Oracle SPARC Servers Reviews

We are using Oracle SPARC Servers for our oracle EBS. 

We can install only Oracle Solaris on Oracle SPARC Servers, we cannot install any other operating system.

The Oracle server is very powerful. They are more powerful and durable compared to Intel hardware. Which has been a benefit to our organization.

The solution could improve by giving a clear roadmap about the future. I'm not seeing a lot of improvements on the OS side of the software. They need to work more on the operating system.

I have been using Oracle SPARC Servers for approximately seven years.

The stability of the solution is excellent, it is reliable. Once you install and configure it then it'll run smoothly. It will not give you any issues.

We have approximately 1,000 users using this solution. We have plans to increase the usage of the solution. We have some older hardware and we will be replacing it with the latest model of Oracle SPARC Servers. 

The technical support from the vendor quality depends upon the issue. Sometimes they will give you very good support and other times they will pass you on to someone. It will depend upon the issue.

Previously we used Intel server then we migrate to Solaris. We switched because we heard about the high performance of Oracle hardware and software works.

The setup is simple, but the engineer has to have knowledge about Solaris to manage it. It is not like Linux or another operating system. It's a little bit different compared to Red Hat and other Linux variations. The full deployment takes approximately two days.

We used the help of the vendors to deploy it. After that we are have been managing it, even though if it requires any upgrade or anything, we are doing it in-house. We don't require other people for maintenance.

Oracle SPARC Servers are expensive to manage, this is because after five years Oracle will increase the support charges for the hardware. The licensing policy for Oracle is different for Intel and Sparc. It will cost you less if you use your Oracle hardware with Oracle SPARC Servers.

Once we cross five years, the parts will not be locally maintained by Oracle. Sometimes we need to wait for a week, 10 days or a month to get the replacement. Even though you are having support from Oracle,  you have to wait. It is a very bad thing.

When rating the reliability and sustainability of the solution I will rate it nine out of ten, but when it comes to supporting the solution when it becomes old, I rate it a six out of ten.

But I need just one digit, Ali, like in general. So what will it be?

I rate Oracle SPARC Servers a six out of ten.

Overall I gave the solution a six out of ten because once we start using Oracle SPARC Servers, it's very difficult to get out of it because it requires a platform migration. Many things will make it difficult to move to another architecture afterward.

Our company uses the solution for our core applications. It is installed on the back end and houses records for our bank-wide system. Nearly all 300 employees use the solution on the back end. 

The operating system is rock solid and the best I have ever used. 

You can perform nearly 100% of things online without needing downtime. 

The solution has rich virtualization features that allow you to host many VMs on one box. 

The processors are very powerful. 

Oracle doesn't have a good roadmap for the solution because they are moving to the x86 platform. Oracle is focusing on the cloud platform with a PCA and standard x86 architecture. Linux is their other OS and is mostly in the cloud. We don't see much development happening on Solaris even though it came as an acquisition from Sun Microsystems. Eventually, the solution and its platform will die because there has been no new development on the Solaris end and we haven't seen new servers in the last five years. At this point, we are pretty sure there is no real roadmap or future for the solution.  

There is a shortage of expert engineers because Oracle is not pushing the technology. It is hard for us to find engineers because the number of people supporting us has considerably reduced. 

I have been using the solution for seven years. 

I have contacted technical support multiple times and they are good. Support is rated an eight out of ten. 

Positive

The setup is easy. 

We implemented the solution in-house. It took about three weeks to prep for deployment which included setting up hardware, assembling, and installing.

The hardware is expensive but it has very rich virtualization features that make it economical. You can have many VMs hosted on a single box. 

We are trying to move away from the solution for new applications because there is no real roadmap for the solution's future. 

I rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

We use it as an automation tool for the parts of the ships we are building. The firms that produce these parts, can pull the specifications from the server.

Before I came on board they bought Oracle SPARC Servers and the migrations for different environments are a major improvement.

I have found the LDAP facilities most valuable. In addition, I like the CPU.

I would like to see a reduced price point.

I have been using Oracle SPARC Servers for the past year. I have been working in the industry for the past twenty years.

Oracle SPARC Servers are definitely stable.

There is scalability. I believe there are around a couple hundred individuals who have the application running. I have done a lot of migrations from five thousand servers, and zones, into LDAPs on the L five servers.

Technical support is good for us.

Positive

We are currently using HP and Dell servers on parallel systems.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. However having a knowledge base with Solaris that is running on it, then it is not that difficult to work with. At least you know what you are doing with it.

We did the installation in-house and not through a third party.

The price is expensive however there is better hardware installed for the price. The application running on it is very important to us and this makes the price worth it.

I am satisfied with the service that is delivered. I would give it an eight out of ten.

In India, we have a development center for implementation. I am in the FinTech industry. We have a large amount of customers that have implemented SPARC.

The processor is very helpful and the licensing is very flexible.

There is a huge difference between the M Series and the T Series. They need some sort of modeling because IBM has different types of models.

If I'm calculating the M Series, there is a large amount of core. The T Series has less, but there is no actual model we can fix up. When we actually require some support, we are going for the logical partitioning for two. At that point, when you are calculating processing power and memory, IBM offers more choices, whereas it's actually very difficult for Oracle.

I have been working with Oracle for more than 12 years.

It's stable and runs smoothly.

It's scalable.

Technical support could be improved.

I also have experience with IBM.

Compared to IBM, setup is much simpler.

We worked with a third-party integrator.

We have seen ROI. The ROI is better than IBM.

The licensing is flexible.

I would rate this solution 9 out of 10.

It is a very good platform, and we do not have any problems. We are using it with SAP.

The performance is the best feature. We have been using it for 13 years and despite the database increasing to three terabytes, we have had no issues.

They have declared the end of life of the hardware, so they should ensure they have support for existing customers. There is a feature in IBM that I would like to see here. IBM has a feature where you can have a system backup, so whenever you want to restore, you just put in the backup, give it a phone, and it will restore.

We have been using this solution for 13 years and are using version seven, 64-bit. It is deployed on-premises.

We have around 1800 users.

They have a beautiful feature called automatic service request, so if some other party is going to fail, they have telemetry data that informs them before we know it.

The initial setup is easy. Oracle completed the deployment, and they were very professional.

I rate this solution a ten out of ten.