Digital System Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
A very scalable and secure tool that offers very high-performance
Pros and Cons
  • "In general, the product is strong enough and offers high performance."
  • "How you implement or deploy the product can be an area of concern that can be made a bit easier."

What is our primary use case?

I use Oracle Database in my company for database management.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is very scalable and secure while offering very high performance. I have to ensure our company's system runs twenty-four hours, seven days a week for three-sixty-five days a year. The tool provides me with peace of mind since I know that nothing can go wrong in terms of fraudulent attempts where the product's security can be compromised. The aforementioned parameters are what I look at when it comes to the product.

What needs improvement?

There are no significant areas related to drawbacks in the product that I want to point out. When it comes to the product, it is the way you deploy or the cluster that makes some difference. How you implement or deploy the product can be an area of concern that can be made a bit easier. There is a close connection between the skill set of your company's team that handles the deployment and implementation phases and the user-friendliness that the system provides. There is a need to ensure that there is a trade-off between the skill set of the product's users and the ease of use the product offers. The aforementioned reasons make it very difficult to compartmentalize the issues in the product. It is important to ensure how well-versed your company's team is with the deployment of the product and with some of the parameters that need to be tuned up so that the product can offer high performance on your system. How the product can be made efficient in terms of performance is a function of your company's team's expertise rather than the product's capability.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Oracle Database for fifteen to twenty years.

The tool gets upgraded mostly by the company, but many times, immediate upgrades are not possible because of so many reasons. There are so many strategic decisions that may be made by the company over why we may not want to enroll in a new version, which might be available in the market because of the transition phase, testing, and all the efforts needed to take care of the process. The upgrade is just not a run in an environment simply because you have to test it out and do a battle test before even announcing that it is ready to enter the production phase. It is not always possible to put in so much effort at the time when an upgrade is announced, so it has to be prioritized later on. There are so many reasons why we will not be going in for the latest version after just some limited testing.

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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

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

I have experience with IBM Db2.

How was the initial setup?

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

What other advice do I have?

I recommend the product to others who plan to use it.

In general, the product is strong enough and offers high performance. I rate the overall solution a nine 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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SAM Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Consultant
High-performance solution with lots of options for security, diagnostics and tuning
Pros and Cons
  • "Most of our customers have been using multitenant options. Advanced Compression and Advanced Security are the most valuable features in most customer environments."
  • "The primary concern is that Oracle is highly restricted in terms of the approved technologies where we can freely deploy Oracle Database or any other Oracle product."

What is most valuable?

It depends on the environment. Most of our customers have been using multitenant options. Advanced Compression and Advanced Security are the most valuable features in most customer environments. And many customers are also leveraging Oracle Diagnostic and Tuning Packs to enhance the performance of the database. 

What needs improvement?

The primary concern is that Oracle is highly restricted in terms of the approved technologies where we can freely deploy Oracle Database or any other Oracle product. So, for example, if we deploy Oracle products on VMware vCenter or any virtualized environment using VMware technology, we need to license a complete cluster and a complete vCenter. So that is the costliest option for us. And since Oracle doesn't approve of Google Cloud infrastructure, that means we cannot leverage the dynamic and flexible features of Google Cloud. We have multiple offerings from Oracle and our side on this one. So if we want high performance, we have to get packs or options already bundled with Oracle Database at a slightly higher price. But they are cheaper if we purchase them separately.

Also, Oracle provides the Extreme Performance Database options where you have all the features already included with the database, which will overcome all the limitations that I mentioned earlier. So we can leverage different options, but the most important is to know what we need and how much we are ready to invest in setting up the Oracle solutions. Considering certain limitations on storing big data, so that's where Oracle lacks some features. But otherwise, it is one of the best databases available.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been working on Oracle Database and the complete Oracle Stack for the past six years. I'm not doing any implementation development work on Oracle products. I'm only managing their compliance part.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Oracle Database is pretty scalable. And if you are planning to implement or leverage the containers, Oracle has recently added enterprise containers into their stack, so we can leverage that technology to enhance the scalability of the database.

How are customer service and support?

So with Oracle, technical support is provided mainly by the technical teams who are actually working on the packaging and deployment of the Oracle Database or other products.

How was the initial setup?

Installing Oracle Database is pretty simple, and Oracle also provides a starter database, which will allow you to evaluate whether you meet the specifications or not. Then you can go ahead and deploy the other features and management packs.

