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PeerSpot user
IT Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
Flexible topology and data affinity are the most valuable features.

What is most valuable?

In order, the most valuable features are:

  1. Flexible topology
  2. Data affinity
  3. Configurability
  4. POF (optimized) serialization
  5. Support of C++ & Java

How has it helped my organization?

We are system integrators. We used Coherence in building a transaction processing system for a client. Introducing a data grid, we moved from a vertically scalable solution to full scalability. The data grid helped a lot to reach the goal of scaling the system in a virtualized environment.

What needs improvement?

Monitoring and control of the grid was only via JMX interface. Logging was distributed, thus hard to collect and put in order to be able to investigate the issues, eventually. Today's Coherence version has a new logging system and a web-based UI.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using it for 1,5 years.

Buyer's Guide
Oracle Coherence
October 2024
Learn what your peers think about Oracle Coherence. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2024.
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

No stability issues: A node can fail, but the topology can be designed to be fault-tolerant.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is safe. The data is distributed/replicated. Adding/removing a node only has the cost of re-distributing the partitions of the data across the network.

How are customer service and support?

N.A.

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

We did not previously use a different solution.

How was the initial setup?

It is very easy to set up a basic topology, but hard to configure and tune to make it really work.

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

N.A. The client paid a license for the full Oracle stack of products.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Before choosing this product, we did not evaluate other options. The client used the full Oracle stack in their architecture.

What other advice do I have?

Before you can master Coherence, you must study how a data grid works. So, start learning about common data grid patterns. The next step is Coherence documentation, which is clear, but huge.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We are a premier business partner of IBM.
PeerSpot user
it_user488163 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
By allowing for data distribution and replication through clustering, it improves the reliability of information systems.

What is most valuable?

  • Query response time
  • Clustering, data distribution, data affinity

How has it helped my organization?

Coherence has improved response times for queries of sizeable data sets. Also by allowing for data distribution and replication through clustering, it improves the reliability of information systems.

What needs improvement?

  • An API allowing for ‘joins’ between different caches, similar to DB joins.
  • A more streamlined configuration. There is a multitude of proxy, node, extended client, etc. scripts and config files that need to be maintained. What about making this less of a hassle in future by bringing more consistency into the configuration process?

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using it for three years

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We had one instance when we experienced intermittent network failure. This issue was not reproducible for obvious reasons. Coherence failed to live up to its SLA by not being able to recover but getting into a state where new nodes were created when the old ones were still there but for some reason no longer recognized as being part of the cluster. The Oracle support was not something to write home about, i.e. there was a constant request for more info (logs, timelines, etc. – which were provided) and never a feeling that the problem was understood or at least that there was any serious attempt at investigating or reproducing on Oracle’s side.

How are customer service and technical support?

Medium to Good. Sometimes prompt competent responses, at other times support was lacking.

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

It was a company decision as this is a commercial product with guarantee of support.

How was the initial setup?

It was complex. There are a multitude of configuration files and shell scripts, most of which could be copy and pasted. No uniformity of approach or tool to allow for proper management of configuration.

What was our ROI?

ROI is reasonably good, since no cheaper alternative satisfying company requirements was identified.

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

The product is considered expensive, hence the company will be on the lookout for a replacement if feasible. I'm not involved in licensing discussion.

What other advice do I have?

My advice would be for Oracle to prepare a database with already existing configurations from clients. This would help future clients to have templates for various solutions already instead of reinventing the wheel. Generally Oracle fails at this chapter as opposed to open source solutions. It is very painful to start from scratch with little or no concrete solutions posted online (full solutions with commercial value).

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Oracle Coherence
October 2024
Learn what your peers think about Oracle Coherence. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user531837 - PeerSpot reviewer
Architect at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
The memory grid and multicast support are valuable features. Cross-site or cross-data center replication can be improved.

What is most valuable?

  • Memory grid
  • Multicast support

How has it helped my organization?

It helped us to cache the data in memory and improved performance by 10x.

What needs improvement?

The cross-site or cross-data center replication seems slow. This can be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution for four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have a stability issue once a year on the average. Most of the time, the cause is a network issue. When a few servers get out of the cluster, we lose data.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There have not really been any scalability issues.

How is customer service and technical support?

Technical support is OK, but it is not really great.

How was the initial setup?

The installation was pretty easy.

What other advice do I have?

You can go ahead with this product blindly if you are looking for a memory grid kind of solution. The license is there for sure.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Real User
​In-memory data grid and distributed caching are valuable but Coherence cluster is problematic

What is most valuable?

In-memory data grid and distributed caching.

How has it helped my organization?

It was suited for stock exchange marketing software, improved performance.

What needs improvement?

Stability.

For how long have I used the solution?

About 3 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Yes, there is a big problem in Coherence cluster. For example, a master, because of connection issues, does not announce its mastery to a slave; slave becomes a master, then two masters appears in cluster, and the whole cluster dies.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No.

How are customer service and technical support?

Two out of 10. They always look at you innocently and say everything is fine. Only when you send all the core dumps etc. do they start to look into the problem, and it takes from two months to half a year to fix problems.

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

Yes, I used to use Redis, Aerospike, Cassandra, etc. Why coherence? It was a company decision.

How was the initial setup?

Setup is easy.

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

Product is too expensive and support is poor. There are better products.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Nope, it was a company decision to use Coherence, and I did not have influence on that decision.

What other advice do I have?

Invest in your network if you use Coherence cluster. Serious!

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user531594 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
Vendor
The distributing caching mechanism keeps the cache current with the database.

What is most valuable?

The most important features to me are its scalability, high availability, and distributed caching mechanism.

How has it helped my organization?

We used the distributed caching mechanism to keep the cache up-to-date with the database. Implementation of the Touch processor helped a lot.

What needs improvement?

They could make the configuration management easier. Failure maintenance could be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Oracle Coherence for one year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We did not encounter any issues with stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We did not encounter any issues with scalability.

How are customer service and technical support?

We received very good technical support.

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

Before using Oracle Coherence, we tried using Ehcache. We switched because of replication, grid support, and a few other reasons.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward. The documentation and technical support also helped.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Before we decided to use Oracle Coherence, we tried out Ehcache, but found the Oracle Coherence better suited our product implementation requirements.

What other advice do I have?

Oracle Coherence is a very good product which helps to create internet-scale applications using a high-performance grid.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user530115 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Vendor
Entry processors offer atomic updating. It can route an event to a specific node in the cluster.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are the entry processors for their atomic update ability; and the ability to route an event to one specific node in the cluster.

How has it helped my organization?

By embedding Coherence and clustering the application, you can eliminate single source of failure problems. 

We use WebLogic as the JMS provider. For technical reasons, we were not successful in clustering it, so we have a single source of failure problem.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see a more modern API like Hazelcast or Infinispan.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used Oracle Coherence for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The product is stable and solid.

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

We did not try a different solution, but we searched for a solid product with a good reputation in a financial organization.

How was the initial setup?

Initial setup is straightforward, but it takes some time to tune the cache parameters.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented it through an in-house team.

What other advice do I have?

First compare the product to the more open source competitors, like Apache Ignite and Hazelcast.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user