Sr. System and Storage Administrator at a government with 51-200 employees
Real User
Stable, flexible, and very user-friendly
Pros and Cons
  • "You can scale the solution if you need to. Its scalability is good."
  • "The solution is a bit expensive."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution for critical financial applications.

What is most valuable?

The solution is very stable. The performance is quite good.

The product has been very user-friendly and very easy to use.

The flexibility is very, very good. 

You can scale the solution if you need to. Its scalability is good. 

What needs improvement?

The product could offer easier ways to configure everything.

The initial setup could be more simple and straightforward.

Technical support could be quicker to respond to queries. 

The solution is a bit expensive.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for about two years or so. It's been a while.

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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution has proven to be very stable. The performance is good. There are no bugs. It's not glitchy. It doesn't crash or freeze on us. It's reliable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability of the solution is very good. If a company needs to expand it, it can do so easily.

We do have plans to continue to use the product in the future.

We have about 100 users on the solution currently.

How are customer service and support?

We've dealt with technical support in the past and found them to be slow to respond. They should work on getting back to clients faster in the future.

How was the initial setup?

The solution's initial setup isn't as straightforward as it could be. It's an aspect that could be adjusted.

If a company has all the prerequisites and all of the deployment considerations on hand, the deployment time is about one hour. It shouldn't take too long.

We have two administrators on our team that are capable of handling any maintenance that may be required. 

What about the implementation team?

We handled the implementation ourselves. We didn't require any outside assistance in the form of a consultant or integrator. We handled everything in-house. 

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

We pay for licensing on a yearly basis.

It's a bit expensive. We would like it to be a bit cheaper.

What other advice do I have?

We are using the latest version of the solution. I cannot recall the exact version number at this time.

I'd rate the solution at 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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Senior Chief Engineer at ministry of electricity
Real User
Reliable and stable with excellent features
Pros and Cons
  • "It is reliable. It's very stable."
  • "The solution can be quite expensive."

What is our primary use case?

I use Oracle in two systems. The first one is called the Complaint Management System, and the second one was for Human Resources for the Ministry of Electricity in Iraq. 

The Complaint Management System is related to a call center. There is a call center responsible for writing down the complaints from the customers about their network electricity. If there is an error they reach out to us. There is an operator there writing down this complaint using his terminal. There are many different call centers in the country and all of them write up these complaints using the Oracle Database.

What is most valuable?

Oracle has always been a wonderful database. 

It is reliable. It's very stable. 

The solution has everything you are looking for in terms of features on offer. It's very complete. 

What needs improvement?

The solution can be quite expensive. It would be ideal if they could work on the pricing model in order to figure out how to lower the licensing.

It takes time to learn Oracle. There's a bit of a learning curve. It's not easy to use at first, however, slowly, day by day, you can get and develop your skills. 

There are a lot of YouTube videos and tons of material on Google that you can access. You can also easily find so many training institutes all over the world if you really want to understand aspects of the product. It would be ideal if Oracle could initiate some sort of learning center in Iraq. Even if it's just on Youtube, if it can be catered towards Iraqis to showcase the technology in the form of online Youtube videos or webinars, it would be extremely useful for expanding the solution within the Iraqi market. Right now, competitors like Microsoft can easily come in and just say "here's what we do, and at less cost than Oracle".

The initial setup is a little complex.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for about ten years at this point. It's been around a decade, and therefore I've used it for quite a while.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable most of the time. Unfortunately, I faced a few different issues. I was luckily able to solve them.

It's very important, if you choose Oracle as a solution, to also get the support as well. You can technically live without it, however, if you run into issues, Oracle can help you when you have the support that they offer.

In my case, I didn't have support so I had to kind-of feel around for a solution. I made the mistake, after the first year, of not renewing my support and I really should have.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable. If a company needs to expand it outward, it can do so.

How are customer service and technical support?

While it's my understanding that technical support is good, frankly, for the first year, I didn't ask them for any help. Therefore, I don't have any experience with Oracle support.

That said, I have full faith that they will respond very well to any issues.

In my case, I had support for the first year of service and then did not renew it. You really should renew though. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was not really so straightforward. It's actually rather complex.

There are two ways to start with Oracle. You can go in by yourself and try to learn as you go or you can study a bit at an institute or school so that you can get pretty comfortable with the product. If you have some knowledge, there's less of a learning curve during installation.

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

The support does cost extra, however, it is worth the extra money. It really comes in handy if you run into problems.

What other advice do I have?

We're just customers and end-users. We don't have a partnership or special business relationship with Oracle.

I really enjoy using the solution. It is stable and reliable. 

It's more expensive than Microsoft's options, however, I personally prefer working with it. It's worth the extra money. 

Aside from stability issues and a certain level of complexity, it's quite a good solution. I would rate it eight 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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Operations Engineering Manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
Very secure, Highly scalable and high performance enterprise database

What is our primary use case?