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

Oracle Database has two different types of licenses. One is the Named User, and the other is the Oracle Processor. So Oracle Named User will cost you about $950 per license, and Oracle Processor will cost you around $47,500 per processor. And on the Named User part, you need a minimum number of users to ensure that you'll buy the minimum number of licenses. So for Enterprise Edition, the minimum requirement is 25 Named Users.

And you need to pay to add options and packs. All the options and packs are available at extra cost, but Enterprise Edition includes Spatial and Graph at no extra cost. Starting last year, Oracle offered Spatial and Graph for free with the Enterprise Edition. Then there is Standard Edition, a minimal deployment option. So you can deploy Standard Edition on a server with a maximum of two sockets. That's why Enterprise Edition is typical in most cluster and complex environments.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Oracle Database has various remarkable features like Advanced Security and Advanced Compression. Oracle Database has high availability and high performance. So in those terms, Oracle Database is much more reliable than its competitor. That's why most large enterprises choose Oracle Database technologies over others. But there are other databases with some features that Oracle doesn't have. For example, with MongoDB, you can store multimedia file content and anything, and they can hold a greater amount of data. So that's where they have an advantage on Oracle Database. And most of the social media sites, like Facebook, have implemented MongoDB as the database supporting their applications.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Oracle Database at eight out of 10. For those thinking about deploying the solution, my advice would to implement Oracle Database on physical servers to avoid noncompliance. And it will be less work to manage or calculate the required licenses on the physical server. If the customer wants to leverage the virtualization technology and has a more scalable environment, I would suggest having a dedicated cluster for Oracle products for licensing purposes. For example, if you keep five physical servers in a cluster, you need to license them only once. But if those five servers are running are part of five different clusters, you need to license all the five clusters. So having a dedicated cluster can save millions of dollars.

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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March 2024
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PeterKrall - PeerSpot reviewer
Freelance Software Engineer + Director of a company at Peter Krall Consulting
Real User
Top 20
Highly reliable, perfectly stable, and scalable
Pros and Cons
  • "It is one of the most reliable database systems."
  • "With the new version, we never came across any important limitations. There was nothing that needed improvement. However, in versions 9 and 10, we sometimes had problems, and big and complicated queries did not get through. In versions 11 and 12, I did not experience any problem. There could be some more information about load balancing and all these things. For me, it was just a part of the infrastructure maintained by other people. So, I cannot really say what they need."

What is our primary use case?

In the last project, we had a big warehouse. It was a logistics company, and we had all company data stored in this. We also had insurance use cases. We had all contracts, customer data, and all kinds of stuff.

What is most valuable?

It is one of the most reliable database systems. 

What needs improvement?

With the new version, we never came across any important limitations. There was nothing that needed improvement. However, in versions 9 and 10, we sometimes had problems, and big and complicated queries did not get through. In versions 11 and 12, I did not experience any problem.

There could be some more information about load balancing and all these things. For me, it was just a part of the infrastructure maintained by other people. So, I cannot really say what they need.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for decades. I worked for a company developing insurance software in the nineties, and we used Db2 and Oracle.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is perfectly stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. The number of users differed a lot. There were not that many who used it directly. It was mainly was used by programs written by me. There might be around 100 users who used these programs.

How are customer service and technical support?

I have not interacted with them recently. I don't know whether our database administration team contacted Oracle. I just know it was usable from our layout or view.

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

We have used Oracle, SQL Server, and Db2, and all of them were okay for our purposes. In the new project, we will probably use Oracle, but we might also use SQL Server. I'm pretty neutral this way, as long as it works.

How was the initial setup?

I am not the one who does the database administration and installation.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend this solution. It is certainly a valid option.

I would rate Oracle Database a ten out of ten. It is one of the best solutions.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
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Senior Infrastructure Lead at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
With great stability and availability as its features, the tool also makes it easy for users to scale up if needed
Pros and Cons
  • "Stability and availability are the features I like the most in the solution."
  • "The product's price can be lower since it is a bit of an expensive solution."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for different applications in my company.

What is most valuable?

Stability and availability are the features I like the most in the solution. Transparent data encryption (TDE) is a feature I like the most in the product.

What needs improvement?

The product's price can be lower since it is a bit of an expensive solution.

Some engineers have the right skill set to resolve issues, but the support could be better.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Oracle Database for over ten years. I am an end user of the solution.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable solution.

The patching is an area that takes a long time, so we are trying to find another solution to minimize the downtime and do the patching.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Oracle Database is easier to scale up. The number of users using the solution in our organization depends on different applications normally, and it may be over a million being used by users for a customer.

How are customer service and support?

The support from Oracle is okay. I rate the technical support a seven out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

How was the initial setup?

