important thing with Oracle is that everywhere you go on Google, you see a million people have experienced the same problem. You always have something when you have an issue.

      Other Advice

      You should buy this solution. That's what I'm saying, in my company, a very big company. Every time someone asks, that’s what I say, because I'm involved with Oracle a lot. That's normal.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user521571 - PeerSpot reviewer
      IT Manager / Chapter Lead for DEV Content BE at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees
      Real User
      It works well in Solaris in a UNIX system.

      Valuable Features

      I like the fact it works the most. It's reliable; it works well in Solaris in a UNIX system; that’s the most valuable feature.

      Room for Improvement

      The price is where it can be improved. It should be cheaper. Then, it would be more accessible to everybody because right now, it's actually only accessible for big corporations. If you want to try and do it yourself, it's not very easy.

      I know there is the free version, but it's very limited with the amount of memory and CPU power that you can use, which is, again, very limited if you want to do something more heavy.

      Also, I'm not sure how the good the support for JSON is because I know that you can push JSON directly to PostgreSQL and some other databases. I'm not sure that Oracle supports it. I know that Oracle is really a relational database. It's always relations and SQL but now there's a move to more SQL databases and document storage, something like that would also be very useful. I'm not sure how actually feasible that is.

      Use of Solution

      I have been using it since 2006, with a three-year break when I was working at a company that didn’t use it.

      Stability Issues

      It didn’t crash; it was reliable.

      Scalability Issues

      I was never involved in scaling it because I've always been involved with the software part. However, I heard that scaling it is not that easy and that you really need a special guy to do it. It's not really out of the box as it should be. That's at least what I was told, but, again, I never really touched it.

      The most situations where I used it, we didn't use clusters or anything. It was usually master-slave or only just master. In those cases, it worked well for us.

      Customer Service and Technical Support

      I only touched the online support and it's really not very useful because it's very difficult to find what you're looking for. Whenever I tried to actually find something for myself, it didn't really work well.

      Initial Setup

      The last time I set it up was a long time ago. As far as I remember, it was straightforward. It was just, Next, Next, Next and that was it. I don't remember whether there was filling out a lot of fields. I was only putting it on a development machine. I didn't put it in production. That was someone else. Even if something crashed, I could just do it again without any problems.

      Other Advice

      It all depends. If you want something out of the box that will work, then Oracle is a good solution. If you want to pack it with a bit more and actually do some customization and all these kind of things, then I think that MySQL is much better; MariaDB as well; also, PostgreSQL.

      If you're actually looking for a relational database, then that would be that. If you're more interested in NoSQL databases, document storage, then I would recommend MongoDB, Cassandra, and those kinds of things. Again, it really depends from what's your use case.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user521796 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Associate Director at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
      Real User
      Some features enable cloud technology. Technical support gets a high rating.

      Valuable Features

      It's probably one of the rapidly expanding database technologies in the world and has one of the best feature sets that an RDBMS can provide.

      There are a lot of Oracle MR features that are pretty much unique in the database world. Some of them are pretty outstanding, especially those that enable cloud technology.

      Room for Improvement

      Everybody wants things to be faster and faster, so speed is one thing that probably they can improve.

      Use of Solution

      I have been using it for more than 20 years.

      Stability Issues

      It is very stable; I have not found any issues.

      Scalability Issues

      It is scalable; it will meet the company’s needs going forward.

      Customer Service and Technical Support

      On a scale of one to five, with five being the highest, I would say technical support is around five. They’re good.

      Initial Setup

      The upgrades are straightforward. I haven't seen any issues. It has been getting better, especially with these newer versions; especially with 11g and 12c. Of course, with 12c, it's much better.

      Other Advice

      When I select working with a vendor such as Oracle, they have to be reliable, with a good reputation. They have to have a good support organization. They have to be cheap, fast and scalable.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user522024 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Programmer at Royal Oman Police
      Vendor
      The search and security features are valuable.

      Valuable Features

      The most valuable feature is the searching; it takes less time to search.

      The security is also valuable.

