Muhammad Asif Ashraf - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Development Lead at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 10
Straightforward to install with good technical support and good stability
Pros and Cons
  • "We've been pleased with the level of technical support."
  • "The pricing of the product could be better. It's a bit high."

What is our primary use case?

The solution is primarily used for the ESB. When we want to integrate applications with each other, they want to communicate with each other, we use this. If one application wants to send a message to some other applications. It's used for transformation and integration.

What is most valuable?

The solution is very stable.

The scalability is very good. 

The installation is quite straightforward. 

We've been pleased with the level of technical support.

What needs improvement?

The pricing of the product could be better. It's a bit high.

For how long have I used the solution?

We started using the solution around 2014. We've used it for quite a few years now. It's been a while. 

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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is very good. If a company needs to expand it, it can do so. It's not a problem.

Due to the fact that the solution is technical, there are not that many people on it. We are only a few specialized people that work on this ESB. In development, there are around five to seven people. They are a mix of engineers, managers, and admins.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support has been good. We're satisfied with the level of service on offer. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is very straightforward and simple. It's not overly complex or difficult to implement.

In our systems, we install it for our local development. It's easy for us. It takes minutes to install it. The deployment process is quick.

We have five or six technical people that can handle deployment and maintenance tasks.

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

The pricing could be better.

We pay for the solution on a yearly basis. 

What other advice do I have?

The product is a part of the Fusion Middleware. We have the full suite including the SOA and WebLogic.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten.

If a company wants to go to the Oracle stack, I'd recommend this solution. If a company wants to use it, it should first evaluate their requirements and whether they need to expand or if they have the capacity.

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.
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Integration Lead (SME) at a comms service provider with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Top 20
Great support for multiple protocol technologies and web services as well as file-based integration
Pros and Cons
  • "Supports multiple protocol technologies and web services."
  • "Lacks sufficient cloud compatibility."

What is our primary use case?

I use Service Bus to integrate multiple applications at an enterprise level. I work in the telecom sector and we integrate multiple applications and build PRM and CRM inventory systems. We are customers of Oracle and I'm the integration lead. 

What is most valuable?

Service Bus supports multiple protocol technologies and web services as well as file-based integration. It's very good in JMS-based integration. Nowadays, web service calls are based on SOAP and REST. Service Bus integrates well with different types of these supported protocols and systems. It's great in XML web service integration although REST and JSON formats are more in use these days. 

What needs improvement?

Service Bus lacks two main elements. The first is accessibility with the REST services and JSON. These are things that are generally available in most of the APIs address space nowadays. The second would be improved cloud compatibility. Oracle sometimes lags behind when it comes to newer formats.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for 10 years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Service Bus is quite stable. If you implement it according to the guidelines, then I think it's a very stable product and provides good performance. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution does not support auto-scaling. Nowadays, you have Kubernetes for containerization. It can scale up and down based on the load and volume and is better than Service Bus. We have around 10 people using Service bus; the technical team, an engineer, and mid-level developers. 

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is very helpful and generally knowledgeable. Occasionally you get someone who is less knowledgeable but most of the time, they're great.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is relatively simple and straightforward. It's not difficult for a layman to implement, especially the cluster environment. Deployment in an enterprise-level environment requires some experience because there are some complexities. If you're implementing without having modeled the threading effectively, the service performance is reduced. It's not a product limitation, but more about how you implement it. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

The main difference I see between Service Bus and other solutions is the cloud. The newer products coming out are cloud-native. Service Bus lacks that because it was not initially on the cloud. It needs to be more cloud-native. 

What other advice do I have?

This is a very stable and good product to use. It's essential to have sufficient knowledge around implementation and to deal with thread work management to get better performance. A lot comes with experience but before implementing, it's worth going to Oracle and studying the recommendations around implementation and integration. 

Some improvements are needed around some of the latest technologies and trends, so I rate this solution eight out of 10.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Works at Global Markets Strategic Sales - Data & AI
User
Top 20
Good reporting and visualizations but is very expensive
Pros and Cons
  • "There are always continuous improvements that are happening."
  • "It would be ideal if they could optimize it a bit."

What is our primary use case?

It becomes the platform for all managed file transfers. If you're looking at a high-speed managed file transfer or solution around that, it becomes a basic layer, or especially in use cases in payment gateways, or API-based types of solutions, probably this becomes a default there.

What is most valuable?

The solution will provide a visual view of your total process, which is where, and why it is stuck somewhere and probably where it is. You gain a real-time understanding of where the process is. The reporting around what is happening and if it is stuck, where it is stuck, and what actions to be taken is useful.