The product's installation is difficult compared with other solutions since it can't support other platforms making the installation complicated.

The PoC phase to deploy the tool on-premises will take at least one week.

The solution is deployed on an AWS cloud.

Around two or three people were needed for installation.

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

My company has opted for perpetual licensing. We only need to make payments toward the licensing of the product.

What other advice do I have?

It is not very easy to maintain Oracle Database. We need nearly twenty people in India to maintain the solution.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Chinthake Ranasinghe - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Information Officer at Cjp
Real User
Top 20
A capable and stable solution with good security and support
Pros and Cons
  • "The database capability and the security side of the database are the real valuable features. The cloud SaaS model is also valuable."
  • "They can simplify and make the deployment more user-friendly. Deploying Oracle solutions requires a lot of technical input. If that can be improved, it would really add value to the business."

What is our primary use case?

We are mainly using it for our business applications. Our main business application is the ERP application, and the other one is the payroll application. Both applications are developed on the Oracle platform. The ERP application covers our sales and marketing side, as well as manufacturing and finance.

What is most valuable?

The database capability and the security side of the database are the real valuable features. The cloud SaaS model is also valuable.

In terms of support, they are very supportive and always available.

What needs improvement?

They can simplify and make the deployment more user-friendly. Deploying Oracle solutions requires a lot of technical input. If that can be improved, it would really add value to the business.

There should be features related to business intelligence and business analytics. These features are not built into the database. They are separate. They can at least add basic analytics features to the database.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for a few years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Its performance depends on the data center you are connected to. At the moment, we are subscribed to one of the US data vendors. Other than that, it is very stable and highly available.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. Because we are using the cloud platform, it is very easy to scale it up. We have approximately 1,000 users.

How are customer service and support?

They're really good in terms of providing support and attending to the issues. I am satisfied with their support.

How was the initial setup?

Its deployment is quite complex, and it should be made simpler.

Its maintenance is minimal. You only need to take care of database patches, and you need to always follow up and update it on time. Other than that, when you configure it with the backup and all those things and automate, you don't need to worry much about the maintenance.

What about the implementation team?

We were doing it internally.

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

Its price is a little bit high in terms of competitiveness. It is a little bit expensive. For any additional features, there are additional costs.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend starting with the SaaS model cloud platform. You can start at a small scale, and then you can expand based on your requirements. You can start with a small investment and grow as your business is growing.

We are going to explore the autonomous part. It has already been improved. We'll start using that area, but because we are already using this one, and it is stable, we didn't try to use the autonomous side. That would be the area that would be most useful for us in terms of the SaaS solution.

I would rate it a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Lakshman Nimmakayala - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Cloud Architect at UBS Financial
Real User
Top 5
Easy to set up with good performance but is too expensive
Pros and Cons
  • "We find the solution to be stable."
  • "They could improve the scalability a bit. There are other options that are more scalable, for example."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution as a database, basically. We do not use it for the data warehouse. It's just a few databases.

What is most valuable?

We're satisfied with the solution. The performance is great.

We find the solution to be stable.

The scalability is very good. You can expand it if you need to.

We don't have any concerns with the data activity and recovery capabilities.

The initial setup is easy.

What needs improvement?

The cost of Oracle is far too high. They should work to make it less expensive. We're going to stop using it for this reason. 

They could improve the scalability a bit. There are other options that are more scalable, for example. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for almost 10 years now. It's been a decade. I've used it for a while. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is very good and it has very good performance. 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?

We don't have an issue with the solution's scalability. It's expandable. 

What we see is Mongo and Cassandra, and many other databases that are extremely scalable and distributed. With Oracle, obviously, there are other types of databases that are performing better in this area. Obviously, they could improve scalability from a scalability perspective.

How are customer service and support?

I've never contacted technical support. I cannot speak to how helpful or responsive they are. 

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

We are using DB2 on mainframes and we do have Microsoft SQL, and then we started using PostgreSQL as well.

How was the initial setup?

We haven't had a problem with the initial setup. It's very simple and straightforward. 

I haven't installed it in recent times, however, from what I recall, the actual production upgrade took us probably less than four hours.

Currently, the database team is around 40 or more people from engineering and from operations. It's a full database engineering and operations team so it's covering other databases as well - such as DB2 and SQL and Cassandra and other databases. You can take three to six engineers and have them handle deployment and maintenance, although everyone works on other things.

What about the implementation team?

We handled everything in-house. We did not need the assistance of integrators or consultants. 