      Improvements to My Organization

      Many organizations in my country use Oracle, so it's for us to communicate between our systems and other systems. We don't need, for example, some behind-the-scenes or in-between integration, or some other integration program.

      Room for Improvement

      I have a problem with Windows. It doesn't work so well; it's difficult. It's not as easy as SQL Server. For example, if I want to publish, or if I want my clients to work with Oracle database, I need to install Oracle clients. It's annoying. It's for security.

      Sometimes I have difficulty with its Arabic support. It doesn't work so well in Arabic, in all of the versions we use. We need to go to the Analyze link to choose Arabic.

      Stability Issues

      It goes down sometimes; sometimes it is not as stable. It is 90% stable, 10% unstable.

      Scalability Issues

      It is scalable; it is better.

      Customer Service and Technical Support

      We have not used technical support.

      Sometimes when we run into difficulties, I have found some answers by searching on the web.

      Initial Setup

      Other teams perform the initial setup. It goes smoothly but we do have problems, as I’ve mentioned; sometimes we have difficulty with Windows. We need to install it many times. Sometimes, we need to reformat the PCs, and reinstall Windows.

      Other Advice

      Determine how the Oracle database will be used in your organization. For example, if you want to build a new system, and you want your system to connect with another system, to another organization, you must use Oracle, because the other organization uses Oracle, and it is easy to communicate with it.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user75741 - PeerSpot reviewer
      IT Admin at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
      Consultant
      The data miner automates creating and testing several models. The warehouse builder offers the best data modeling implementation tools for multi-dimensional schema.

      What is most valuable?

      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

      How has it helped my organization?

      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.

      What needs improvement?

      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.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      I regularly encounter stability issues.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      I regularly encounter scalability issues.

      How are customer service and technical support?

      I rate technical support 9/10.

      Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

      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.

      How was the initial setup?

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

      Which other solutions did I evaluate?

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

      What other advice do I have?

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

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user516453 - PeerSpot reviewer
      it_user516453User at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
      Real User

      Hope Oracle is meeting all your business needs and feel free to get in touch

      See all 3 comments
      PeerSpot user
      Manager Database Administration at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
      Vendor
      The Active Data Guard feature provides the comfort of routing reporting requirements to a standby site while at the same time redoing the application.

      What is most valuable?

      Active Data Guard: This feature is useful for all organizations, I believe, as it provides you the comfort of routing your reporting requirements to a standby site while at the same time redo application is done.

      Tablespace Encryption: This feature helps in protecting your data whenever you share it. It prevents unrestricted access to data, no matter whether you are DBA or OS guy.

      Data Masking: This feature helps in hiding the confidential information from unauthorized users, such as customer phone#, email, account balance, credit card#, etc.

      Database Replay

      How has it helped my organization?

      Active Data Guard has been pretty handy in managing the real-time reporting requirements from our core systems. Tablespace Encryption has also been very helpful in implementing security to ensure that our data is secured.

      What needs improvement?

      Data Guard: We face issues while configuring standby sites using Data Guard. The error messages reported do not match with the actual reason for failure. So, proper error logging should be developed so that users can reach the exact root cause.

      For how long have I used the solution?

      I have used it for five years.

      What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

      I did not encounter any deployment issues.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      I did not encounter any stability issues.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      I did not encounter any scalability issues.

      How are customer service and technical support?

      Customer Service:

      I rate customer service 6.5/10.

      Technical Support:

      I rate technical support 6.5/10. The reason for such a low rating is that we are located in Asia and whenever we open a SR during daytime, it is routed to an Indian engineer who doesn't provide a lot of support. However, when I open a SR during nighttime, we are assigned some American engineer who helps in resolving the issue pretty promptly. So I think Oracle needs to look into this. It’s my opinion only.

      Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

      We have been using Oracle from day one.

      How was the initial setup?

      Installation is pretty simple and user friendly.

      What about the implementation team?

      In-house implementation.

      What was our ROI?

      That’s pretty much financial stuff myself being a DBA can't answer. However, when Oracle is keeping things up and running, then ROI would be good.

