Oracle Enterprise Manager Reviews

It monitors our database environment, which is very critical for our environment.

We are going to minimize the downtime. If the system is down, it will page us; and we're going to get to that issue. Its a very added advantage. It also tells us when the system is running slow; if some people are experiencing performance issues, we can see that. It's a very useful graphical user interface for the management to understand.

We want to see some of the official licensed products, the other core components that come inside so plug-ins are made easy for us.

They've got to integrate more into the network inside. They've got to integrate more depth and provide a solutions for that. The storage system monitoring is really a little basic. They just give the symptoms, not the solutions. That's the bad thing.

The stability is good. So far, it's running perfect, so there are no complaints about it.

I think this product doesn't have to scale much because it just monitors the database. We're keeping about one year's worth of work. We can scale according to the storage.

We were using hand grown scripts as our previous solution. This has a nice GUI interface, and all that, and that's the reason we went with this.

We didn't consider much because we didn't have any competitor for that here. We do have another product called Ignite. We were using it, and we used it also linked with this one; but they were home grown scripts we had.

It's a simple straightforward tool to install. We did it 6 years ago, and we keep upgrading the work instructions. It's perfectly fine.

There is online documentation. He has to go look around and see what he can get, and then implement it if he wants to.

It basically provides a transformation for the company to go into the product line application. It gives better and faster data to the management in order to review the data quickly.

Using this product, we have improved our process for generating revenue and sending out invoices to our customers. It also enables us to track our engineers' time correctly.

We are expecting new functionality in the billing aspect. In respect to the engineering sector, there is a need to include the performance part in the management side.

Still, there are lot of improvements that need to take place. For example, we are expecting basically a vertical solution for the engineering industry in terms of federal and department transportation solutions. We are expecting this in the product. Right now, there is no such type of product with which you can generate this solution.

This product is around 80 percent stable; 20 percent we are working on enhancing the product.

I would rate the level of this product’s scalability at a 8/10.

It basically avails of a wide range of data, which it can pull together in one dashboard and present this data to the management in a quicker manner. This is the only scalable aspect in the product.

We have used Oracle Advanced Customer Service and found them to be helpful. They supported our product.

We are transmitting from one ERP to another ERP, so the people need to be supported. Basically, Oracle advised us since it is the same product.

After which, we moved to EBS for future data support. They created a custom solution since we are unable to apply the patches or anything, so then we moved to this product.

It is a complex product, in its methodology of how to pull the data together and then how to copy it. The other reason is the process as to how we need to send it to our customers, for timely invoicing without any backlogs.

The reason why we chose this vendor is because they were familiar with the product now, and they gave a better judgement of the product itself.

Oracle is more flexible and you can convert it as per your business. That is why we have this solution. Whereas in other ERP products like SAP, we cannot customize the product and we need to use what exactly they provide.

We are going to see how it is helping the organization. That is the way we are going to do research.

I think what I really like in this product is that DBAs and my management development team don’t have to sit and manually write queries.

It has a graphical interface, which makes it handy for you to monitor the databases and that is the most useful feature.

You can manage many databases at the same time.

You don't have to write ad-hoc queries. Initially, my DBAs used to write scripts which were manual. So, running the scripts, writing them and trying to figure out what we want to monitor was a very difficult process. With OEM, you have all of this in the inbuilt interface, which really helped them in adding new databases in the main that we must monitor.

As the number of databases increased, it was fast for us to start monitoring them as well.

One of the big problems we had was using Data Guard along with OEM; it just didn’t work (Data Guard is a local higher level solution). Every time we did a takeover, it would stop working, so that was the biggest challenge we had. I think that this has been probably fixed in Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 13c.

We had issues in terms of stability. Some of the functionalities, which we were looking for, were not available. It's not that it wasn't working, but it wasn't able to meet all our requirements.

Stability, as far as it was in a test environment, we did find a few issues. This was in Oracle Database 11g and it would just hang our systems. Thus, we didn't let it go to production.

We have Oracle Advanced Customer Support in our company. Using it was easy. It's just that product had a few issues in certain scenarios.

Oracle recommended it to us: "Everybody is using it out there, so use it!"

It was straightforward. We had to install a server on the database side and GUI on the client side; it was quite straightforward.

Based on our experience, if you are looking for a certain type of requirement, it would work.

The main requirement for us was stability since we run machine-critical applications.

Resiliency is really the main requirement from our side, even beyond scalability.

