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reviewer1004295 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Special Projects at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Offers good security and supports customization
Pros and Cons
  • "Oracle offers good security and supports customization."
  • "Oracle is a costly product, and it requires a lot of resources."

What is our primary use case?

We have numerous clients using Oracle Database, and they can choose the size of the solution they require. We have around 500 technical staff in our office to assist our clients when they need assistance. We support our customers for both hardware and software. We provide support for any particular Oracle resource they're using.

What is most valuable?

Oracle offers good security and supports customization. 

What needs improvement?

Oracle is a costly product, and it requires a lot of resources.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Oracle Database for about eight years.

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Oracle Database
November 2024
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Oracle is a stable product.

How are customer service and support?

Oracle technical support is useful, and we rely on them often.

How was the initial setup?

Oracle is a large implementation, especially in Oracle Enterprise Edition. Oracle provide good support for implementations, however.

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

Oracle is an expensive product.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Some of our customers ask us to provide a list of features for different products, which we provide, along with a cost analysis, if they wish to look at alternatives, but these can vary. Customers make their own decisions based on the information we provide.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Oracle 8 out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
reviewer1463181 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Professional Security Compliance at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Endless capacity and a stable platform; licensing formulation is unfortunately complicated
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution has an endless capacity."
  • "The licensing formulation is too complicated."

What is our primary use case?

We use this solution as a customer database for our client so all customer information is available through this product. I'm a senior professional security compliance officer and we are partners with Oracle. 

What is most valuable?

I like that the solution has an endless capacity, there are no limitations and it's a stable platform. 

What needs improvement?

The licensing formulation could be improved; it's too complicated and very rigid. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for a very long time. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's a stable solution but there are bugs which I think is related to standards compliance. There are limitations in monitoring. 

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is somewhat limited. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was complex. Compared to the implementation of Microsoft SQL, we needed skilled people to manage Oracle. Implementation took some weeks. 

What other advice do I have?

I think this is a good solution because it's easy to administer and manage but it requires the right skilled people. It's not ideal for our requirements but it's improving, whether it's encryption or security, I know they'll get there eventually. 

I would rate this solution a seven out of 10. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Oracle Database
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about Oracle Database. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user486582 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior ERP Developer at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
We have our students, HR, payroll and financial all in one database.

Valuable Features

You can do just about anything with Oracle Database.

Improvements to My Organization

We use it for everything. We have our students, HR, payroll and financial all in one database.

Room for Improvement

We use a third party software called illusion banner on top of the customization that we have, so we wait for their improvements or do customization ourselves.

Use of Solution

I have been using the product for 14 years. I started with Oracle 7.

Stability Issues

I have never had an issue with stability.

Scalability Issues

It needs to be scaled based on how you're using the app.

Customer Service and Technical Support

I have reported few bugs. They do good job, and there are often solutions available on the Internet.

Initial Setup

We have downtime during upgrades that can last from hours to days. The last database update took two or three days.

Other Advice

All I can say is to trust Oracle. I would rate it a ten out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user516453 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user516453Works at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
Real User

ok great, you are using best of breed RDBMS technology

it_user436104 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Modeler at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
It brings reliability and security to our environment.

Valuable Features

The most valuable features for us in our experience has definitely been the security and reliability it brings to our environment. We know that our data is safe and secure and that Database is incredibly stable. There's a peace of mind that it affords us.

Improvements to My Organization

Because it's secure and reliable, we can have confidence that we can just go on with business as usual. We're able to focus our efforts on more important aspects of our business instead of worrying about threat protection and lost data.

Room for Improvement

I've been very happy with the progression of the product. One thing I would like to see is a better feature set for pluggable databases, that is, the multi-tenancy of the database. It's still in its infancy at the moment and I'd like to see in 13c a big leap forward with better support for multi-tenancy.

Use of Solution

I've been working with Oracle databases for over 16 years.

Deployment Issues

We haven't had any issues with deployment.

Stability Issues

Database has always been solid. There's been a couple little buggy things at the beginning, because I was working with version 7, but from 8i onwards, everything was solid.

Scalability Issues

There's absolutely no problem scaling it. They give you plenty of options and a lot of best practice in order to be able to do that.

Customer Service and Technical Support

I've always been very happy with Oracle support. I think probably the one thing that I'd like to be able to have is more input into is the feature set for the next release.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user417387 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Specialist at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
The most valuable component of the new version 12c is the additional processing power it provides.