Overall, the solution is quite good and has lots of great features. There are always continuous improvements that are happening. 

What needs improvement?

The solution is quite expensive. 

It would be ideal if they could optimize it a bit. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've worked with Oracle for the last seven-and-a-half years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Any new deployment I've seen has been stable. It's not a problem. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable. I've seen banking institutions use it and scale it quite well. 

How are customer service and support?

If we are putting this up on the cloud, now they've released something similar to a support cost. They have to give us yearly support. You can actually buy the cloud credits probably if somebody wants to be on the cloud. However, normally you will get support, yearly support. What they've done is you buy back that support using Oracle cloud. With the cloud, you don't need support the way you do with the on-prem models. Support contracts are offered yearly with an annual subscription. 

When you need support, you raise a ticket. It's very simple. You follow up and send the logs. It's a long process. People may sometimes try to take Oracle Consulting Services which can also help with various types of things.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup process depends on project to project, however, typically, everything is paid for. Probably if you want to sell something, everything which is currently being sold in Oracle is specific to the cloud. If they want to move their on-prem to cloud, or they have services, free services, lift and shift services, and of course open-source. You name it and within a month maybe, or three months, depending on the type of job but other than that, everything is costed. Basically, everything, whatever resources you have to buy from Oracle is available and can be taken care of.

Any maintenance requirements are related to whatever package the client decides on. 

What about the implementation team?

Oracle can deploy engineers to help with the deployment. 

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

This is a very, very expensive solution. It will cost a company a lot. 

It only is available on-premises; it is not subscription-based. These are perpetual licenses. Whether you take it to the cloud or not, with Oracle, you have to pay perpetual licensing. Oracle does not have the cloud as a subscription model.

What other advice do I have?

This was a company that was acquired earlier, from DevLogic. Now people are asking for microservices-based architecture which currently is not an option. Especially, they use SOA services. Everything is not microservices-based architecture today. People who have been in banks, telcos, finance companies, even the government, those who have been using it for a long time, are the people probably who are the target audience right now. However, in the future, people are looking at types of services with architecture systems, which currently, SOA is not.

I'd rate the solution 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.
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PabloVerdina - PeerSpot reviewer
Sales Manager/ VBM at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
MSP
Provides robust integration capabilities and extensive features but comes with a higher price tag and complexity in deployment and maintenance
Pros and Cons
  • "The stability is consistently high, with only one notable issue encountered."
  • "There is significant room for improvement in the monitoring capabilities."

What is our primary use case?

The use case involves tasks such as determining the appropriate licensing size, collaborating on firewall projects, and constructing the infrastructure to support the product. In most cases, I focused on integrating Oracle Service Bus to address issues, primarily with local ISPs and one ISP in Colombia. For larger projects covering all offices in Colombia, as well as two or three other projects, my involvement extended to local ISPs in Buenos Aires, specifically with Firecorp, a service provider catering to various companies within the country.

How has it helped my organization?

Enhanced error-handling capabilities significantly boosted the reliability of our application, preventing crashes and ensuring high availability. For context, when dealing with critical services requiring 24/7 availability, we would often implement geographic replication and active-active modes. This setup ensured continuous operation, with one system seamlessly taking over in case of downtime. While automated processes are feasible today, we relied on monitoring tools to confirm operational status. Upon detection of any issues, the system would automatically switch to an alternate data center. Our architectural approach varied based on project requirements, prioritizing resilience and continuity. The distinction between traffic replication and backup lies in the time needed for restoration. By adhering to proper processes, both methods yield similar outcomes, with the primary difference being the time required for recovery.

It aids in ensuring compliance with industry standards and protocols, although I'm uncertain whether the server comes with any preconfigured compliance settings. In my experience, I've been involved in PCI compliance and SOX compliance for large companies, and while considering the brand is essential, compliance configuration often extends beyond the software running on the network. Compliance efforts primarily focus on securing access and safeguarding information within servers or databases, rather than on individual software tools.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature for addressing data transformation requirements varies depending on the different layers involved in an IT project. My expertise primarily lies in infrastructure aspects. Therefore, it's important to consider various factors such as project size, focus, and the hardware being utilized, along with its configuration. For instance, when discussing infrastructure, noteworthy features would include ICI or NSX, STM, and essentially anything related to ensuring optimal performance and cost-effectiveness while considering the overall impact on the budget.

What needs improvement?

