Oracle Fusion Middleware specialist at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Easy to deploy and maintain, and straightforward to use
Pros and Cons
  • "The feature that I have found to be the most valuable is the ease of deployment."
  • "This solution would benefit from the inclusion of a ripple start function for clusters."

What is our primary use case?

I work with Telcos, one of the cell phone providers in South Africa, and they use it for their billing infrastructure. 

The applications running on the WebLogic suite are for billing and customer CRM, which goes out to the call centers and the dealers. We maintain the environment.

What is most valuable?

The feature that I have found to be the most valuable is the ease of deployment. 

In the beginning, you do tend to struggle a bit, but once it's deployed, then everything falls into place and maintaining it is quite simple.

What needs improvement?

It is difficult to say which features can be improved at the moment, as we are not working with the most current version and I am not aware of the features offered in the new version. 

Once we catch up and move on to version 12C, we need to see what can be migrated to the cloud. 

It might not be suitable to migrate the systems to the cloud, or maybe only portions of it. For example, it makes sense for our web services to go on the cloud, but not the actual application, the CRM system.

If we are considering the version that we are currently working with, then I would say that it's all fairly straightforward when it comes to using it. However, there are some small things, such as being able to restart clusters, where you can choose to restart each server one by one instead of all at the same time.  

The ripple start is what we refer to as shutting down and restarting one server at a time in a cluster. In other words, when you kick off a ripple start, and it would go through, it will shut down the one instance, and start it up, then it would move to the next one. It wouldn't shut them all down, and I wouldn't have to manually, stop one, start it up, wait for it to come up and then move down to the next one. This solution would benefit from the inclusion of a ripple start function for clusters.

Also, the cloud integration, which I've heard is very strong with Oracle, it's the shift and lift methodology. 

IBM WebSphere used to do things like that, where you could do a ripple start as opposed to shutting everything down and it would manage each one individually. That would be useful. if it's a live environment we have to ripple start. That's the big one, otherwise, we are pretty happy with everything.

The debugging function is nice on the Weblogic, but one thing WebSphere has, is, that you can apply the debugging permanently, or just until the server is restarted. 

That might also be a feature that would be nice on WebLogic, but not critical because we turned it off afterward.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for ten years.
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This solution is very stable.

The only time it's not stable is when the code has a memory leak, or it's heap dumping or the garbage collection isn't fine-tuned. That is not the environment, it's the code. The environment itself is extremely stable.

We have to get caught up as the version we are using is out of support. 

The buzzword right now is cloud, and at some point, we have to see what we can take to the cloud and what we cannot. There are plans to move in that direction.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. We have added extra servers and extra instances when it's been required. 

We don't run on VMs, we run on IBM LPARS. We don't run VMs where you can have them firing up, on-demand, but it is scalable for our purposes.

How are customer service and support?

Officially it's not supported, but we do get support when it's required. For example,  approximately six months ago there was that day-zero vulnerability bug that had to be patched. 

The patch that we applied on WebLogic actually broke some environments.

We logged tickets and worked with Oracle and they were able to support us, isolate the issue, and give us new fixes. 

The support was very good and worked very well.

From this experience, I would rate the technical support quite highly. They were able to pinpoint the issue quite rapidly and assist us with a new patch. I would rate them a nine out of ten.

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

Previously, we used the IBM product called WebSphere.

WebSphere and WebLogic are both very similar. They have the same purpose, the same end. I liked the way WebLogic is compartmentalized in the server where you can go and find the configurations, and see it on a file. It's fairly file-based, the data source is everything. 

WebSphere wasn't stored quite that way, so you couldn't work as nicely outside the system. 

There might have been a few other tweaks that WebSphere had which Oracle doesn't. But on the whole, I would say Oracle is far better, it more superior to the IBM product.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is complex. We did a migration from WebSphere to WebLogic.

The reason it's complex is it was already running, but it was a very different animal than WebSphere. There were code changes required, which fell to the developers on the development side. On the operational side, things like fine-tuning little things like the data sources work a bit differently, but once you figure one out, then the rest all falls into place.

At the moment the deployment model we use is on-premises, and nothing has been migrated to the cloud. It's a project for the future.

The deployment was approximately just over one year to get it migrated fully to where we were stable enough to turn off the WebSphere.

