Oracle Database Reviews

We use the solution as a database, basically. We do not use it for the data warehouse. It's just a few databases.

We're satisfied with the solution. The performance is great.

We find the solution to be stable.

The scalability is very good. You can expand it if you need to.

We don't have any concerns with the data activity and recovery capabilities.

The initial setup is easy.

The cost of Oracle is far too high. They should work to make it less expensive. We're going to stop using it for this reason. 

They could improve the scalability a bit. There are other options that are more scalable, for example. 

I've been using the solution for almost 10 years now. It's been a decade. I've used it for a while. 

The stability is very good and it has very good performance. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

We don't have an issue with the solution's scalability. It's expandable. 

What we see is Mongo and Cassandra, and many other databases that are extremely scalable and distributed. With Oracle, obviously, there are other types of databases that are performing better in this area. Obviously, they could improve scalability from a scalability perspective.

I've never contacted technical support. I cannot speak to how helpful or responsive they are. 

We are using DB2 on mainframes and we do have Microsoft SQL, and then we started using PostgreSQL as well.

We haven't had a problem with the initial setup. It's very simple and straightforward. 

I haven't installed it in recent times, however, from what I recall, the actual production upgrade took us probably less than four hours.

Currently, the database team is around 40 or more people from engineering and from operations. It's a full database engineering and operations team so it's covering other databases as well - such as DB2 and SQL and Cassandra and other databases. You can take three to six engineers and have them handle deployment and maintenance, although everyone works on other things.

We handled everything in-house. We did not need the assistance of integrators or consultants. 

It's CPU-based licensing. The cost is far too high. We're looking into other options to avoid having to pay so much. There are both licensing and support costs you need to consider. 

We have been looking at less expensive options such as Azure SQL and PostgreSQL.

We're a customer and an end-user.

We use both cloud-based and on-premises deployments. 

While I might have recommended Oracle in the past, due to the cost factor, it's hard to recommend it these days. 

I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.

I work for an insurance organization and we have been using Oracle Database for our application architecture. We store all the user-level information in the Oracle Database that our company deals in, such as policy information. Before I joined this organization, they were only using the Oracle Database but now we are migrating from Oracle to the SQL Server Database. For any new applications that are getting built or designed, we are trying to use SQL Server instead of Oracle.

I have been looking for a virtualization database engine from Oracle. They have third-party vendors that can do it but if Oracle comes with its own virtual engine, it would be helpful. Additionally, the solution could be more user-friendly and improve the Transparent Data Encryption. 

I have been using Oracle Database for approximately 10 years.

Oracle Database is stable.

The solution is scalable.

We have approximately 2,000 users using this solution.

I have been satisfied with the technical support from Oracle.

We use SQL Server.

The installation was not a good experience it took a lot of time.

We have a 10 person technical team which consists of administrators and managers that do the implementation and maintenance of the solution.

We have been paying for an annual enterprise license Oracle Database.

If I had the choice to pick between Orcale Database or SQL Server, I would choose SQL Server.

I rate Oracle Database a seven out of ten.

We use it internally for some small odds and ends. Two of our biggest clients use this solution. One client has more or less a data warehousing application. Another one has more of a transactional and pseudo accounting application.

I am currently using 12c, but I have also done some work with version 18. This July, we're going to upgrade most of our main databases from version 12 to version 18, which is fairly current. I believe they have version 20 available at this point.

The thing that probably stands out the most about Oracle Database is reliability. I have been working with Oracle Databases for over 25 years, and I have never lost any data due to a machine going down or any events that were not stupid human tricks. I've never lost anybody's data using Oracle. It gets the job done and doesn't fail. 

It does what I want it to do. It has got a lot of features. Anytime I need a feature, I am able to find it in Oracle Database. It has never happened that I found a feature in any other database, but I was not able to find it in Oracle.

There is a lot of room for improvement. It is not meant for dilettantes. It is not meant for people who don't work on it day in and day out. Ease of use is probably the biggest complaint. They're getting somewhat better, but it is not as easy or intuitive as it could be in terms of maintaining and managing the database. The day-to-day maintenance and the ability to easily do things and keep things up to date can be painful.