Valuable Features

As we're already Oracle customers, we're upgrading from version 11g to 12c. The most valuable component of the new version 12c is the additional processing power it provides.

Improvements to My Organization

For what we primarily do, we do heavy processing of OLTP and OLAP. We've used DB for some additional success in that regard.

Room for Improvement

The middleware, particularly Oracle Fusion, is what concerns us most and what we think needs the most improving.

Deployment Issues

We've had no issues with deploying it.

Stability Issues

There have been various stability issues so far, but the main concern, again, is the middleware. We're looking for some improvements in those areas.

Scalability Issues

We've had no issues scaling it for our needs.

Customer Service and Technical Support

We use technical support all the time. Whenever we run into any issues, we open up Oracle SRs. We get responses and we integrate them into our system, and we generally close out the issues successfully.

Initial Setup

I've been involved in all of our major upgrades and it's never straightforward. There are always complications because of the complexity of it all.

Other Advice

You probably need to consider some onsite support as much as possible because I'm not sure if the SR process is the best way to go. You probably need some expertise right there onsite that's familiar with your specific firm or agency. It's always difficult if you're just doing SRs.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Database Manager at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Vendor
A powerful Relational Database Management System that offers a large feature set

Valuable Features:

• Oracle ensures high level security by performing each transaction in isolation from others. The database management as well as user management of oracle is very effective • Provides data consistency as well as data concurrency. • Oracle database guarantees that the data returned by a single query is committed and consistent with respect to a single point in time. • Supports very large size databases. So it is very beneficial for multinational organizations having billion of records. • Oracle database ensures high level availability by providing solutions for fixing problems rapidly and minimize both planned and unplanned downtime. These solutions help enterprises maintain business continuity 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Room for Improvement:

• Due to its high cost, oracle is not the first priority for the organizations having budget constraints. • A full time oracle Administration staff is always needed for the complex configuration of oracle. • After installation, oracle drains lot of memory causing slow performance of system • Oracle is not popular with open source code. MYSQL is a better option.

Other Advice:

Oracle is a powerful relational database management system that ensures high level security, consistency and data concurrency. Oracle architecture is split between the logical design and the physical design. This structure means that for large-scale distributed computing, the data location seems local and transparent to the user, allowing for a more modular physical structure that can be added to and altered without affecting the activity of the database, its data, or users. The sharing of resources in this way allows for very flexible data networks whose capacity can be adjusted up or down to suit demand, without degradation of service. It also allows for a robust system to be devised as a single point failure can’t bring down the whole database across a network.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Presenter at a consultancy
Consultant
Beware: Need to monitor disk space

One thing that is annoying is the need to monitor the disk space available. In Oracle, the DBMS can monitor the utilization of a data file(s) but when the data files become full, the DBMS cannot just add a new data file and continue. Everything comes to a deadly halt. This approach makes no sense because the solution is just to add a new data file. So all that Oracle has to provide for are the parameters we want for all data files that are added "automagically" and we do not then run into such deadly issues.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user3309 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user3309Presenter at a consultancy
Consultant

We have a script which monitors space left based on what the user_segments reports as used. We have also started to use bigfIle tablespaces.

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reviewer958188 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Architect at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
Real User
Reliable, feature-rich, and secure
Pros and Cons
  • "I like the enterprise features as well as the stability."
  • "I believe that the simplicity of installation and configuration for logging in to Microsoft and PostgreSQL could be improved."

What is our primary use case?

We use Oracle Database for banking and data warehousing.

What is most valuable?

I like the enterprise features as well as the stability.

What needs improvement?

The pricing model and scalability could both be improved.

The level of global support given could be improved.

I believe that the simplicity of installation and configuration for logging in to Microsoft and PostgreSQL could be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Oracle Database for 20 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Oracle Database is a stable product.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

When it comes to scalability, Oracle Database is not at the top, but it is better than some of its competitors.

We have hundreds of users in our organization.

How are customer service and support?

The local support is fine, but the global support is terrible, and not worth the cost.

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

Previously, we used IBM products.

We are also using Microsoft.

We use PostgreSQL, but it is not currently in production.

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

The pricing model could be better.

When using this solution, there are no additional costs.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend PostgreSQL for long-term use. 

I haven't seen an alternative if they need a reliable and secure solution for a mission-critical quality control system, because Microsoft lacks enterprise features and PostgreSQL isn't well-established in banking.

I would rate Oracle Database an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
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Updated: November 2024
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