      What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

      License cost for Oracle Database and other products seems to be on the higher side, but even then, more than half of the market is captured by Oracle.

      Which other solutions did I evaluate?

      We evaluated MS SQL Server.

      What other advice do I have?

      Just go for it and explore its features. You will find a pretty easy way to manage your routine tasks.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user517437 - PeerSpot reviewer
      it_user517437User at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
      Vendor

      I agree that active data guard is very useful

      See all 3 comments
      it_user489099 - PeerSpot reviewer
      DB Admin with 5,001-10,000 employees
      Vendor
      Multitenant Architecture reduces operating cost and it could lead to license cost savings depending on the aggregation of DBs.

      What is most valuable?

      The most valuable feature of the product for me is the Oracle MTA (Multitenant Architecture) because it can reduce dramatically the operating costs. And, it could lead to license cost savings depending on the aggregation of DBs.

      First is operating cost down. There is a lot administrative work, even if there is only one DB, such as backup, tuning, monitoring and patching. DB Integration with MTA contributes to reducing operating costs. Using Oracle MTA, we can operate above actions to multiple database with just one operation. So we can reduce operating cost.

      Second is license cost down. With Oracle MTA, we can reduce license cost. Because we can integrate MTA server(s) from a lot of Oracle servers.

      How has it helped my organization?

      Using MTA, the development environment can be easily prepared. Efficient maintenance such as patching and backup to multiple environments can be carried out in a single operation. Also it can be easily migrated to the cloud environment.

      In the same user, it is suitable in the test and development environment. And it is also suitable for databases with large numbers of environments.

      For how long have I used the solution?

      I have used this solution for over 13 years of pre-sales activities as engineer of Oracle products in the company-wide organization. Recently, I'm in charge of DB security, DB In-Memory, Multitenant and Oracle Cloud.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      I did encounter issues with stability. But it was the first release (12.1.0.1). Now, MTA is quite stable at the latest version.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      We didn't encounter any issues with scalability. We can use MTA and RAC (Real Application Clusters) in combination, so it can also meet scalability requirements.

      Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

      Previously, instance consolidation and schema integration was the mainstream. However, instance consolidation can consume a lot of resources, and schema consolidation entails a cost for application modification. MTA has resolved these challenges.

      How was the initial setup?

      Although the setup itself is not significantly different, we needed a little consideration to configure multitenant designs, such as security settings and operation design.

      What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

      High DB consolidation ratio leads to reduced license costs, regardless of the Enterprise Edition and Oracle multitenant option license. In addition, running costs should be considered.

      There is a lot administrative work, even if there is only one DB, such as backup, tuning, monitoring and patching. DB Integration with MTA contributes to reducing operating costs.

      Which other solutions did I evaluate?

      We did not evaluate other options, because there are no other options. Oracle Multitenant is the only option.

      What other advice do I have?

      The current optimal use case is test and development environment. If you would like to use MTA in advance, you can check it out on Oracle Cloud (PaaS). Because Oracle Cloud can be used as a prepaid system, you can try a variety of optional features without caring about the license costs.

      Oracle Database is the industry standard product for a long time. This has been achieved precisely they provide what the customers really want in every new version.

      Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: My company is an Oracle Platinum Partner.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user436152 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Chief, Application Management Branch at a government with 501-1,000 employees
      Vendor
      We appreciate the fact that Oracle Database is the industry standard for RDBMS solutions.

      Valuable Features

      We like and appreciate the fact that Database is the industry standard for RDBMS solutions. Because of this, we know that the product is constantly being developed and improved in terms of functionalities and stability. It's very stable and a very secure place to store data.

      Improvements to My Organization

      We know that it's an investment that gives us peace of mind. It's mature and has a broad community of users.

      Room for Improvement

      There are a lot of features that I'm just not sure of yet in their ability to provide us value. I'd like to try a rack implementation and a replication-type software, though I'm not sure of their ability to add value. A more specific area of improvement, would be in technical support. It needs to be better, especially for Oracle's flagship product.

      Use of Solution

      I've been working with it since the 90s, going back to 733.

      Deployment Issues

      We don't have any issues deploying it.

