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it_user240024 - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Director at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Aug 16, 2017
The Database Consolidation Workbench provides a flexible approach for various customer scenarios.
Pros and Cons
  • "It is a comprehensive, end-to-end solution for managing database consolidation, something that has been missing and difficult to do."
  • "It needs to support the Database versions lower than 10.2."

What is most valuable?

It is a comprehensive, end-to-end solution for managing database consolidation, something that has been missing and difficult to do. The Database Consolidation Workbench provides a risk-free and accurate approach to consolidation by eliminating guess work and human errors. Most of the errors that lead to severe issues in production environments are due to poor sizing of the configuration and so-called “educated guesses”. The Workbench provides a flexible approach for various customer scenarios: every environment is unique and several scenarios are possible.

How has it helped my organization?

Database consolidation has been for years a tedious process for many clients. The benefits are enormous. By using the Database Consolidation Workbench, companies achieve the following:

  • Reduce complexity
  • Improve efficiency
  • Lower costs
  • Better security
  • Better monitoring
  • Harmonized backups and easier restore
  • Better performance
  • Simplify maintenance
  • Fewer servers in fewer locations
  • Harmonized environment

What needs improvement?

It needs to support the Database versions lower than 10.2.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the Database Consolidation Workbench since its release with OEM 13c. I am even going to give two keynote speeches over the next month at Oracle conferences in Europe. The subject is of major interest to both business professionals and technical resources.

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Oracle Enterprise Manager
December 2025
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What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

We've had no issues with deployment.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We've had no issues with the stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There have been no issues scaling it for our needs.

How are customer service and support?

10/10

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

We used just spreadsheets and common-sense practices, which were often doomed to fail. The solution provided now by Oracle covers the last missing piece of the complete set-up when consolidating databases. One can think of Database Consolidation Workbench OEM 13c as the “Holy Grail” of Database Consolidation.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was more than straightforward. It's easy to set up, configure, and use.

What was our ROI?

Reasons to upgrade to Enterprise Manager 13.2: https://blogs.oracle.com/oem/e...

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

It is part of Real Application Testing, so no new investment is necessary for clients who already are already using RAT.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

There are no products available that can be compared with Database Consolidation Workbench. Not even close.

What other advice do I have?

This is one of the most important additions to Oracle Enterprise Manager from both the business perspective and DBA point-of-view. Start first with upgrading OEM 11g or 12c to 13c as the Database Consolidation Workbench was introduced first in Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 13c as part of the Real Application Testing option. Run different scenarios within different projects in order to pick the best strategy. Always validate at the end.

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: Beta tester, diamond partner, and close collaborator with Oracle development.
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it_user515583 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Database Analyst at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Jul 31, 2017
Some of the valuable features are Database Management, SQL Tuning, and Performance Management.

What is most valuable?

Database Management, SQL Tuning, Performance Management, SQL Monitoring, Performance Tuning Pack, SQL Diagnostic Pack, ADDM, AWR, and real time SQL monitoring.

What needs improvement?

it would be helpful if OEM is integrated with OBIEE reports and free report viewer without a license.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using the overall OEM for over eight years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

There were no deployment issues.

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

We used DBArtisan, Embarcadero technologies, and Quest tools.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Oracle Enterprise Manager
December 2025
Learn what your peers think about Oracle Enterprise Manager. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2025.
880,315 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user521883 - PeerSpot reviewer
DB Manager at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
MSP
Jul 31, 2017
we have a thousand databases and the way you can get to the metrics, quickly figure out the ETA to fix a problem, these are the things that I love.
Pros and Cons
  • "I think the look and feel and the accessibility to the databases, the scale of environment support."
  • "We could use it but definitely with some effort we can streamline much better and sometimes some box here and there, like 13C you have to really wait, but there are great features. Just have to make sure it is a stable product."

What is most valuable?

I think the look and feel and the accessibility to the databases, the scale of environment support. Ours is basically like a hosting company and we have a thousand databases and the way you can get to the metrics, quickly figure out the ETA to fix a problem, these are the things that I love.

How has it helped my organization?

As I said, ours is a hosting company. We host a lot of customer environments in our data center and pretty much the alerting mechanism and the deviates stay on top of things with using the ... applying patches, for example.

We can do things on the fly and templates and the monitoring, the way the alerts kick in. We can pretty much make generic and customize based on customer needs and it takes less deviate time I would say, even down time or when you want to set those blackouts when you are working without the teams. It is pretty straightforward.

What needs improvement?

I think maybe we have to streamline further. It is just that everything out of the box. It is not really...

We could use it but definitely with some effort we can streamline much better and sometimes some box here and there, like 13C you have to really wait, but there are great features. Just have to make sure it is a stable product.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

No.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No.

How is customer service and technical support?

Yeah, sometimes we see little things that are getting dragged with Oracle support and all that. I think overall they are fine.

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

I think training is not required unless you are really low rating all the great features. I would recommend getting them certified, OEM certification, 12C certification. That would help.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Quest products is one that I can think of.