It was a little bit better than I had expected it to be. We all felt it would be an eighteen-month to a two-year project, and it did come in a little bit less than that. But of course, the business expects it in three to six months. We did try but realized that it was not going to happen unless everything just magically works the first time.

I'm on the operations side, I'm not on the development side. We look after the infrastructure and the upgrading.

The developers are a large team. On the operations team, we have approximately ten people. One person can do a feature release, which is what we call a deployment, in an evening. This is done three times a week.

What about the implementation team?

We do deployments roughly once a week, three times a month. 

We have our own in-house developed deployment manager, which we call the Deployamater, and they set up all the deployments. The manager fetches the EARs, JARs, pages, and JSP files, then it deploys them. 

We don't use the automated deploying via Oracle. We manage it like that, but we do it in an offline environment. 

We duplicate our environments and we go to our offline environment, deploy there, test it first, and then switch the traffic to the new environment that it's being deployed to.

What other advice do I have?

I am a subcontractor to Vodacom, and the company I work for is a vendor, and they are an approved vendor with Oracle.

It is difficult to offer advice because every scenario is different, but I would suggest that you use the available expertise. There is a lot of expertise, don't try to do it all alone.

I wouldn't go back to WebSphere and for me, I would say it is the market leader.

I would recommend this solution and I would rate this product a ten out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller.
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Manager of Oracle Technology/DevOpsManager at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
The most valuable features are that it's easily deployable and easily scalable.

Valuable Features:

The most valuable features are that it's easily deployable and easily scalable. It'll shrink and can grow as much as you want. Those are the benefits, but when compared to other products, such open-source Tomcat, we've considered moving from WebLogic to Tomcat because WebLogic is very expensive.

Improvements to My Organization:

It's scalable for the company and easily deployable. The GUI and integration with SSO is more beneficial than other available options.

Room for Improvement:

It's definitely a complex solution. It throws at least a million lines of errors just for one password. You can get a small issue that could potentially generate about a thousand of lines with warnings, and those warnings might mean nothing. It will just pop up warnings, so you'd have alerts for nothing. It's not that easy from the admin perspective if you're not really familiar with what you're getting into. It's not 100% GUI, so that you need to know lots and lots of configuration files.

Deployment Issues:

We've had no issues with deployment. In fact, it deploys very easily.

Stability Issues:

WebLogic is not a light product. Java uses the whole memory of the server so it's a memory hog.

Scalability Issues:

We've had no issues with scaling it for our needs.

Initial Setup:

The initial setup was easy and pretty straightforward.

Implementation Team:

We did the implementation ourselves with our in-house team.

Cost and Licensing Advice:

It's quite expensive.

Other Solutions Considered:

If it were like Tomcat, configuring .xml files would take care of some things, but there's not a particular main .xml file available with WebLogic. In fact, there are so many important .xml files that are needed for WebLogic.

Other Advice:

It's highly expensive and there are other much, much better products out for the cost of peanuts.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user516612 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user516612Works at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Vendor

I was involved in a project in 2002 - now in maintenance. Weblogic was made more complicated by our design actually. We setup tomcat as the front end web page and web logic as the application server, two tiers, and to develop some of our own technology. I think weblogic is not that complex; it is actually a very good platform to deploy applications on. That is my opinion. It does probably cost a lot, but if you want something that is supported by a company, you have to pay the bucks, otherwise, you can struggle with the open source stuff, which really isn't so bad, but sometimes management and the higher ups preferred the paid for options.

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WebLogic Suite
March 2024
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Managing Director at a training & coaching company with 51-200 employees
Vendor
It's especially useful for big data applications if you're using APIs or have geo-spatial data or complex data sets.

Valuable Features

It's a very scalable, extensible, middleware component. It's especially useful for big data applications if you're using APIs or have geo-spatial data or complex data sets.

It's also a very affordable and efficient.

Room for Improvement

I would like to see Oracle offer the WebLogic Suite in other areas, like SaaS or PaaS. From what I've seen at Oracle World, they're already moving in that direction, so it gives you a broader portfolio or different ways to leverage their technology.

Deployment Issues

We haven't had any issues with deployment.

Stability Issues

It's very stable. It can handle a lot of database storage and repositories. It's really the backbone of a lot of our systems that we use for our federal customers. It's very smooth and not buggy, and now that more people are learning how to troubleshoot and work with the product, it's becoming exponentially easier to find quality to support it during the WebLogic application process.