      Stability Issues

      We haven't had any issues with crashing or downtimes or anything due to the product. It's been very stable, and there's not really even a thought of it being unstable.

      Scalability Issues

      Some of our bigger projects that are non-E-Business Suite, like SAP implementations, go up to five terabyte databases and there no problems scaling there. We've had no issues with inability to scale.

      Customer Service and Technical Support

      Technical support is definitely challenging as they are not always the most forthcoming with information, nor are they the most highly-trained techs when you open SRs. There have definitely been issues there, especially compared to the costs that you pay for the support.

      Other Advice

      There's always room for improvement, but we're happy overall.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user426513 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Consultant at a recruiting/HR firm with 501-1,000 employees
      Vendor
      11g: Vertical scaling is the most valuable feature for us. What needs to improve is the real-time query response.

      Valuable Features

      Vertical scaling is the most valuable feature for us in our use of it with version 11g.

      Improvements to My Organization

      For the company, the greatest improvement came with the integration and higher availability of data. We need to track our customers' needs, and the data with Big Data Solutions is now stored and used to get end user reports via QlikView.

      Room for Improvement

      What needs to improve is the real-time query response. We will be changing the Database over to SSD soon, which will improve those response times.

      Use of Solution

      We are using an IBM AIX POWER machine with Oracle 11g. We want to upgrade Oracle Database to 12c.

      Deployment Issues

      There were no issues with the deployment.

      Stability Issues

      We have had no issues with the stability.

      Scalability Issues

      We've had no issues scaling it.

      Customer Service and Technical Support

      Oracle and IBM often come into the office to discuss the situation and any current issues. We also get help with our teams who operate the systems.

      Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:
      PeerSpot user
      it_user486519 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Computer Specialist at a consultancy with 501-1,000 employees
      Consultant
      The Autolink login is an important feature in the environment that we are in now.

      Valuable Features

      The Autolink login is an important feature in the environment that we are in now. The product can also handle any size data, which is valuable because we have a variety of differently sized databases. There is a lot of support for the product and a lot of customizable features and build-ons.

      Room for Improvement

      The addition of a feature that better manages auditing and tuning would be useful for us. There are tuning features available already, but I am not yet skilled in those, so I don’t know if they are improvements, and currently, this is one of my biggest challenges.

      Use of Solution

      We have used Oracle Database for about 20 years.

      Stability Issues

      I have not had that many problems with stability over the years. I have found one bug personally, but other than that the Database has been pretty clean.

      Scalability Issues

      There are many different options for scaling. You can scale to whatever size you want by adding hardware, partitioning your data, or using some of Oracle’s different technologies.

      Customer Service and Technical Support

      There is a good knowledge base within the community of Oracle users that you can search to find information about your issues. You can often just Google search problems too.

      If you submit a ticket with Oracle, they have a support system. While we get good support on our tickets, it can be challenging. Sometimes the support team disagrees with what you want to do and tells you to work in a different way. They also get frustrated with undocumented features, and if you have written code that you were not supposed to that runs in the current release, it could be prohibited in an additional release, forcing you to rewrite your code.

      Initial Setup

      We have not had any major problems with upgrading. Like I said in regards to technical support, sometimes you have to do some recoding, but for the most part, upgrades have been pretty smooth. If your work is vanilla, you are fine. If you are trying to do some of the cutting edge stuff, there can be issues.

      Other Advice

      Make sure you know what pieces you need, since Oracle has a lot of components and add-ons that you can buy. Also, make sure you know what you are going to do with the product before you buy it, and research the marketplace to see if it is the best product for your needs. While there are many options, Oracle is recognized as one of the leaders in the marketplace. You just have to see if it is worth the money for what you want to do with it. I would rate it an eight out of ten.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user486513 - PeerSpot reviewer
      General Manager at Grupo luthe
      Vendor
      The most valuable feature is security.

      Valuable Features

      The most valuable feature is security; you do not lose information.

