Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse Reviews

We evaluated Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse for use in a client project. We were among the first to try out this solution.

I was able to set up a data warehouse very quickly. For a pilot project, I didn't want to get into a complicated scenario of determining indexes and partition strategies. I just wanted to load my data and go. Oracle ADW worked very well in this regard.

I loved the simplicity of loading the data and simply relying on the self-tuning capabilities of ADW.

Existing Oracle customers interested in the Autonomous Data Warehouse should know that this is a different experience than the classic Oracle DB Enterprise Edition. Yes, this is a database capable of running an entire enterprise, with unparalleled performance, available disaster recovery, and cutting-edge analytics. But the analytics come with new Notebook technology to code collaboratively with the rest of your team, not the classic data miner GUI interface. Don't expect to tune your queries with various indexes and fancy partitioning strategies. The system is designed to run on autopilot, not be carefully controlled and highly tuned. And, due to security limitations, neither the powerful GUI development environment Application Express (yet?) nor Oracle R Enterprise are not available. Hopefully these features can be added in a future release and the system can be accessed more easily without compromising the database's security.

I have previously built Oracle databases. I wanted to try out the autonomous database to save on database setup time.

I would recommend to fully utilize Oracle's trial service. It's a good way to try it out first.

Be aware that you still have to define your "schema". You still define the columns in each table. This is a necessary step. It would be great if Oracle added a wizard that takes data and "figures out" what the column names are (e.g. perhaps noticing that Boston, Los Angeles, New York could be a CITY column). This would be in line with making it "autonomous".  Maybe it's there and I don't know how to make that happen.

We used to report all reports from Oracle. We centralized all the connections in the data warehouse, and we have a business intelligence team that makes all the reports for the company. The database connects with Power BI to show the dashboard to the management team.

The solution integrates well with Power BI.

While I'm not on the technical side and instead manage the team, I haven't heard of any complaints related to the user interface, configuration, or customization.

The product, overall, seems to be quite stable.

We are thinking of changing to a data warehouse on the cloud. I don't know if Oracle is in the cloud as well or if we will turn to another solution such as Google Cloud. 

The initial setup was pretty complex. It was not easy.

It would be ideal if the company could manage semi-structured data such as JSON. Some other data warehouses can handle that. However, Oracle doesn't seem to be able to.

I'm new to the company. The solution is also new and was installed in October 2020.

The solution is quite stable. Once you have configured and set it up it's a very stable solution. There aren't bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It offers reliable performance.

I'm not sure how scalable the solution is in the current format we have. Due to the fact that it's an on-premise solution, we have some constraints with the scalability. A cloud solution would be more scalable.

Currently, we have 50 users engaged with the solution.

Technical support is likely fine. I've never heard of any complaints about their level of service. I have never dealt with them personally, however. I can't directly speak to any personal experiences. I don't know if they are knowledgeable or responsive.

I'm new in the company. I know this solution is new as well. It is the new direction the company is trying. We installed the solution in October. However, before that, it is my understanding that we had Oracle also, although it was an older version. I am not aware of the company using a different solution.

The initial setup was now straightforward or easy. It was rather complex. A company needs to be prepared for that when they implement it.

I don't handle the billing or licensing aspect of the solution. I don't have any insights into the cost of the product or how many licenses the company holds.

We are customers and end-users of Oracle. We don't have a business relationship with the company.

I'm not sure of which version we are using. I don't know the version number off-hand.

In general, I would rate the solution seven out of ten. It's okay, however, the company has shown interest in moving away from on-premises in favor of some type of cloud solution.

Oracle offers this solution as Platform as a service (PaaS). The serverless option provides cost optimization to the organization where they can save huge amounts of money, but not require a highly skilled DBA to manage the database. 

Oracle controls the entire service, where a customer is only responsible for managing data. All other things are managed and maintained by Oracle. There is no billing when the service is stopped.

The solution really helps to test our new applications, do modifications and updates with minimal costs and no HW requirements. Autonomous Database (ADB) provides a highly scalable, secured platform. With Exadata on the back-end, we can achieve higher performance, durability, and data security. You can switch off and on the service to avoid excessive cost/charges. It can be easily accessed remotely. Besides, Oracle has a new DC in our region which greatly resolves DB security and other local governance body issues. 

ADB runs on Exadata technology, which is the proven industry best solution for any kind of workloads. Besides, ADB provides complete automated features, such as, self patching, upgrade, tuning, automated indexing, and automated backups. Also, recovery of the database is easy. 

The entire host and DB software maintenance is done by Oracle and automated. Also, it provides Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) capabilities by default to address data security issues. In addition, the connectivity is highly secured.

An ADB serverless service provides no control over storage, host, and facilities. One of the major problem is creating custom tablespace. The ADB serverless option doesn't support custom tablespace creation, which could cause issues during on-premise database migration that requires specifically named tablespace. There should be an option to create customized tablespace. 

There are many data types and parameters which are not supported. That should be improved a bit so many customers can adopt.

Over six months now.

With different layers of protection, it is highly stable. Besides, you can choose to have a replica at another region or domain. 

Considering Oracle Cloud setups, it is highly scalable.

Oracle is responsive towards cloud problems.

We were using on-premises databases for testing new application functionality. This was causing a lot of cost to the organization.

With pre-DBA knowledge, it is simple, straightforward procedure.

In-house team.

High.

We discussed other cloud solutions, but the Oracle offering was cost optimized.

I highly recommend it for companies who want to test their application functionality, dev, or test DBs for cost optimization.

With existing DBA knowledge, it is easy to manage and migrate a database to ADB.

The solution helps stream the data faster and in real time.