  • Security and Scalability
  • I have used Oracle technologies for last two decades apart from other similar vendors like MS SQL Server, IBM DB2, etc.


How has it helped my organization?

It helped build a strong core application layer

Its a natural choice for any complex enterprise relational system

What is most valuable?

  • Security and Scalability
  • I have used Oracle technologies for last two decades apart from other similar vendors like MS SQL Server, IBM DB2, etc.
  • Power of Oracle combined with robust Unix platforms like Linux or AIX makes it powerful and secure as compared to MS SQL on Windows 
  • IBM DB2 needs indepth technical expertise and lot of workarounds or automation to build a strong solution, MS SQL is on Windows and that makes it not the best choice

What needs improvement?

Support and Patching.

I found MS SQL Server support more helpful in many cases where in they internally rope in technology experts from different layers rather than pushing back on the clients, something Oracle can incorporate for sure.

For how long have I used the solution?

More than five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Multiple issues, but mostly triggered from lower layers like OS, Network, storage layers.

Oracle GRID is sensitive to underlying network and disk timeouts and node evictions may happen if disk and network systems are not optimized

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Oracle systems are highly scalable, Backup and Recovery strategy needs to be tweaked and is not as scalable as core database system. It needs some special attention to meet your RTO

How is customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

I would rate it 6/10. Many times the support is not able to solve the problems and they would put you into loops and escalate to their dev team which may take months to come back with a solution. Sometimes the solution never arrives and you are forced to upgrade to higher version.

Technical Support:

I would rate it 7/10.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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it_user515592 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user515592Operations Engineering Manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Top 20Real User

My experience with IBM support is that they rarely admitted a new bug but rather provided workarounds like updating internal tables, Putting scripts to clear locks etc.
Also we found layers like TSA and RSCT issues are not handled or fixed end to end

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MuhammadFurqan - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior consaltant at System Limited
Real User
Top 10
High availability, scalability, load balancing, but expensive
Pros and Cons
  • "It has good features for performance tuning."
  • "The price could be lower."

What is our primary use case?

We use the Oracle Database for applications such as sensor data management, banking tools, e-commerce forms, and similar functionalities. It is a data warehouse.

What is most valuable?

We have used the database in different production and environments. It has good features for performance tuning. I am using multiple environments for the Oracle web. The main functions are high availability, scalability, load balancing, and data integration.

What needs improvement?

The price could be lower.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Oracle Database for 7 to 8 years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution’s scalability is good.

How are customer service and support?

The customer support is better.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is neither easy nor complex.

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

The product is expensive.

What other advice do I have?

Most customers use the stable version of the Oracle database. They should update it. Oracle V19 is the stable version.

Overall, I rate the solution a 7 out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
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JohnMitchell - PeerSpot reviewer
jmitchell@natbankmw.com at NBM
Real User
Top 10
Fast, very stable, and suitable for large sites
Pros and Cons
  • "It is very fast. The response times are very fast."
  • "Its price can be improved."

What is our primary use case?

It is for our core banking system. We are using version 19c, and the data is version eight.

How has it helped my organization?

All the database issues that we had have been resolved by using 19c. The database used to crash frequently, and now, that's a thing of the past. We haven't had any crashes in two months.

What is most valuable?

It is very fast. The response times are very fast.

What needs improvement?

Its price can be improved. 

In terms of features, we've just started using it, so we haven't yet come up with a list of features to be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution for about two months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is very stable. We haven't had any crashes in two months.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is very scalable. In terms of its usage, it is used by our core banking system. So, it is used by one system. It is not used directly by people. We don't have any plans to increase its usage.

How are customer service and support?

It is quite good.

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

We were using Oracle but on different infrastructure.

How was the initial setup?

It is complex, but it is doable. Our people were trained to do it and had the money to do it.

Its deployment did take long. We started the programming processes around August, and it went live only at the end of January.

What about the implementation team?

Oracle helped us implement it.

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

It is quite expensive.

What other advice do I have?

It is a very good product, especially for large sites. I would rate it a nine 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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Head of Department at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Good in-memory and Data Redaction features, scales well, and the support is fast
Pros and Cons
  • "The Data Redaction feature is easy to use and we are quite happy with it."
  • "Sometimes, the patches supplied by Oracle to update the software do not work."

What is our primary use case?

We are a solution provider and Oracle Database is one of the products that we implement for our customers. We also use it ourselves. It is used to store large amounts of data including things such as customer data and shipment data.

We have our own private cloud so it is possible to host Oracle in that way, but we more commonly use an on-premises deployment because the size of the data is huge. In some ways, we have no choice but to host it on-premises.

What is most valuable?

The Data Redaction feature is easy to use and we are quite happy with it.

With Oracle, we are happy with the performance the majority of the time. It is only when we have a very large amount of data that it begins to slow down.

What needs improvement?

Sometimes, the patches supplied by Oracle to update the software do not work. Ultimately, we have a lot of issues because of this because we have to use trial and error to solve our performance issues.