Scalability Issues

Obviously, it works best with Exadata servers, so that's what it really helped us with. We were running WebLogic on servers that weren't optimized for that software. I think we may have had it on IBM Blade and the servers we were using weren't necessarily optimized for the WebLogic tool. Once we kicked in the Exadata server, it increased the time to process.

Customer Service and Technical Support

The level of technical support is very good. The SMEs that are coming to help us have been excellent. It's very easy to get a hold of them and we talk weekly with our account reps to make sure things are going well. They are very approachable and always easy to get hold of, as well as being very knowledgeable.

Other Advice

We just like Oracle products.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We're partners.
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it_user487122 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user487122Managing Director at a training & coaching company with 51-200 employees
Vendor

Yes, since Oracle World I have been exposed to Oracles IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS product / service offerings. I am very impressed, thank you for the comment.

See all 2 comments
Technical Manager at Royal Visio
Reseller
Console and enterprise management tools are really easy to work and it handles all environments
Pros and Cons
  • "Robust solution; console and enterprise management tools are really easy to work."
  • "Lacking a solution for smaller applications."

What is our primary use case?

I usually use the single model or the clustering model of the solution. We deploy the dual application, ADF application, and BPM application, and there is a different scenario for each of them even though they all use WebLogic services. Each use case is somewhat different. It is our customers that use WebLogic. I deal with mid-size companies and also enterprise size companies. We are resellers and I'm the technical manager. 

What is most valuable?

WebLogic has a very robust server so the product is robust. If there are issues it's usually because there's been a misconfiguration or maybe the application deployed under the WebLogic server has errors. Another positive is that you don't need to go editing external files - the console and the enterprise management tools that Oracle provide for monitoring are really easy to work. The parameters and everything can be found on the console.

Another point is that it has a different way for configuring and working with the application server. You have the EM, the console, and the WLST which you can use the scripting for. You can even extract the WebLogic server from another dual application which can be used in a programming application so you have a console over their application service.

One other feature that is useful is that you can extract WebLogic from different scenarios and from different environments. Because it's based on Java you can run with WebLogic on a PC which has Windows on a server which has AIX or Linux or any other environments. It can handle all of the environments. There are so many good things about this application, I could go on for an hour. 

What needs improvement?

I think the only area where Weblogic could be improved would be if they were to develop a solution for smaller applications. WebLogic is really a solution for enterprise companies, meaning that it requires a lot of RAM. Sometimes you're working on a smaller application but WebLogic still needs a huge amount of RAM for it to work. Jboss or Apache, on the other hand, would start with the minimum amount of RAM, for example, 300 megabytes and with WebLogic, you need 3GB or 4GB. Because it's very heavy, the extraction time is longer compared to other solutions. Jboss would start in seven seconds, whereas WebLogic would start in 40 or 50 seconds. If there was a light version of WebLogic that would be useful. 

I would also like to be able to turn off features. For example, if I don't want to use the GMS, I can't turn it off. 

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?

This is a very stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The product has great scalability. It can handle many concurrent users because of its coherent architecture.

How are customer service and support?

We don't need any support for this solution but many of our customers get the Patch Updates from the Oracle website. 

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

I think Oracle WebLogic and IBM Websphere are the best application servers that anybody can use for the Java application. I haven't worked with Websphere but from what I've read it's good, although it's only relevant for enterprise applications. Oracle WebLogic can be used for both enterprise and standard applications, and also in the development environment.If you're looking at midsize applications, then there are other competitors as well, whether from Oracle, Jboss, Tomcats, all of them. For enterprise applications, I think WebLogic and WebSphere are the two main players in the market. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of WebLogic is very easy. You only need about 10 minutes to start the application. Compared to other Oracle products, it's very straightforward and easy to configure. 

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

I'm not involved in licensing. I know that Oracle has a site called shop.oracle and you can check it there. There is a support team and online sales team that could help with that. 

What other advice do I have?

If you take the time to go through the documentation of this product and its features you'll become familiar with the enterprise standards. It's a good path to becoming familiar with enterprise architecture. Even from an academic perspective, learning and using this application server can be a good start to understanding what can be achieved with an enterprise application server. 

I would rate this solution 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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it_user436173 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Oracle Database Administrator at a pharma/biotech company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Vendor
​We've found it to be the most reliable and stable platform for building our Java applications. High Availability with it and Oracle Linux together was very complicated.