Their support portal requires a person to become well-trained in how to use it. I'm sure it has lots of features and capabilities but to try and get support is somewhat painful. They are pretty good at handling absolute critical emergencies, but with the exception of absolute critical emergencies, getting problems solved from their support system is difficult and takes a long time. I had to do an update, and it was not straightforward to get the right patch kit. I'm getting to the point now where I somewhat understand how to use their support website, but it is not intuitive.

Probably about 80% of their online documentation is useless. When I have a question about what to do or how to do something, the things that come up on top when I do a search, of course, are Oracle websites. I always skip right past those and go to other websites. There's an old expression from my youth, "I want to know what time it is. I don't want to know how to build the clock." When you go to the Oracle documentation, you have to plow through page after page of stuff to get to anything that looks anything like an example of what it is that you might actually do. There are lots of other people who have filled that gap, and there are also websites where you can easily find the answers to most of your questions.

I have been working with Oracle Databases for over 25 years. The first time I started using Oracle Database was around 1995. It was probably version 3 or 6.

It is one of the robust products from a stability point of view. I have not really found bugs or glitches. However, on a test database, I had an issue the other night where Oracle decided to behave badly when I was trying to do a query. The solution was to get the latest patches and install the latest patches. Everything worked fine after that. I did all of that without contacting Oracle support. I needed to get what I was working on done. So, I had to plow through to find the answers. I had found some people making some oblique references to what the problem might be. I then took a chance on doing the update. I found the patch kit, but it was not easy to find the right patch kit on their website. 

In the data warehousing database or application, we have tens of millions of rows in different tables, and we have no problems there. However, in that particular application, we're not dealing with transaction processing. So, I can't answer the scalability in terms of transaction processing. On the hardware platform that I've put together for the main database of this one customer, I am very pleased with the performance of the data warehousing aspects and being able to query data quickly and do bulk inserts and things of that nature. For data warehousing scalability, I can attest to the fact that it is great, but for transaction processing, I don't have the experience to be able to provide information.

Two of our biggest clients are quasi-governmental in the sense that their business is based on government funding. One has 60 users who use the application day in and day out, and their database is relatively small. The other application has about 20 dedicated internal users, and then there is a web interface. It has around 3,000 to 5,000 users, but typically, there are about 20 concurrent users. 

Their support portal requires a person to become well-trained in how to use it. Getting support is somewhat painful. They are pretty good at handling absolute critical emergencies, but getting other problems solved from their support system is difficult. It takes a long time. I had to do an update, and it was not straightforward to get the right patch kit.

I am the technical resource of last resort for our clients. I work with a number of technical people. When it gets to the point that it wasn't an easy problem to solve, they come to me, and I end up getting all of the tough problems to solve. I like that, and I would rather do that than just working on the same thing day in and day out. I am always trying to solve problems, and that's why I end up having to interface with Oracle support. The ability to solve problems better by using Oracle's support tools would be beneficial for me.

Its initial installation and setup have become better. You can set up something fairly easily these days. If you need to do anything that is not straight out of the box, figuring out how to do it is not easy. If you want to just set up your average everyday database, you can get it up and running with a few mouse clicks.

As a consultant for the last 40 years of my life, the conversation with anyone who wants to use a product would be a lot more in-depth and detailed where I'd be asking, "What is it you want to do? How do you want to do it? Where do you want to go?" It isn't the kind of thing for which I'd say, "Yeah, Oracle's a Swiss army knife, the best thing since sliced bread."

It is one of the more robust products from a stability point of view. There is a bit of a learning curve. From a transaction point of view, if you have the right hardware, Oracle is probably as or more scalable than anybody else. If your application is going to be massively scalable, Oracle is probably your best tool. If you're just going to put together a small application for occasional users, there are easier tools to learn and use. Some of them are even by Oracle.

I would rate Oracle Database an eight out of ten. It is a great product.

The tool's most valuable feature is its ACID transaction, as it is a consistent way of storing the database. The tool offers an RBAC or a role-based access system, and as per the role, you define the role, and then only those forms, reports, and tables will be accessible to the end user. The tool's features are associated with the data security area I like the most.

