What is most valuable?
It provides the ability to run from a simple schema base to a real application database, including the option to run it on the Oracle public cloud. In cases where the customer has an issue with data locality or privacy, the option to seamlessly switch to a Oracle public cloud machine in the customer's own DC makes this the most flexible cloud solution.
The automatic inclusion of all database options in Enterprise Edition (EE), Extreme Performance and Exadata cloud service make this product very attractive.
How has it helped my organization?
Previously, when proposing cloud solutions for Oracle database to enterprise clients the lack of a viable high availability solution was often cost prohibitive. Oracle offers this as a standard option. With Active Dataguard freely available for Extreme Performance, there is no enterprise cloud service catering to the Oracle database that can match this offering
What needs improvement?
Currently, there is no simple method to modify the orchestrations on which the compute hosts are based. Hence, unlike the IaaS Oracle services, in cases where there is a need to make certain changes to the service, such as adding an IP network or a GRE tunnel, it requires specialized skills from the backend. However, we expect with the rapid pace of innovation that the feature to modify advanced aspects might be added on the fly in later versions.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been experimenting with the solution for just over a year now and we have clients that are going live on the system as I write this.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
We saw some minor hiccups to do with networking and connectivity. We also were utilizing the Exadata database cloud service for one client and faced some issues with the cloud tooling. One minor problem was if we created a database of a particular name in capitals, deleted the database, and then tried to recreate the same database but with small letters, the cloud tooling would not allow this. We raised the issue to Oracle, who provided a fix and will incorporate this in the next version of the Exadata cloud tooling.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
On the whole, the system was very stable. We only faced one unexplained hiccup, when a server was rebooted and we were not able to track down the root cause.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We did not face any issues with scalability. We are using Oracle OTD for high-availability scale out, which was initially active-passive but later an active-active solution was provided.
How are customer service and support?
Customer Service:
We have had very responsive customer support. On several occasions, the Oracle Cloud A-Team directly came on the call with us to help resolve issues.
Technical Support:
The technical team from the vendor side was quite knowledgeable and we were able to resolve some network routing issues quite quickly.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have used other cloud providers. However, they did not have a true high-availability cloud solution. The second issue we found is that I/O bandwidth was comparatively variable on the other cloud providers and we could not scale easily beyond a few terabytes without facing I/O bottlenecks.
How was the initial setup?
Because we had taken training on the platform, it was very familiar for us. However, it would not be so easy for someone implementing this from scratch. We would recommend going with an experienced managed service provider.The platform provides surprising flexibility for something that is billed as platform as a service.
What about the implementation team?
We are ourselves a cloud service provider team that implemented for several customers.
What was our ROI?
This varies across our customers but they all are seeing benefits over their erstwhile in-house solutions.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The cloud option provides a lot of benefits for Oracle shops, as it reduces the upfront costs and converts the licensing costs to a running cost.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We have utilized other cloud and hosted platforms such as Azure, Macquarie Telecom, Verizon, Xerox, etc. However, this option was superior for Oracle Database hosting.
What other advice do I have?
This provides an enterprise-class cloud solution that can scale to terabyte-sized databases in the cloud without having to compromise.
*Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We are an Oracle Diamond partner.