What is most valuable?

The stability of it is probably the most valuable feature for us. We were initially using Oracle Application Server, but found that Oracle advanced quite a lot with WebLogic in terms of stability. We noticed a huge difference and, in comparison, Application Server was really quite flaky.

How has it helped my organization?

We've found it to be the most reliable and stable platform for building our Java applications.

What needs improvement?

What I didn't like about it initially was the fact that WebLogic was a purchase from BEA. It wasn't Oracle's product initially, and I found whenever they initially released the product, it was quite buggy. Hence, we didn't move away from Oracle Application Server immediately. Now in the latter versions they seem to have eliminated all the bugs, but I think if Oracle does take over software or middleware from other companies before releasing their own version of it, I think they should be testing it a little bit more to eliminate any bugs before it goes in the market.

Also, our WebLogic and Oracle Linux are bound together, that's what we were looking for as our High Availability solution. Getting Oracle Linux highly available was difficult, and getting WebLogic highly available was difficult, too. But then trying to put the two products together as well was even more complicated.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

We've had no issues with deploying it.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Again, it's very stable, and we've been pleased with it in comparison to Application Server.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's scaled sufficiently for our needs.

How are customer service and technical support?

We found Oracle technical support to be very, very difficult to deal with. To eventually get to the right engineer, you have to go through numerous escalations. I think the escalation process probably needs to be revisited by them to provide a better experience for paying customers.

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

For us, going to WebLogic was the support. Oracle Application Server was out of support, so we went to WebLogic and now we have support on our projects that we're rolling out for many years to come.

How was the initial setup?

The actual WebLogic we're running runs on Oracle Linux, and when we put that on, we found the documentation to get the High Availability running quite complicated as well. Also I would say when Oracle releases these new versions of their products, you find that the support you get isn't probably what it should be. It takes a long while for support to ramp up and to get the knowledge of the new products, so I think a good thing would be for these products to come out unreleased to businesses. Then the support people should be brought right up to speed and be ready for any questions because by the time you get to an engineer who maybe knows the product or knows the situation you're in, it takes an awful lot of escalation time.

What other advice do I have?

For installing or looking at the database, I would say look at the components that you need within the database. What we generally find is that most of the features that we want, or most of the features that are available in Enterprise Edition, we actually wouldn't use. So take time and you might actually see them only by using Standard Edition.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Technical Specialist at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Scalable and stable with good transaction handling
Pros and Cons
  • "The transaction handling of WebLogic and the way it is designed is excellent."
  • "Support could be better. The expertise when we have some Oracle WebLogic issues and challenges is not there. The issues are not being addressed in time. This really needs to be improved going forward."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution for the UI (user interface), as a middleware product that communicates between different servers including application servers and databases.

What is most valuable?

I think the way the managed servers and the load balancing as well as the threading have been distributed is very good.

The transaction handling of WebLogic and the way it is designed is excellent.

What needs improvement?

Customization is a bit of an issue for us. 

Support could be better. The expertise when we have some Oracle WebLogic issues and challenges is not there. The issues are not being addressed in time. This really needs to be improved going forward.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We've been using the solution for five years and haven't had any issues with stability so far. There haven't been bugs or glitches. We haven't had crashes.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable. This shouldn't be a problem for organizations that need to expand.

We have about 200 people using the product currently. Mostly they are developers and testing teams.

How are customer service and technical support?

We've contacted technical support in the past. They've been okay, but they could be better. Sometimes it takes a while to get answers and some individuals don't have a clear knowledge base. I'd rate it seven out of ten in terms of satisfaction levels.

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

We haven't used a different solution. However, we have a vendor who has created a product which is based on the WebLogic.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was not handled by myself. We have a separate team that handles the actual installation of WebLogic. However, I didn't see challenges in the implementation and the team didn't raise any issues that I know of.

What other advice do I have?

I don't remember the exact version number of the solution we are using, but it's around version 12.

I'd suggest other companies shop around. There are other competitors. The cost and the actual purpose of the application should be considered before choosing any solution. 

However, we can recommend this solution considering the stability and scalability that we have seen over the last five years.

I'd rate the solution 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.
PeerSpot user
it_user521655 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at Crown Castle
Vendor
It's industry tested and available on various platforms.

