Oracle Database Appliance Reviews

Nowadays, we migrate midsize EBS environments (EBS 11i, 12.1 and 12.2) to these machines. We use the machine as a consolidation environment and we also see a performance increase in the database layer.

Customers with limited licenses prefer this machine, as it has capacity-on-demand features which are completely aligned with Oracle licensing policies.

It is an easy-to-deploy database environment, which does not need much maintenance work. A DBA with knowledge of Oracle technologies, such as ASM and database, can manage it.

The system resources of this machine are quite enough for running midsize Oracle databases but, if there is a need, customers can expand their disk and memory resources.

This machine is also used as a standby database environment, especially for customers who have ODA HA or Exadata in their primary sites, and want to have an affordable engineered system for their standby sites.

• Capacity on Demand: Valuable because we can configure the machine according to our licenses. When there is a need, we can directly increase or decrease the CPU cores of this machine.
• NVM Express (NVMe) solid-state drives: This technology brings outstanding I/O performance for midsize databases. We have tested it by doing POCs on customer sites and the results were quite satisfying.
• Virtualization: Using the KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine), we can virtualize this machine and run both databases and applications on it.
• Affordable price: When we think about the technology and the features that this machine delivers, the price seems to provide a lot of value.
• Engineered system: This machine is a 1U engineered system optimized, tested and delivered by Oracle. It is a ready-to-use, easy-to-deploy environment for running Oracle products.
• Support for multiple database versions: Both 11.2.0.4 and 12c databases are supported with this machine.
• Support for multiple database editions: Both Standard edition and Enterprise edition databases are supported with this machine.
• ODA X6-2 is easy to manage: It delivers management utilities such as odacli and virt-manager (for virtualization management).

Oracle ODA is a fixed server appliance. It would be improved if it were an engineered system with scale-out capabilities.

Virtualization features could also be improved. A web-based GUI would be a good start.

Also VM-specific features, which provide VM-level fault tolerancy, could be added to this product. (This improvement would depends on the scale-out capabilities).

I have used ODA X3, X4 and X5 models for three years. This ODA X6-2M is a new ODA model and I have used it the last six months.

None.

No issues, but there is room for improvement here. Currently, there is no scale-out option for any of the models in ODA family.

Quite good. When you buy this machine it is registered with Oracle. Any service request is created using this registration. SR creation and updates are fast.

Conventional systems. Most of the time, the reasons for switching are the optimal price and the promising features.

Straightforward. The whole environment is built in one hour by following the Oracle documentation and using the related utilities.

Get benefit from the capacity-on-demand features. License your cores according to your licenses.

Standard HP servers and other members of the ODA family (such as ODA X6-2S, L and HA).

To others looking into this product I would recommend they take a look at ODA X7, which has been released.

ODA X7 delivers more system resources and it also delivers Standard Edition Oracle Database support for the HA (High Availability) model.

The product’s valuable feature is its capability to pre-configure and pre-install the settings. We can easily manage the website.

The product's technical support services need improvement. 

We have been using Oracle Database Appliance since 2014.

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

The technical support services regarding hardware issues could be better.

We switched to Oracle Database Appliance from the commodity server for better compatibility and performance.

Oracle Database Appliance is easy to implement. It takes two to five hours or up to a day to complete. It needs a basic understanding of how all the product works and the process of allocating the IPs. A team of three people executes the deployment.

The product is pre-implemented in appliances. It doesn’t require any further improvement. It is suitable for mid-sized companies.

I rate it a ten out of ten.

It's a typical client-server architecture where we host databases on a Linux server, and we have an Oracle client that allows connection to the server. We allow connection to dev, test, and UAT environments with different databases, where the production server is on a Linux server.

The availability of Oracle Database Appliance definitely helps, but you cannot go beyond a certain capacity of server if you are storing a large amount of data. You will need new infrastructure, as it's not as scalable as it's a monolithic system and not distributed.