      Improvements to My Organization

      As a result of using the Oracle Database, users are confident that the information is correct. It doesn't get corrupted, it doesn't get lost, and you can always access it and find it. Before clients used the Database, they used spreadsheets and needed to do a lot of crosschecking between documents to see if operations were valid. After starting with the database and realizing that the information there is always correct, teams start to be more productive, since they don’t have to spend that time crosschecking.

      Use of Solution

      We've been using it for more than ten years and it really works well.

      Stability Issues

      It never crashes, so we can have it running for months. It's amazing for the customer because they don't even know it's running. After some time, they forget that there is a database behind them.

      Scalability Issues

      We have clients that started with one user and now are running up to 200 users. It’s the same version with bigger hardware. It’s amazing the way the database can scale.

      Customer Service and Technical Support

      Usually response is very good. We have had to escalate issues a few times, but normally it’s fixable.

      Initial Setup

      It doesn't matter which version you are using or how you deploy it. It will have the same scripts and the same configuration, regardless of size and complexity.

      Other Solutions Considered

      We have compared it with Microsoft and IBM, and this is a ten out of ten.

      Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: ISV
      PeerSpot user
      it_user486543 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Systems Engineer, Crew Escape & Life Support F35 Lightning Ii at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
      Real User
      It has been stable. We don’t have much downtime.

      Improvements to My Organization

      It helps us to manage and run the company.

      Room for Improvement

      As a developer, I use the reporting side. We need a better reporting tool with some kind of data warehouse capability. We are happy with the product, though, and are just looking for new features. Most of the time we end up using any additional features they provide.

      Use of Solution

      We have used the product for twelve years.

      Stability Issues

      It has been stable for all of our twelve years of use. We don’t have much downtime. The product is really good.

      Scalability Issues

      It meets our scalability requirements right now.

      Customer Service and Technical Support

      We are quite happy with the support we get.

      Initial Setup

      We haven’t experienced any problems regarding product upgrades. We follow a very systematic approach so that we don’t have downtime.

      Other Advice

      We are a big company, and we are satisfied. I think it is a good product. I would give it an eight out of ten.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user486582 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Senior ERP Developer at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
      Vendor
      We have our students, HR, payroll and financial all in one database.

      Valuable Features

      You can do just about anything with Oracle Database.

      Improvements to My Organization

      We use it for everything. We have our students, HR, payroll and financial all in one database.

      Room for Improvement

      We use a third party software called illusion banner on top of the customization that we have, so we wait for their improvements or do customization ourselves.

      Use of Solution

      I have been using the product for 14 years. I started with Oracle 7.

      Stability Issues

      I have never had an issue with stability.

      Scalability Issues

      It needs to be scaled based on how you're using the app.

      Customer Service and Technical Support

      I have reported few bugs. They do good job, and there are often solutions available on the Internet.

      Initial Setup

      We have downtime during upgrades that can last from hours to days. The last database update took two or three days.

      Other Advice

      All I can say is to trust Oracle. I would rate it a ten out of ten.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user516453 - PeerSpot reviewer
      it_user516453User at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
      Real User

      ok great, you are using best of breed RDBMS technology

      it_user486525 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Sr. Oracle Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
      Consultant
      Helps you store and root through data as fast as possible.

      Valuable Features

      Oracle Database helps you store and root through data as fast as possible, which is really valuable to our organization. In addition, while I can do everything I would like to with the product, if there is something that is not possible in the current version, you can build your own features.

      Improvements to My Organization

      The expansiveness of the Oracle Database has been beneficial. You can find more than you could ever think of in the product, which increases business efficiencies by returning information to you quickly and allowing you to do work in the database that you would otherwise have to do in a different application.

      Room for Improvement

      The product could have more persistent data types, like Boolean and the simple features in MySQL and most databases.

      Stability Issues

      It is so stable that I have this mantra: “If you have not crushed the server you have not been trying hard enough.” I have not crushed it in a long while. It is really stable.

      Scalability Issues

      It scales very well.

      Customer Service and Technical Support

      It is pretty good. They always ask the same questions about log files, so since we already know what they are going to be asking, it’s pretty fast. Most of the time they come up with solutions really quickly.