Oracle itself does not provide an excellent migration tool to users, which is a shortcoming where the product needs to improve a lot.

The tool needs to do something on the columnar storage side, as we are storing it in a row right now. The tool has to offer some columnar storage.

I have been using Oracle Database for twenty-two years.

In India, the market is switching over to the cloud service provider because storage tools and everyone else are moving to the cloud side and are very less on-premises. It is very feasible for people moving to the cloud side.

The tool's price is high. The price is very high in the Asia-Pacific region. The European and US regions don't find the tool's prices high. In the Asia Pacific region, specifically Southeast Asia and the Pacific, like India, Singapore, and Malaysia, people find the price a bit difficult to manage.

Oracle's performance optimization has had an excellent impact on our database. It has a step-by-step approach, like excellent indexing. It also has an explained plan. I can use the explain plan, hints, AWR report, and tuning the query level and server level, which are all excellent features compared to other RDBMS tools.

The migration process to Oracle Database was pretty good, but Oracle itself does not provide any migration tools. Other vendors, like Microsoft Azure, AWS, or GCP, offer excellent tools for migrations.

I recommend the tool to others.

I rate the tool a ten out of ten.

We use it for OLTP and data warehouses. We're using versions 10, 11, 12, and 19.

Partitioning is most valuable.

The setup for Enterprise Manager Grid Control can be a bit easier.

The additional options are expensive. If you want to buy a rack, partitioning, diagnostics, or tuning, those options are expensive, but it is difficult to say if it is a negative or not. We've bought the product, and we use it.

I've been using Oracle Database for 30 years.

It is really stable. Its stability is fine, but just don't make any changes. The more changes you make and the more developers you've got, the more unstable it's going to be. So, if you've got a stable environment in terms of development, then it has to be stable.

Scalability depends on how much money you've got. It depends on the quality of your hardware. Scalability is not an Oracle problem.

In terms of the number of users, we have maybe 5,000 people who we can log on to one system and put in expense claims. We don't have plans to increase its usage.

They're normal. We don't make many calls. We have maybe six calls a year with Oracle support, which is not a lot. Our environment is pretty stable. It is really stable, and we haven't had any outages. When it is smooth sailing, it is easy.

I did the setup, and it was fairly easy. I have been doing it over the last 17 years.

I did the setup. For its maintenance, one and a half people are enough.

You buy it when you need it, and then you pay the maintenance. We bought the licenses over 10 years ago. We haven't changed our licenses. We are not buying new licenses, and we are not looking at other devices. So, it is difficult to say whether it is cheap or expensive. There is nothing to compare to.

The additional options, such as a rack, partitioning, diagnostics, or tuning, are expensive.

I would advise making sure that you train properly. I would rate this solution an eight out of 10.

We use the solution for ETL and real-time data analytics.

We use the solution for the ERP system, which utilizes dynamic APIs, SQL, and ETL processes.

The solution is easy to use. It also offers a Database Vault.

The pricing could be improved.

I have been using Oracle Database for five years.

The product is stable.

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

Depending on where you deploy, Oracle is also scalable. Sixteen sites with 50 users each are using this solution.

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

The initial setup was straightforward and took a couple of weeks. You can set up a new instance, import/export databases, or a new blank database. For on-premise, we use Jenkins. We set it up for the cloud so we can receive alerts using Jenkins or any other suitable tool.

Deployment was done in-house.

The solution is very expensive.

We had an annual subscription, but Oracle only recognizes certain VMs. Eventually, we had to migrate to Oracle Linux and allocate a specific number of CPUs to a product to reduce the price.

Four people are required to maintain the solution.

Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

I'm an Oracle business partner. I'm the Oracle partner in Columbia. We resell Oracle hardware and Oracle software licenses. We deal with the leading Oracle solution with our clients in Columbia and outside Columbia. 

We were nominated twice in 2019 and in 2021 as an Oracle Excellence partner for Oracle Database Appliance. It is one of the flagship products of Oracle for databases.

We don't use Oracle Databases for our production purposes because we are Oracle partners, so we use Oracle Database for internal purposes. We use the Autonomous Database. We have very limited use.

The solution is deployed on-prem.