What is most valuable?

I like that it's industry tested and available on various platforms. I'm not sure we use any specific features of it, other than it’s a robust web server; the services, the database pools, good integration with Oracle database 12c, which is another product that we have.

How has it helped my organization?

Having the Oracle support has improved how my organization functions. We have a support contract for it 24/7. That's a huge thing, having the support.

Being able to stay on top of the release cycle and having reps that can keep us in the loop has been a major benefit.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see better integration with some of the cloud stuff that Oracle provides. We just went to an Oracle hackathon; a couple of us, a couple of weeks ago. It's a little confusing how the WebLogic Server, the cloud services and some other services interact; we were just trying to see how that works. What's the vision Oracle has bringing those two worlds together? That's what I'd like to see.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I’ve found it very stable. We haven't really had any issues that are related to the product at all.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have scaled it. We've had this product several years and kept upgrading it, of course. We started out with, maybe, one server instance, and then two, and now we're up to four. We haven't really had any major issues, as long as you follow the standards. It's been great.

How are customer service and technical support?

We had some Oracle people that we worked with that came in house. We were doing a major upgrade. People came and helped us day-to-day for a number of weeks. It's been great. As I’ve mentioned, having the 24/7 support, especially from our DBAs’ perspective, has been a real plus.

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

Back in the day, probably 15 years ago, there were very few application servers. WebLogic was, at the time, the best. Of course, it changed hands a few times. Oracle finally bought it. We were an Oracle shop. We had a database. There just wasn't really any other solution, in terms of having the quality and support that we enjoy. I think that's important.

When you're running a business and you have customers around the country depending on you to get the business done, having the up time, having the server stable, and having that support behind us is the most important thing.

When I’m looking at a vendor, it's important that they follow industry standards, and have very strong support. I keep coming back to the 24/7 support. That's been invaluable for us; to be able to pick up the phone, or have somebody get on site with us because it's a mission-critical type of business we're in. That's the most important; having the Oracle name and standard, following that.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

At that time, there were only a few options. At a previous company, we even made sort of a homegrown, homespun version, aspiring to get to WebLogic someday, when we had enough money. This was a start-up.

When I joined the company I'm with now, they had just become an Oracle shop and started with this product. I think we evaluated JBoss at the time. Every couple of years, we evaluate and see what's out there.

WebLogic's still the strongest, with all the suite of products that they provide.

What other advice do I have?

If you are serious about it and you have the money to spend, then spend it on a winner. There's all kinds of open source stuff out there. Stuff is changing constantly. If you're trying to run an enterprise business, it's sounds great, it's great for proof of concept. But, when it comes down to it, you don't want to build your own car. You want to buy something that's got some standards, has a big name behind it. That's what I suggest.

I don't give anything a perfect rating. This is software. It's constantly changing. Again, the breadth of services that are provided, and the support, again, is key to us.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
IT Analyst at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Easy Deployment, Reduces Rework but Expensive

What is most valuable?

One of the most valuable features of WebLogic is that deployment is an easy process. The code can be deployed on multiple instances without rework.

How has it helped my organization?

With a huge number of servers for our application, manual deployment would be an extremely tedious, error prone and time- (hence money-) consuming process. WebLogic has assisted us in this aspect.

What needs improvement?

The initial setup and administration does require expertise. While bigger organizations can afford to have dedicated horizontal teams, I assume smaller organizations may not be able to afford this. The default setup should include more features such as more scripts and more users with different privileges, which could resolve this issue.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used this solution for over four and a half years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I did not encounter any issues with stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I did not encounter any issues with scalability either.

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

WebLogic was our first choice.

How was the initial setup?

We did not require vendor support. Setup was done by my team and me.

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

Licensing is expensive but it is worth the cost. If you are going to utilize all its features, then you should go for it. If you do not have enough budget, you could choose for other freeware options and use automation and orchestration tools instead. This will surely have an impact on stability in the initial phases of implementation.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Although, I was not working while choosing it, WebLogic has been the first choice for organization. However, now after many years we are evaluating to look for other freeware options.

What other advice do I have?

You need to consider the licensing and upgrade costs. In addition, it will help to have a dedicated administration team.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user547332 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user547332IT Analyst at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User

My review for Weblogic is now live on IT Central Station. Please free to drop in a comment if you have suggestions.

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Updated: March 2024
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