Oracle offers ETL with PL/SQL as a programming language for SQL programming, which is majorly used in data engineering. Shell scripting and Informatica are useful for loading data into the Database and creating, manipulating, and transforming data. It's also good for reporting purposes and can parse semi-structured data like JSON and XML.

The scalability part is missing. It isn't as popular as AWS, GCP, or Azure as it lacks scalability and cloud-native services like containerization. The Oracle cloud hasn't reached the level of offering all cloud services that the competitors do.

I have been familiar with Oracle Database Appliance for close to 14 years.

Clients are hesitant now because it's on-prem, and the scalability factor is an issue. Oracle doesn't offer modern features available with cloud solutions.

It's not as scalable because it is a monolithic system. I would rate its scalability as four out of ten due to some limitations.

Most companies are moving away from Oracle to cloud-based solutions like Databricks and AWS due to more advanced features fit for modern analytic solutions.

The initial setup involves having a server and infrastructure. Oracle DB takes care of the installation, so it's not particularly difficult.

I have heard from colleagues that Oracle is very costly compared to open databases like PostgreSQL. I cannot personally comment on it.

I have experience with competitors like AWS and Microsoft Azure, and they offer more advanced components and benefits as a package compared to standalone systems.

With current developments, Oracle attempts to incorporate the latest technologies like Azure and AWS, but it must ramp up its offerings to match the capabilities competitors provide in cloud services.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

The tool is a specific and effective system. I am impressed with its usability. 

The tool's setup can be easier. 

The solution is stable. 

The product is scalable. 

The tool's setup is little complex. 

I would rate the product an eight out of ten. 

Our production database and development are in Oracle Database Appliance. We currently only have one machine, so we are thinking of buying another two. 

Oracle Database Appliance is scalable. It is a great solution for Oracle Database. This is the best hardware environment you can do it.

The feature that I would like to see improve is the interface. It is really not good. I almost have to work on script by script in it. There is always some issue with the user interface.

A firewall feature embedded in the solution would be good as well. 

I have been using Oracle Database Appliance for four years. 

Oracle Database Appliance is very stable. 

Oracle Database Appliance is scalable. On a scale of one to 10, with one being bad and 10 being good, I would rate this solution a nine for scalability. 

We have been trying to upgrade our database since July of 2022. We have had to open a lot of service requests with Oracle's support. We ended up solving our issue with our developers here in Brazil. I realized then that Oracle's local support do not talk to other Oracle support people who. It's very strange; sometimes it feels like two different companies.

Neutral

We previously used Posters for a minor database. We switched because it was too small. Oracle Database Appliance is much cheaper for us to use overall. 

The initial setup was very difficult for us. It took us 20 to 25 days. 

Oracle Database Appliance is very expensive. On a scale of one to 10, with one being cheap and 10 being expensive, I would rate Oracle Database Appliance a seven. 

My advice for those looking to implement this solution is: it's a great solution but you will need two machines to run it. 

The product is good value for money. It is a secure solution. 

Overall, on a scale of one to ten, I would give Oracle Database Appliance an eight. 

I use Oracle databases with multiple clients mainly for analyzing financial transactions. They use it to find the profit and loss for each and every day of trading activity.

Finding out out a single day's profit and loss used to take them almost seven days to calculate. For example, if they wanted to find out something new, they could find the profit and loss of the day's data only by the following week. So we introduced Oracle Database Appliance for the extra data and to gather all the information we have across all the systems. We built a warehouse database that will accommodate all the information and we reduced the time to determine the entire transactions of P and L into a single day.

The Oracle database is able to get the data, process it, and return it to the company's CEO's and CFO's within a single day, and thus they are able to find out yesterday's P and L by today. It has drastically reduced the amount and time of processing from seven days to one day. This is our main use for Oracle. The business intelligence and data warehousing features are the best part of Oracle Database Appliance.

