My company wanted to move out of Oracle Data Guard for cloud readiness because Oracle was not ready to move to other clouds at that point in time.

So, we did look at Postgres for our peripheral application, EDB. The normal open-source EDB did not support enterprise features like real-time replication and transparent data encryption. So, just for that, and also as a policy, we wanted to use only the supported version. So we went for Oracle Data Guard. So, I was looking at the project, and we have used EDB for two to or three years now.

I have used Oracle only, but then recently, we looked at other databases like Postgres and MongoDB. We can compare it with that. Oracle is the best for transactional databases in enterprise organizations. Maybe smaller organizations can take MySQL or Postgres. But then, for a company like an enterprise organization having high concurrent transactions and, more importantly, the security aspect, Oracle is the best product.

Golden Gate was a highly cost-effective solution.

In addition to Oracle products, we also utilize Microsoft SQL Server within our IT infrastructure. One of our security measures involves capturing images during specific user interactions, such as when someone enters their password or performs other sensitive actions, like activating their card. We capture images at three key steps: when the password is entered, when the action is confirmed, and when the transaction is completed. By capturing these images, we create a comprehensive record of user interactions. This record can be invaluable in scenarios where card theft is claimed, as we can provide visual evidence of the actions taken by the user. These images are stored in our secondary data repositories, such as SQL servers. However, it's important to note that our primary transactional data remains stored in Oracle databases, ensuring robustness and reliability for our critical banking operations. While other databases like Microsoft SQL Server, IBM products, and MySQL are suitable for smaller-scale operations, they lack the advanced algorithms and performance capabilities of Oracle.

I typically work with the standard Oracle tool for managing backup, recovery, and related tasks. However, some customers have recently adopted storage disaster recovery systems. While these systems can replicate data between sites, they come with limitations. For instance, a controller attack on the primary side can automatically propagate to the secondary side, which isn't protected unless using an Oracle Data Guard system.

I have been working with Hitachi previously.

The initial solution we used was a basic solution that involved manually copying the logs from the primary to the secondary site, and there was no automation.

I previously used Dell EMC RecoverPoint. Oracle Data Guard is more native to the database, so it will have better features, better flexibility, and be easy to operate or activate in terms of disaster. The solution has also reduced the traffic of the network. EMC RecoverPoint used too much data to be transferred, but with Oracle Data Guard less data will be transferred.

We did not evaluate another solution.

We also use a real application cluster rack database. I have experience with IBM. 

There were no previous solutions.

If the Database SLA is much higher than Oracle RAC, it is a better product than Data Guard.

We previously used an SQL server.

Data Guard was already in place with this company.

We didn't previously use a different solution. We exclusively use Oracle products.