The best features of Oracle Database Server are the security, high availability, and Disaster Recovery solutions with Data Guard. Specifically, on Autonomous Databases, the most valuable features are the automatic scaling and CPU scaling depending on the database workload. Today, the workload is normal and then suddenly the workload gets a spike.

There is a feature that allows the database to have more CPU processing and capacity. That's the feature that the Autonomous Databases provide. The feature that we like very much on Oracle Databases is the APEX, the platform which can be used without any cost to develop a very powerful application on Oracle Databases.

There are actually a lot more features for the Oracle Databases. It is almost impossible for a single person to know and give all the features. Every year, Oracle comes up with new features and new facilities. They are ahead of all other database providers, so we are happy and our client base is also very happy with Oracle Databases.

I have been using Oracle products for more than 24 years.

Oracle Databases are very well known for their stability. If there are new products, they have a process for discovering bugs, and they keep updating the software with the patches that cover all these bugs. The features that Oracle Databases have is enough for us. It's very sophisticated.

There are maybe two or three users who use Oracle Database services that are behind the cloud.

If you want to get Oracle Database on the cloud, it's very simple. It's a question of having the necessary information like the database name and the other things that you want to come together at during initial setup. The database deployment on Oracle cloud is very straightforward. It's maybe a couple of clicks and it gives some information. 

Regarding Oracle Database setup on-premise, the documentation is very good. People who have worked with Oracle Databases for a couple of years know the standard for deploying databases, the operating system requirements, and all of those things. It's really straightforward. It's so standardized that there is nothing more that you need to know. It's not NASA science.

I would rate this solution 10 out of 10.

I use Oracle Database to support the customized Java ERP setup that I currently have.

Oracle Database has improved how we do our administrative backups. The solution has a smaller footprint than 11g, it's more efficient on the resources for the users. It has a smoother user experience with the ERP and fewer field transactions.

Oracle Database is running on the same old hardware that I had the 11g version on and it is operating faster. It seems to be really good. It's fast even when the workload is heavy, easy to do backups and other administrative tasks with the Enterprise Manager. 

Oracle Database can automatically assign resources to threads that are heavy. We hardly notice when they are running a heavy query and it is better at managing memory than the older 11g version. When we use the same amount of indexes when migrating to 19c, I didn't have to do any other modification and we have increased usage on the ERP. The Oracle Database is handling everything very well.

Oracle Database could improve by having a better-integrated view of the containerized databases. The Enterprise Manager is great at that, but if there was a centralized view of all the containers it would be a large benefit.

I have been using Oracle Database for approximately one year.

The reliability of the Oracle Database is excellent and the performance is very good. I have used MySQL for large transactions which have given me some problems, but in Oracle Database version 19c I have not had these issues. In the Oracle Database version 11g, sometimes I would have some lagging, but in the newer version, it has been fine.

The scalability of the solution is good.

We have approximately 70 users that are using the solution through the ERP.

The support I have received from Oracle Database has been very great. The response times have been good.

I have previously used MySQL.

The initial setup of Oracle Database is straightforward, it was easy. The migration from an older version was not a problem at all, and it took under one hour.

I did the implementation mostly myself, but because of the ERP setup, I had to have support from the vendor. It was a partnership setup.

I do the maintenance of the solution, we only require one person. I use the solution on a daily basis.

Oracle Database could make the documentation better around licensing. The way you have to access software from Oracle is difficult. You have to go through the licensing lawyer to understand what your reach is when you subscribe to one unit. I wish the documents were easier to understand for everyone. This is a problem I have always grappled with and it's not changed. Having clarity is even more important now that I'm thinking of having a hybrid setup for the database in the cloud for high availability.

The cost of the solution is reasonable. It costs approximately $4,000 with some extra features we have.

I would recommend this solution to others. However, it does depend on different organizations and their needs. If the resources are a little heavy, which makes for disaster recovery planning, a little bit tricky.  

I would advise people to explore how their workloads would be and if they can be containerized in the cloud. That would make it way easier for them to manage them. The scalability of Oracle Database is very easy to grow or shrink as the need.

I rate Oracle Database a nine out of ten.