We run a company that provides services for banks and financial institutions, and resiliency is the most important factor, especially for a product like OEM. Security is equally important but for OEM, we don't really expose anything, so it's fine. It's more of a monitoring interface.

You can monitor your database thoroughly. Some valuable features of this product are checking your SQL executions and how the SQLs are progressing in terms of any blocks or contention in the database. In other words, you can monitor the entire progress of your database per millisecond.

It benefits our organization by identifying the problem immediately and rectifying it. So, the user doesn't have to bear any sort of impact.

Some of the features that need improvement are increased monitoring at the operating system and storage levels, without having a plugin. At the Oracle level, improvements can be done by providing minute details in regards to SQLs.

The product is stable 99.9% of the time, but there are a few issues that need to be improved. I have noted that these issues are generally updated in a later version of the product, as and when it is released.

Oracle does provide some plugins. However, if these can be provided with the Oracle Enterprise Manager software itself, there is a scope for scalability. In addition, increased monitoring at the storage level and the OS level can really help.

The technical support is not always 100% up to the mark or sometimes not as we expect it to be.

At times, they (the customer support team) take more time to respond or we don't get the desired response/solution from their end and then we have to keep tracking them.

We have always been using this product.

The setup is simple and not complex. I find that it has improved with later versions that are being released.

The setup process used to take much longer than it does now and I hope that this will be enhanced in the future.

We have not evaluated any other product besides Oracle, as it suits our product best.

Stability and responsiveness are the two major factors while choosing a product. Right now, response time is the most critical aspect for our organization and that is what we need.

If you database scalability is more or if your infrastructure is as big as the product we have, Oracle is the only solution out there. There are other competitors, but they are all NoSQL database tools. Thus, Oracle stands out.

We haven't fully utilized it yet on a day-to-day basis, but we will put more into it. We do see patching is going to be a big improvement. Day to day, I think we are at 20 percent for now, but that number will increase.

Support definitely can be improved; documentation and support. The documentation is convoluted, very confusing.

I have been using it for four years.

It's stable, so far.

So far, it's okay; it scales.

The support is not good for this product. The enterprise system that I have is kind of complex. Support is very basic; they don't have someone who really is savvy.

Initial setup is okay. It's 50/50.

My company choose to use this product because I can see that it's going to be more aligned with the technology, with the cloud. It's more robust, and we can see it's going to be an essential product for IT.

When I’m deciding whether to work with a vendor such as Oracle, I look for kind of a mix that includes reliability and strategic too: How does it fit into the enterprise system?

I recommend Oracle Enterprise Manager.

The GUI interface for monitoring and managing databases is the most valuable feature.

The automated alerts tell me when I have an issue before a user calls. They are proactive.

We use it mostly for the connection to the databases. It could be the version I'm on, but we seem a little limited on what we can do for monitoring for the middleware.

No stability issues.

So far, it has scaled well for our needs.

Most of the time, when we open a ticket, we are happy with the resolution and the timing of the response. We've had a few incidents where they immediately say, “Maybe you should upgrade.” That usually kind of sets me off. It's like, why don't you listen to the entire thing before you immediately tell me to upgrade? Overall yes, no issues with that.

We looked at Spotlight. It was just too expensive, so we stuck with Oracle.

Go to training first. We did it the other way around: We tried to figure it out, and then go to training. That’s fine, as long as there isn’t a big gap between when you're going to implement it, and when you've been trained. We probably would have saved a lot of angst and issues if we were properly trained first.

Our biggest issue is learning all the features. There are more bells and whistles than we're probably using; getting familiar with the capabilities, and then actually being able to execute them.

I'm happy with it. I think we're not leveraging it enough, but for what we use it for, it's perfect.

It provides a graphical interface and easy management. It's not very cumbersome. The new versions of Oracle, 12c and 13c, have user-friendly graphical interfaces, compared to older versions, where it was very cluttered. You could not figure out where to go at all.

They have developed a cloud version, but the Oracle data is very limited; not very large scale data. It's mostly for process data and structure data. I would like to see something along the lines of big data in combination with RDBMS; that would be good.

I have been using it for a very long time.

It has been stable up until now; no downtime.

I don't think it is that scalable. We are using multiple nodes, and we have faced issues there, with the scaling.

At times, technical support is very good; at times, it's very bad. It just depends on who you get on a particular day.

Response time is good; someone gets back to you quickly.

Setup is good; really easy.