Quest I don't think looks it at such a larger scale and we integrated Oracle's OEM service now and that also helps us. We liked the internal views which pretty much covers all the environments, also the OEM internal which captures the database. We call that database repository.

What other advice do I have?

I would definitely recommend it. Yeah, just get the stable product right now, 12C, and probably 6 months down the line I could even recommend 13C.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
it_user515430 - PeerSpot reviewer
Works at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Jul 30, 2017
Allows you to manage databases via groups. Performance tuning tools need improvement.

What is most valuable?

  • Managing databases via groups
  • Running AWR and ADDM reports is simple and quick.
  • Performance graphs are good to share with application teams and database users.

How has it helped my organization?

Warnings and alerts are sent to the primary DBA.  Primary DBAs address the alerts in a timely manner, instead of waiting for it to become an issue.

What needs improvement?

Performance tuning tools need improvement.  

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this for five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The system has minimal issues with stability. The system has about 1500 databases currently.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There are no issues with scalability. the system is stable with about 1500 databases.

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

The software was acquired as part of merger.

What about the implementation team?

Software was acquired via a merger and was already online. Our databases were added to the system.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
it_user515322 - PeerSpot reviewer
Works at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Jul 30, 2017
Valuable features include SQLrun and the performance page.

What is most valuable?

Valuable features include SQLrun and the performance page.

How has it helped my organization?

It has helped us in terms of automated switch-over and fail-over.

What needs improvement?

The SQLrun sometimes does not work, and it crashes most of the time.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this for two years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

There were no issues with deployment.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

There were no issues with stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There were no issues with scalability.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

Customer service is good.

Technical Support:

Technical support is very good.

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

We did not use a solution previous to this one.

How was the initial setup?

The setup was straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

The implementation was done in-house.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
it_user515415 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Oracle DBA at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Vendor
Jul 25, 2017
One of the valuable features is performance drill down.

What is most valuable?

One of the valuable features is performance drill down.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see drill-down tabs.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this for eight years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

There were no issues with deployment.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

There were no issues with stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There were no issues with scalability.

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

We did not use a previous solution.

What about the implementation team?

The implementation was done in-house.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
it_user436065 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Director at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
Jun 25, 2017
It makes it very easy for us to manage our infrastructure.

What is most valuable?

I think the fact that I can manage all of our infrastructure, all the hardware and software, from one place which makes it very useful.

How has it helped my organization?

It makes it very easy for us to manage our infrastructure so that's important from a company perspective.

What needs improvement?

It's very expensive.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I think it's fine, there's no issue there.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I think it's fine, there's no issue there.

How was the initial setup?

It's implemented just fine. It's fairly easy. Combination of an easy product and also technical expertise as well.

What other advice do I have?

It's very expensive.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. We're partners.
PeerSpot user
it_user522195 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Oracle DBA at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Vendor
Mar 31, 2017
You can plug into the solution and you can perform any sort of operation with one click of a button.

What is most valuable?

This is a very good Oracle tool which enables us to incorporate all the databases throughout our environment, set up several rules and even monitor from there. We can perform a lot of operations. If you have small databases you can plug into the OEM, and you can perform any sort of operation with one click of a button. That makes it more convenient and makes life easier than logging into each database separately.

You can set the rules so that every time you have several maintenance activities you don't need to go to each database and do the same work again and again. Instead you can create jobs in the OEM and you can also create groups, like production, development, performance and environment. All these environments you can club together so that you can perform several operations based on environment-specific criteria.

When you need to perform activities like purging and archiving, this can be done easily and you can even do backups which is a tedious activity. If you have the right description monitor, just click on the buttons in the OEM so that you can fire up the backups everyday at a specific time. It can even alert us by email if by any chance the backup fails and you can just log in to a particular mission and check why it failed.

It's a very easy way of maintaining all the databases instead of wasting time on the regular day to day tasks. You can use your time productively, instead of investing time on these mundane tasks. That way it helps us a lot.

What needs improvement?

It could improve in some areas like the screen. It's not so clear for the novice, when a new person looks at the screen he/she may not really understand where to start first. They could make that process a little easier, so that even a novice who starts using it can at least have the basic idea what to do.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using the product for almost six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable of course, it's from Oracle.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's scalable depending on the way you build it. From the base configuration itself the server capacity and the installation, you have a number of targets, say 0-10, 10-250, 250-1000. Based on your company's requirement you have to install and configure those so that it will be scalable throughout that time period. You will also require enough memory, CPU cards for supporting those targets.

How is customer service and technical support?

I would rate the support as 8/10. Once they start responding on the tickets, they'll definitely take you to the solution.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend it. There are a lot of people who like to write scripts and stuff. If they are comfortable writing scripts then definitely they could use it. But many things can be done which cannot be done through scripting. I would recommend you give it a try. Definitely once you give it a try you will like using it.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Oracle Enterprise Manager Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: December 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Oracle Enterprise Manager Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.