There is significant room for improvement in the monitoring capabilities. Enhancing this aspect of our monitoring process is essential for effectively pinpointing the root cause of issues accurately and resolving issues in our system.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with it for approximately eight years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is consistently high, with only one notable issue encountered. I would rate it nine out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

While it offers high scalability, it also presents a challenge due to its complexity. Our user base ranges from five thousand to thirty thousand, with one particular department in Argentina boasting over fifty thousand users, since it's one of the government departments. I would rate it seven out of ten.

How are customer service and support?

We've contacted tech support a few times, and the experience has generally been satisfactory. Regarding issue resolution and root cause analysis, I would rate it nine out of ten. However, when it comes to the time taken to escalate to the appropriate engineer with the necessary expertise, I would rate it five out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

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

I've been involved in numerous projects spanning over twenty-five years. My experience ranges from implementing SAP solutions to integrating various data sources and operating systems. I've managed nationwide deployments using remote desktop solutions and utilized SQL Server extensively. Throughout my career, I've worked with diverse technology brands, databases, and operating systems, including hardware components from Cisco, and storage solutions from NetApp, EMC, and HP. While I haven't directly compared Oracle with other ESP products, one noticeable difference is pricing. Oracle products tend to be higher-priced options, which may impact budget considerations. Additionally, while Oracle offers robust features, it often requires a larger team of skilled professionals to manage effectively, which can further affect costs.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is complex.

What about the implementation team?

The number of people involved in deployment varies depending on the project's scale, ranging from one for smaller projects to four or five for larger ones. In my experience, significant deployments often entail multiple profiles. For instance, in the database aspect of a major project, installation, configuration, testing, and tuning phases are crucial. This process typically spans several stages, with additional tuning iterations even after transitioning to production.

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

The pricing is on the higher side. I would rate it ten out of ten.

What other advice do I have?

My recommendation varies greatly depending on the specific context. Factors such as budget constraints, available personnel for system management, and geographical location play significant roles. It's crucial to consider the unique challenges and resources available in each country or region. For instance, hiring local talent in countries like Argentina, Brazil, or Colombia may present different challenges and salary considerations compared to the UK. Overall, I would rate it seven out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Implementer
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Senior Manager Enterprise Architecture at a individual & family service with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Valuable monitoring feature that tracks UI development
Pros and Cons
  • "Monitoring feature that allows tracking of the web's UI development."
  • "Security features can be improved to better protect the server."

What is our primary use case?

The middleware provides the service from our core banking and manages the equipment from the satellite system to the core banking SMS or to any other system. Any system can communicate to another system through the solution.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the monitoring feature, where we can track the web's UI development.

What needs improvement?

The tracing. Some unknown errors will sometimes happen and the error message isn't clear. The security process to protect the servers also needs improvement. Sometimes, you need to open the whole project and complete another setup in the server, then hurry back and go through the service application to complete the security setup. If Oracle SB had one button to complete this process in one step, it would be better.

For the next update, I'd like to see event-driven architecture.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Oracle Service Bus for five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's easy to scale mostly from the Oracle side. We added another node in the cluster but we haven't yet tried it.

How are customer service and support?

When we've contacted support, they haven't always resolved the issue. We've then tried from our end to find a workaround and ended up finding a solution.  Their support service could be improved.

How was the initial setup?

The setup was simple and deployment was managed on my own. It took only a few minutes.

What other advice do I have?

I would give this solution a seven out of ten. My advice is to be aware of the amount of space to collect all the requirements because sometimes, maintenance on existing setups can rebuild the servers from the beginning.

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
Integration Architect at Pymma consulting
Real User
Top 20
Functional message delivery service, but there are issues with monitoring
Pros and Cons
  • "The ability to master the process in one location."
  • "There are issues, especially if you want to create some compensation in your service bin."

What is our primary use case?

I'm an integration architect and we're a customer of Oracle. 

What is most valuable?

What's valuable is the ability to master the process in one location. That's the main difference between other firewall products and this. Usually, there's an issue when you want to integrate many services together because you can't save contacts in one place. For example, if you have A, that calls B, that calls C, that calls D, there's no place to store your contacts and that's a problem. We can do that with Oracle.

What needs improvement?

The main inconvenience is the composition between services. Using software initiation, occupation with BPM, or BPI is better. There are issues, especially if you want to create some compensation in your service bin. If you have six or seven services you call in the same process, it's very difficult and that's the main issue. I get compensation with the WBS tool. 

Another point relates to monitoring. When you want to show what's happened in your system, you have to deploy a direct system on each service. It's simple to put the monitoring on your BPM and that's the main difference for me. Also, connectors can be on Apache Kafka, on Oracle, or OpenESB, or on Mule, it's the same thing. It's how you execute the process. For example, OpenESB support is the difference between the interface with the service and the implementation. Oracle is more intelligent. When you want to invoke a service B, for example, you don't directly invoke service B but ask the system for the best and most accurate implementation of B for your system and it provides that. You can't do that with a simple ESB. 