We have a lot of performance issues, especially with a huge amount of data being using during a peak time.

In the future, we expect that Oracle will incorporate some NoSQL functionality. Right now, there is a lot of demand for storing JSON data. We would like to perform actions similar to that of Elasticsearch. One of the reasons that we choose Oracle is because they are quite aggressive when it comes to improving their product, and they are always providing new features.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Oracle Database for a couple of years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability-wise, Informix is better than Oracle. Oracle gives us patches to improve the product, but sometimes the patches do not work and we subsequently have issues. By comparison, Informix does not provide many patches. Instead, remains stable for a few years without needing many changes.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Oracle is quite good in terms of scalability. 90% of our applications run on Oracle, so we have a lot of users.

How are customer service and technical support?

We have bought quite a large number of licenses, so the support that we get is very good. They are fast, normally responding to us within one hour. This is according to an agreement that we purchased from them.

How was the initial setup?

When we purchase a server, it is another team that installs Oracle. After this, we create the database schema inside of Oracle.

What about the implementation team?

We have two types of people in the company who help us with Oracle. One handles the normal, day-to-day operations, whereas the other is used for deployment, setup, and maintenance.

When we buy a new server, the deployment team completes the installation and initial setup. After installation, they help us to fine-tune the database. When the application is deployed in production, they help us to troubleshoot day-to-day issues that we encounter.

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

We have a global license and it is renewed every two years. Seeing as a lot of our applications use Oracle, our team has been able to negotiate a better deal.

What other advice do I have?

In summary, this is a good product and I recommend it. For people who have a huge volume of data and they need good response time, Oracle is a good choice for them.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

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: Implementer
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it_user436020 - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Oracle Database Administrator at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
One of the features that stands out to me is the Real Application Cluster. This gives us the ability to have active-active clustering functionality.

Valuable Features

One of the features that stands out to me is the Real Application Cluster. This gives us the ability to have active-active clustering functionality. We can scale horizontally to multiple database servers and instances, which gives us both High Availability and load balancing, great features both.

There's also the new In-Memory feature that allows us to do a lot of OLAP transactions.

Improvements to My Organization

As with any organization, before we embark on anything, we have to look at the ROI as well as the ability of a particular tool. Database is rock solid, which, of course, affects our ability to do work and provide customer service. We're a mutual fund company, so stability is really key in providing satisfactory customer service. Oracle Database really gives us this key factor from an IT perspective.

Room for Improvement

We'd like to see a few more security improvements. Security right now is a very, very big issue. Oracle is doing a very good job with security enhancements with each now releases, the latest of which, I think, is 12c release 2. But I'd really like for it to have a lot more security enhancements that are added to Database, rather than pushing the enhancements into some of their other tools that you have to buy in order to be able to take advantage of those enhancements and functionalities. Like I said, security really is key for us as we do a lot of encryption, so it would be best if the additional security features and enhancements were part of Database rather than part of some other product we'd have to buy.

Deployment Issues

Deploying it was no problem. We had no issues with it at all.

Stability Issues

Stability is not an issue at all. Oracle is a database company and Database, as their flagship RDBMS, is the product at the highest level of maturity.

Scalability Issues

It's scaled to our needs.

Customer Service and Technical Support

We have premier support from Oracle, so we have a very good relationship with technical support.

Initial Setup

It's the most mature Oracle product, so setting up the RDBMS was straightforward.

Other Advice

Despite the fact that it's the most expensive of the RDBMS solution available, there's a reason why Oracle Database has the largest market share. It's the best there is. If there's another RDBMS vendor that provides some functionality that Oracle doesn't, then you'd really have to evaluate what your true ROI will be. From my perspective, though, Database is worth it.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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AnkitKumar 1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant General Manager at Hyundai Motor India Ltd
Real User
Used for transaction system and internal data management system
Pros and Cons
  • "Our internal data management system runs on Oracle Database."
  • "The solution’s integration could be improved."

What is our primary use case?

Our transaction system is designed using the Oracle Database.

What is most valuable?

In our day-to-day operations, it's evident that we should have a transaction system. Our channel partners are also onboarded on the same platform, and they do the transaction. We need to track, so we need a single platform. Our internal data management system runs on Oracle Database. The solution has good security features.

What needs improvement?

The solution’s integration could be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Oracle Database for 20 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Oracle Database is a stable solution.

I rate the solution a nine out of ten for stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I rate the solution’s scalability a six or seven out of ten.

How was the initial setup?

The solution’s initial setup is complex.

What was our ROI?

Oracle-skilled people are easier to get, and that's why we want to keep the solution intact.

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

We need to pay an annual subscription for the solution, which is moderately priced.

What other advice do I have?

Oracle Database is on-premises, and we want it migrated to the cloud. If you're a new organization to start with an IT role or IT design, start with the cloud. If you are an old user of IT infrastructures, then it's high time to migrate from on-premises solutions to the cloud. It was easy to migrate to Oracle Database from another database system.

Overall, I rate the 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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