It could be that we may not be using Oracle and GoldenGate in the way we are supposed to be using them. We have faced a couple of issues with GoldenGate. Whenever we have issues, the Oracle support will take the time to understand how GoldenGate works. The stability of the GoldenGate could be improved, although it is pretty stable.

In terms of Database Appliance, the important thing is how you design it. If the underlying design is good, then Oracle will perform exactly how we want it to perform. But if the underlying design or the underlying architecture is bad, then Oracle is not going to give the expert the results he needs. It all depends upon the developer who designs it. I haven't seen any drawback with the Oracle database assets, and for the past five years I've been using it in our team.

In terms of what can be improved, I'd say Artificial Intelligence, AI. It would be really helpful if AI was incorporated into the solution.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Oracle Database Appliance an eight.

I've been using Oracle Database Appliance for five years. I moved to AWS Cloud Platform and now we are migrating the Oracle appliances to the Cloud Platform, which is an AWS platform as a service.

Oracle Database Appliance is really reliable. The stability and scalability of Oracle Database are reliable. I would say that it is more reliable than scalable. With the 19c, I've seen that it is stable in most cases but we had certain issues when we tried to create scale on 12c. We had issues when we used the previous, older version of Oracle, 12c. It was not that easy to use 12c because we had to get certain hardware. 

In terms of scalability, it is not bad. It was not that easy to scale. I don't think it's easily scalable.

I think more than 400 or 600 people are using it in the company.

Their technical support is really good. It has really good products and I'm pretty satisfied.

The initial setup of Database Appliance is straightforward. But It depends upon the applications that you're using.

If you want to use it on top of the database, it's going to be straightforward. But if you want to do it at some other part of the process the third party client has to do an APA call. It depends upon the way they implement it. If it's going to be a third party vendor using it he'll have to make APA calls, then it's going to be a bit complex.

I would recommend Oracle Database Appliance. Oracle is the benchmark in the field. Still, I would recommend you doing a proof of concept with Oracle Database first and then consider the other databases.

End User response time for Core Banking Application

By adding ODA in our infrastructure, it helps to spare time for other Adminstration & Research activities..

The most valuable feature is the performance. Its a pre-configured device and you just plug and play..

It has limitations of Storage as well as network connectiivty over 10G Fiber. 

We have been using the Oracle Database Appliance for about six years, since 2014.

The appliance is pretty stable.

It is scalable, although it only has two storage shelves available.  The total usual storage after RAID dual parity is between 12 and 15 TB.

Technical support is very good and the people are nice.

Prior to using the appliance, we had our Oracle Database installed on a Dell server. We had some performance issues with the system, which is why we switched.

The initial setup is okay. We just have to plug in the machine and set up the applications.

Although, the purchase contract have engagement of the vendors for its deployment and in PAKISTAN we at ZTBL is the first who are deploying the ODA. since its a pre configured machine so no special training is required for its deployment. Moreover, the expertise level of the vendor is satisfied.

By deploying ODA in your infra, you can spare time for other activities instead of resolving issues of traditional system.

Should go wiht ODA , breakup the cost of hardware, setup & Licensing, you will find that ODA is much cheaper than any other solution in terms of setup and operational cost

we had reviewed traditional system configuration like servers attached wiht any SAN storage. But the performance benchmarks we have with ODA is not avavilabe in other options.

The Oracle Database Appliance is a product that I recommend. It is really good for small businesses where there are database-intensive applications that need high performance.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

We use the solution for our enterprise applications.

Oracle is a stable database.

The setup is a bit complex.

I have been using the solution for many years.

The tool is stable.

The tool is scalable. All my key applications are on Oracle. We might increase the usage depending on the business growth.

I have contacted support. We have a good relationship with the team.

We have used MySQL and PostgreSQL.

The solution can be deployed in-house.

We have seen some value in the solution.

Oracle’s pricing is ridiculously high.

I would recommend the product if someone is using very data-sensitive applications. Overall, I rate the product a seven out of ten.