They should add features to make the solution more user-friendly. They should work on making its integration with GoldenGate easier. It would increase work efficiency while loading the data into the data warehouse.

We have been using the solution for twenty years.

It is a stable solution.

The solution is scalable, and I rate its scalability as an eight. We have 20 users of the solution in our organization.

The solution's support team responds well to specific issues. But sometimes, they suggest we refer to the manual, which is not helpful.

I used Snowflake earlier, but it works considerably slowly.

The solution's initial setup is straightforward. But, the implementation gets too complicated when we load the data from different systems into our data warehouse.

The solution's cost is reasonable. I rate its pricing as a five.

I rate the solution as an eight.

We have a number of clients that are universities. They use the solution for student management. We also have clients in transport, banking, and science domains.

The product is easy to use. I like that it is cloud-based.

The tool is not as autonomous as it's led to believe. A lot of the tools that were previously there have now been taken away. If we write our queries in the same way, then it doesn't trigger the autonomy in the way that it should.

I have been using the solution since it was released.

I rate the tool’s stability a ten out of ten.

I rate the tool’s scalability a ten out of ten.

The product is easy to set up, but it can be very difficult once you get beyond the autonomy. The solution could be deployed on public, private, and hybrid cloud environments. The time taken for deployment depends on the client.

The price depends on the configuration we choose. It can vary massively.

We provide technical support to our customers. Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

We're currently using the solution to move data from legacy systems to the cloud.

The analytics have been very good. We've found them to be quite useful.

The solution needs to offer support for the R language. It doesn't exist and it really is something they should have. 

Sometimes the solution works differently between the cloud and on-premises. It needs to be more consistent and predictable.

There isn't support for data migrations. It would be helpful to have more documentation or information about this process. It's not easy for us to find online or on their website.

We have only been using the solution for about a year on a few projects that we are currently running.

We haven't found any issues with stability. There might have been two or three small issues around having the database inaccessible occasionally, but other than that, it's good. We haven't faced any bugs or crashes.

The scalability is okay.

We are planning to have 50-60 users on the solution once we've finished the projects we are working on. Right now, it's a work in progress.

We've had to contact technical support in the past for a few issues. However, our partner contacted them and dealt with the problems, so I haven't had any direct contact myself. I wouldn't be able to rate their service or give any insight into it.

The initial setup was handled by our partner. We didn't handle it. I wouldn't be able to speak about if it was complex or straightforward as I wasn't personally involved.

We had a partner handle our setup for us.

I'm not sure if I'm capable of giving advice to anyone as it's a solution that's so new to us still.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

It is used by banking customers. Oracle is strong in banking, and many of their existing customers do use or continue to use Oracle solutions.

One advantage is that if you already have an Oracle Database, it easily integrates with that.

If you are using structured data, it works pretty well. They have engineered their hardware, which is based on Sun, to work with their database and data warehouse in an optimal way. So, the data exchange is extremely fast and good. If it is just tabular data, it works really well. I like that part.

It is good as data warehouses go, but it is not that good for really big data.

It doesn't work well when you have unstructured data or you need online analytics. It is not as nice as Hadoop in these aspects.

It is stable.

It is scalable. It is good for data warehouses, but it is not that good for big data. In the environments where I have seen it being used, there were probably 20 to 25 people working with this solution.

I would rate them a four out of five.

Positive

We also work with Hadoop and Teradata. We are neutral, and we are open to working with any of them. There is no preference.

Its setup is somewhat simpler than Hadoop because it does not have so many components. We have had two—in some cases, three—people in the past for the deployment.

In terms of maintenance, after some time, you probably don't need permanent staff for maintenance. Once it is in a steady state, our observation is that the clients can survive with on-call support. The IT department of the bank is able to manage without external consultants. They do the operational stuff, and if there is a problem, we help them, but after some time, support is not required 24/7. Previously, it was also available on-premises, and then they re-architected it to be on the cloud. Now, they're on the cloud, which is another reason it does not require on-premises support.

I don't have any reliable data, but the customers are okay with it. They have not had any complaints.

Cloud solutions are cheaper, but in the long run, they may not be much cheaper. They certainly have a lower initial cost. 

The licensing is yearly, and it is based on the size of the hardware and the number of users.

I would rate it a seven out of ten.

This solution is used for bigger projects that involve a large number of transactions. For companies with these requirements, it is perfect.

At this point, we don't have any customers on this platform because, unfortunately, in our country, we are still lagging behind when we talk about the cloud.

The performance and scalability are awesome.

I think that is the best solution for big data warehouses. Larger companies need this kind of solution. Since it is autonomous, you don't have to worry about things like database administration.

The only thing that you have to be concerned with is the data modeling, and how you want the data, or your client's data, to be presented. Since the data warehousing task is quite big, it will give you more time to decide on how you want the data to be presented.

It is very important the integration with other platforms be made to be as easy as it is with an on-premises deployment. On-premises,  you can integrate with different vendors such as Microsoft. There should be flexibility in terms of how you can accomplish things and not just with a single vendor, but with all vendors.

I have been using the Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse for the past month.

I have not needed to contact technical support.

There is no installation for this cloud-based system.

You pay as you go, and you don't pay for services that you don't use. If you feel that you need additional resources then you can increase them and pay only for them. There is no need to worry about paying for something that you don't use.

Licensing depends also on how you want to store your data. For example, some clients use a hybrid approach, where some data is stored on the cloud and other data is stored on-premises.

Overall, I think that the price is quite cheap, and they gave me a $300 credit.

Overall, I am quite happy with this product. I recommend it to my customers and I will continue recommending it to others. 

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.