      Other Advice

      Do as much as you can in the database. It is the fastest product you can have, when working with data. The product is an eight out of ten.

      Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
      PeerSpot user
      it_user486549 - PeerSpot reviewer
      President & Founder at OraPub, Inc.
      Consultant
      The most valuable feature is the high concurrency in terms of transactions.

      Valuable Features:

      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.

      Improvements to My Organization:

      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.

      Room for Improvement:

      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.

      Use of Solution:

      We have been using the product since 1989.

      Stability Issues:

      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.

      Scalability Issues:

      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.

      Initial Setup:

      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.

      Other Advice:

      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.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      DBA at a university
      Real User
      ​Usability is the biggest value.

      Valuable Features:

      Usability is the biggest value of Oracle Database.

      Improvements to My Organization:

      Compared to the previous version, this version has really improved in terms of the speed.

      Room for Improvement:

      We want Oracle to specify the differences between the two versions, the former version and the newer version and how it is linked. 

      Not only with one version differences but older versions as well since there are people who are using much older versions. If they are able to clarify what the difference is between the latest one and those older versions, and if they are able to offer us the easier method for the migration, then we would appreciate it.

      Stability Issues:

      Even if we encounter any problems, then there's a strong definition of how we are able to improve the situation and resolve the situation. We are able to do the backup beforehand by referring to those defined resolutions from the Oracle, and if we are able to have the two systems, then even if one fails, we are able to use the other one, so we are able to prevent problems.

      Scalability Issues:

      In comparison to other more simple structure databases, I consider the Oracle Database to be more scalable, as well as easiness to export from an external system.

      Other Advice:

      For people who are thinking about introducing Oracle Databases - they need to have knowledge beforehand about how to operate the databases in terms of security, and how to respond to the failures.


      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user480726 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Analyst at a tech services company
      Consultant
      The reference information which is available is helpful if I encounter problems.

      Valuable Features

      There are many use cases for the Oracle Database and if I encounter any problems, there's information available which I can reference.

      Improvements to My Organization

      We are the ones who are developing the system and delivering it to our customers, so it does indirectly benefit our organization from this perspective. The fact that we are able to leverage the available information that I mentioned earlier, means we are able to make sure that development is successful.

      Room for Improvement

      The response speed of the support as well as lowering the price.

      Stability Issues

      In comparison with other commercial databases, it's more stable but there are many challenges that we feel should be corrected.

      Scalability Issues

      For us, there are not so many cases that require scalability.

      Customer Service and Technical Support

      I think it takes longer because we're in Japan and if we have a problem then we need to pass the information to the US and it takes them time to respond.

      Initial Setup

      Relatively speaking it's easy.

      Other Advice

      Oracle is the number one product I recommend as long as the customer has sufficient budget.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user
      it_user516681 - PeerSpot reviewer
      it_user516681User at a tech company with 51-200 employees
      Vendor

      I have been using Oracle for 20 years and it is by far the best database I know.

      it_user480216 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Developer at a tech services company
      Consultant
      The Japanese documentation is quite important for us.

      Valuable Features:

      I'm not using a lot of different Oracle Database functions, but for us, the fact that they have a documentation in Japanese is quite important. It's quite easy for us to find what we want to do. We wish that the community in the Japanese language would become more activate in the future.

      Improvements to My Organization:

      The benefit that we get from using the Oracle Database is the sense of security or the stability.

      Room for Improvement:

      Others would be better fit to answer this, but I hope that the product will improve in terms of usability (user-friendliness).

      Stability Issues:

      After the release we need to do a performance tuning, so we need to figure out what we can do for the visualization for the performance tuning. We wish that Oracle could offer this as a product so that we are able to easily start using it. 

      Initial Setup:

      No, but I was involved partially when we developed the environment of the Oracle Database. At that time I had the impression that it was not so difficult, it was rather smooth.

      Other Solutions Considered:

      We compared it to other competitors. In the end, the end-user is the one to select which product they want to use. What we can offer is that in terms of the security or in terms of the share, how many companies are using it, which big names are using the Oracle product?

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
      PeerSpot user