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

It's CPU-based licensing. The cost is far too high. We're looking into other options to avoid having to pay so much. There are both licensing and support costs you need to consider. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We have been looking at less expensive options such as Azure SQL and PostgreSQL.

What other advice do I have?

We're a customer and an end-user.

We use both cloud-based and on-premises deployments. 

While I might have recommended Oracle in the past, due to the cost factor, it's hard to recommend it these days. 

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

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Cloud Expert | DevOps | Oracle Consultant at confidential
Consultant
The most valuable feature for me is the pluggable database because it provides database consolidation and the solution for utilizing your resource.

What is our primary use case?

I have been working with Oracle products for more than 10 years, and as a consultant, I did a lot of implementations that include different database vendors. To be honest, Oracle Database provides you with different features that don't exist in any database, or you can find relevant features in other vendors, but it will not give the same capability Oracle Database has. Let's take for example RAC or real application cluster that provides HA for Oracle Database, it's considered as one of the best solutions for the database.

I have worked on different environments for different big client names since it's my job role, and Oracle provides a different solution for DR, performance tuning, security, and HA.

How has it helped my organization?

Talking about this will be unfair because regarding my experience (which is on related services), Oracle Database improved client solution by discussing what they want first, and then finding what database is the best solution for them. Most of the time an Oracle Database license is so expensive if you want to compare it with different vendors, but on the other hand, if you're looking for the best features that a database could provide to you, then Oracle is considered as the number one database of all time.

What is most valuable?

  • The most valuable feature for me is the pluggable database because it provides database consolidation and the solution for utilizing your resource. On the other hand, I find security products that are provided by Oracle very strong and not in comparison with any database vendor.
  • The encryption, database reduction, audit vault, database firewall: All of these products provide an extra layer of security when they are implemented in the right way.
  • Let's also mention real application cluster, and disaster recovery solution.

What needs improvement?

The additional features that should be included in the database: I would like to see improvements for database security products.

For how long have I used the solution?

More than five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

one of the most stable database i ever seen, but to be honest the Support when you will have a bug or something it will make your life very hard.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The Performance for the database in general is good and the tools to analyze the performance in case you have some issue it's perfect and make it easier for you.

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

Yes, I used a different solution. The migration was to Oracle because we had to find the best for the client. It was a production database, and we needed 24/7 HA which other databases provided, but not as good as Oracle Database.

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

The cost of Oracle Database is so high if you compare it to other vendors. Therefore you have to study your solution and know exactly which features you want; this will minimize the cost and licensing price. For that, Oracle provides different types of DB such as EE, SE, SE1, etc. depending on what the clients want.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Yes, I worked on SQL Server, MongoDB, MySQL, and MariaDB.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Technical Specialist at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Partitioning is most valuable, and it is stable and fairly easy to set up
Pros and Cons
  • "Partitioning is most valuable."
  • "The setup for Enterprise Manager Grid Control can be a bit easier."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for OLTP and data warehouses. We're using versions 10, 11, 12, and 19.

What is most valuable?

Partitioning is most valuable.

What needs improvement?

The setup for Enterprise Manager Grid Control can be a bit easier.

The additional options are expensive. If you want to buy a rack, partitioning, diagnostics, or tuning, those options are expensive, but it is difficult to say if it is a negative or not. We've bought the product, and we use it.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Oracle Database for 30 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is really stable. Its stability is fine, but just don't make any changes. The more changes you make and the more developers you've got, the more unstable it's going to be. So, if you've got a stable environment in terms of development, then it has to be stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability depends on how much money you've got. It depends on the quality of your hardware. Scalability is not an Oracle problem.

In terms of the number of users, we have maybe 5,000 people who we can log on to one system and put in expense claims. We don't have plans to increase its usage.

How are customer service and support?

They're normal. We don't make many calls. We have maybe six calls a year with Oracle support, which is not a lot. Our environment is pretty stable. It is really stable, and we haven't had any outages. When it is smooth sailing, it is easy.

How was the initial setup?

I did the setup, and it was fairly easy. I have been doing it over the last 17 years.

What about the implementation team?

I did the setup. For its maintenance, one and a half people are enough.

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

You buy it when you need it, and then you pay the maintenance. We bought the licenses over 10 years ago. We haven't changed our licenses. We are not buying new licenses, and we are not looking at other devices. So, it is difficult to say whether it is cheap or expensive. There is nothing to compare to.

The additional options, such as a rack, partitioning, diagnostics, or tuning, are expensive.

What other advice do I have?

I would advise making sure that you train properly. I would rate this solution an eight out of 10.

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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