If someone came to me and asked my opinion, I would recommend this product.

The most valuable feature is the performance monitoring. This is one single-point dashboard, which presents the health of the database, at a particular point in real time. It helps you see which queries are running, and the top file sessions that are running. That helps you accurately identify what is bogging down the system.

That top session, which is chewing up CPU resources and memory, helps you see if it is doing the right thing, using the right indexes, using the best EXPLAIN PLAN. If everything is all good, maybe that tells you the box’s resources is not enough. However, 90% of the time, there are bad queries, rogue queries; it provides ample opportunities to queue.

Thanks to this tool, it helps us drill down, get to the bottom of the problem really quickly. Quick identification of a problem is key. Once the problem is identified, then you have other tools to figure out how to make this query run fast.

There are nice features like the hash report and AWR codes. At the click of a button, on the fly, you can generate these reports, which tell you exactly at the time of the clicking the health of the database; how well or how bad it is running. That is what the business is looking at from the DB. DB is like a doctor. They want the cure. They want to know what is the problem for the disease. This helps us identify the health of the database in real time, fast.

The main benefit is the quickness; the speed at which you identify, diagnose and resolve problems. The old-fashioned way depends on the DBA’s manual skills. It would take him forever, if we were to go the legacy route. This is nice, like a MRI scan. That helps. It is very fast; the queries are faster, the work gets done faster, you generate the reports faster, you are able to deliver how well the company's doing faster.

You can talk about the different features in IT, but at the end of the day, what it boils down to, what matters to management when they come into the office is that they want to look at the reports. They want to see how well their business is doing. These tools help make sure these queries are done well, so that you generate more reports, more quickly, so that management knows about the health of their company early and fast. That helps them slice and dice this information, and arrive at meaningful, logical conclusions to how well they want to run their business.

As it is, this product has so many features. We have yet to explore its full potential. There is one feature that tells you how long the query has been running. It would be nice if they could introduce a GUI feature in the performance monitoring section that shows when the query will finish. We can see when it started by looking at the session history. People are looking at you to tell them when will it finish. It would be nice if there is a GUI feature that tells you the start and the finish times. That way you can set the right expectations.

The product is very stable and doesn't take up a lot of resources. We have seen products that work well in the short-term, but that cause more harm. What was supposed to be a small footprint, ends up chewing up all the box’s resources, whereas that's not the case with this product.

There are times when you have to troubleshoot during the height of a crisis, when the box is already busy, and the chances are you are inflicting more pain. Nonetheless, this product still works very well, despite how busy the box is, because of the small footprint. Meaning, it doesn't take up a lot of resources. With fewer resources, it strives to get the job done.

Technical support is excellent. They get back to us really fast, if there is an issue. Also, there are tons of material out there on the Oracle support website. 90% of the time, you can get the answers very simply, without the need to reach a physical person to guide you to resolve your issues.

We had other solutions such as Toad and Spotlight, but once we saw this, there was no going back. It was pretty good. It's a one-point destination; one umbrella. It has so much to offer. Basically, if someone were to start using this product, they will not deviate. It has so much potential, honestly.

Initial setup is very straightforward. It is very easy to install and configure. It is also easy to migrate to different platforms. It is easy to fix if it is broken. It's not rocket science. I have seen other products where, once it is broken, it is broken; you have to do it properly from scratch. That's not the case here. With simple fixes, you can be back in business and running.

We were considering going with Quest Central and couple of other vendors, but being a big Oracle shop, it made sense. Sticking with one vendor made sense, so that we can get a better offer on the pricing. Considering Oracle is the database, it is no wonder the product has more insight into the database functioning. That's why we chose this solution.

My high rating reflects its ease of use and that it contains a host of features, anything and everything a database administrator would want it to perform; all the way from creating a database to adding space, to performance monitoring, to back up and recovery, to exports and imports, and security. You name it, they have it.

Cloud is the big buzzword. The reason why companies are moving from on-prem to cloud is cost-cutting. IT companies knowingly or unknowingly have spent top dollars on IT, but the thought process is changing. It all boils down to cost-cutting. Basically, the IT companies want to continue to do the same great stuff but with low costs, so that they can pass the benefit to the investors. I would say, cost. At the end of the day, cost is the most important criteria when I am considering working with a vendor. If you can bring down the cost, there is nothing else like that.

I strongly recommend using this product. This is going to make your life easy, so that you can use whatever time you save for better things in life.