For additional features, if I compare OpenESB, there is the possibility to define policy between services so that when you create a connection, you can't associate the connection with the policy. That could be included in the solution. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the product for a year. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's a stable solution. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I have no problems with the scalability, but when you define the hierarchies there can be problems. 

How are customer service and technical support?

We've never used technical support, we have our own tech team within the company. 

How was the initial setup?

Implementation took a few weeks, no more. It was relatively simple I believe but I'm not an expert on deployment and installation.

What other advice do I have?

This is a good product, not an exceptional product. You could say it's a bit greedy as it requires lots of additional resources because you have to deploy the database and then ESB on top of that. But if you have the resources and people, it's a good product. 

I would rate this product seven out of 10. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Real User
It is flexible with accepting incoming messages, including handling JSON.

What is most valuable?

  • It’s a lightweight tool compared to Oracle BPEL
  • The design of the product.

How has it helped my organization?

Because it can handle JSON inputs, we can now use JSON.

What needs improvement?

The logging and error-handling framework can be improved.

Usage of DVMs, MDS and other additional features that are possible in XSLT in BPEL are missing in this product.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used it for the past three years and I am satisfied with it.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

There were no issues with deployment; it was very straightforward.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have not encountered any stability issues. The product is highly stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I have not encountered any scalability issues. The product is highly scalable.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is 3 out of 5; availability of materials and support related to OSB 11g is less commonly available.

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

Even though we had been using Oracle BPEL, we had to go with Oracle Service Bus because it is able to handle JSON inputs. We tried to implement one scenario using Oracle BPEL but couldn’t achieve it in BPEL, so we had to go for OSB and were amazed by its flexibility in accepting incoming messages.

How was the initial setup?

Initial setup involves a learning curve; it’s not as straightforward as Oracle BPEL. For example, defining custom variables, assigning and replacing different activities is a bit intriguing compared to BPEL.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented it through Zensar. Their level of expertise is 4 out of 5.

What was our ROI?

ROI is not tangible, but we have benefited highly from this product.

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

I heard it’s available free with Oracle SOA Suite 11g, so don’t worry about additional licensing costs for this product.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Before choosing this product, we did not evaluate other options. We only explored different Oracle alternatives.

What other advice do I have?

It is a very lightweight product and has great processing speeds.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: My company is Oracle’s first Global Cloud Elite partner.
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it_user522000 - PeerSpot reviewer
Middleware Administrator at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Real User
We can generate a specific URL with our naming convention. We know where it goes, who's calling it, what environment it's for.

What is most valuable?

It's sort of a one-stop shop for web services. All of our web services interact with each other. Instead of calling specific server host names and specific URLs, we call the OSB service bus URL that's configured for that specific client. It's very simple to know where things are going because we can generate the URL specifically with our naming convention, so that we know where it goes, who's calling it, what environment it's for.

What needs improvement?

With the most recent version, 12c, I'm still getting use to using it, learning how to use it, how to configure it. The Oracle documentation is OK, but there aren’t a lot of good examples for me to follow. It describes the concepts and what it can do, but how to apply them has been a struggle, so far. I'm still looking for help in that area.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using it for at least eight years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is very stable. It processes hundreds of thousands of transactions per month. Once, with our primary system for handling customers coming into our site for orders and order information, the customer would come in and send an email to our internal users; that crashed our Exchange server but OSB kept running. It was fine. It's very stable and it has to be for what it does. It's kind of like a load balancer in a way; if it goes down, then everything behind it will stop operating.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It can meet our scaling needs moving forward. I would be surprised to see it have a problem with scalability.

How is customer service and technical support?

Technical support is OK. We know what to expect from Oracle support. You're going to ask a question. Generally, you're provided with a document: "Check out this support doc. Does this answer your question?" If it doesn't right away, then they'll take a closer look.

It's OK. It's not ideal, but after working with it for so many years, I know what to expect out of it.

How was the initial setup?

Initial setup is pretty straightforward for an Oracle product. Again, we know what to expect with it and it works well.

What other advice do I have?

When I select a vendor to work with, I look for reliability and ease of use. Performance is everything and this has proven itself over the years. That's why we keep using it.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) Report and find out what your peers are saying about Oracle, MuleSoft, IBM, and more!
Updated: March 2024
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Download our free ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) Report and find out what your peers are saying about Oracle, MuleSoft, IBM, and more!