Oracle E-Business Suite Reviews

Based on my technical background on Oracle EBS, I can tell that the primary use case of this solution is having a sophisticated software, an ERP, in the environment. It is to have a software system that consists of global business applications with built-in integrity. Generally, my customers use it for their business applications: CRM, Financials, Human Capital Management, Procurement, Supply Chain and more. There are also some seperate applications outside these ERP systems, but mostly, they are also tightly integrated with EBS.

EBS is a software as a whole. It includes its own database (Oracle Database), an application server (Oracle Weblogic), and software. It has cross-industry capabilities and makes customers operate in cost-efficient way.  As an ERP system, EBS offers lots of applications built in. So it helps the customer to automate their back office processes and let them make correct, fast, and reliable decisions. In Human Capital Management implementations, customers benefit from having a complete HR system and do all the HR work using the EBS screens. By customizing the product, customers can make the application processes be compatible with their special needs. Localization and translation options are also available with the product. Although the software is built by an American company (Oracle), other languages can be enabled and localization can be deployed without touching any code. With these features that support having a global software environment, customers who are working worldwide also gain an advantage. 

Using EBS features like Oracle workflow, lots of the processes are automated and made easier. Mobile Web Applications can be used to make the relevant users be able to use the applications directly. Successful implementations, success stories, big install base, know-how and continuous support of the community (Oracle itself and EBS consultants), make the customers feel safe. With the integrated service oriented architecture gateway (SOA Gateway) of EBS, EBS APIs can be triggered outside (from Cloud or from other applications).. This feature lets customers be able to integrate their application with EBS easily. When core business needs something from the back office, it just uses SOA Gateway to retrieve the meaningful data from EBS. All the technology and software is from Oracle. This is also very important to be able to get single vendor support when required. The technology stack is built on Oracle Technologies. It is not hard to find an expert when needed both for development and administration.

When I put these aside, EBS saves time and increases the efficiency for the customers.  By using the tightly integrated application of EBS, customers, provide the solutions for their business from a single source. The ultimate application design, high-level software engineering and power of the Oracle technologies delivered with the product are felt at any moment.

EBS has lots of application families and lots of features. It is modular in deployment and flexible enough to let the customer increase the built-in capabilities and enable new applications when needed. These are very important things at hand in case there will be a need to expand the product capabilities and/or implement new projects.

EBS has a certain history. There is a certain know-how with documentation for almost all its use cases.

The product relies on Oracle technologies, the world's leading Oracle Database and Oracle application tier. This is valuable because, while it satisfies lots of customer requirements and standards, it also means that the technology layer gets continuous improvements and updates, as Oracle keeps the components on this layer always up-to-date.

EBS 12.2, the newest release also provides an Online Patching option for supplying near zero downtime both for applications (functional side) and the technology stack. This is valuable in mission-critical environments. Online patching removes the barriers for an upgrade because it is online. It gives the customers the ability to make downtime negotiations easier. Using online patching, they have planned downtime and it is measured in minutes.

For customers who are using a virutalized environment, Oracle delivers VM templates (for Oracle VM Server). This feature also provides easy enablement for applications.

High availability and disaster recovery architectures make the product continuously operate by any means. Continuity can be guaranteed with these architectures. 

Oracle gives high importance to this product and following a "Continuous Innovation" release model for Oracle E-Business Suite 12.2. EBS 12.2 will be supported at least until 2030.

Administration takes some effort. Administrating the technology stack is not so complex but application aware database administration and following the new methodologies like online patching can be a little complex and time consuming. Oracle should ease the administrators jobs and do some innovation on this administration area as well. Oracle Autonomous Database is Oracle's leading technology these days. Using a similar approach, application stack may become a little more self-managing.

EBS still leverages Oracle Forms technology. Oracle Forms might be considered as an old technology when it puts the client machine into the picture. Clients are using their web  browser to connect to the EBS and use several functionality and applications using the web browser only. However, some applications automatically runs Oracle Forms through a Java applet on the client. Of course, this creates a fast, easy-to-use client experience, but it has disadvantages as well, such as, the requirement to manage the client side java.

I have been using and administrating this ERP system (Oracle EBS 12.2) almost since it was released. I have used Oracle EBS for human resources and financials in one my ex-companies and I have worked in the implementation of several EBS 12.2 projects in different customer environments with different product families. It has been more than five years now. I have also used the earlier releases of this product, such as Oracle EBS 11i and R12).  Oracle continued to enhance the product over the years, so this is a review for the latest release, version 12.2.

It is quite stable. It has been in the market for a long time. It is a product of the Oracle Corporation and was created in late 1980s and Oracle continued to enhance the product over the years. The latest release (release 12.2) was created in 2013. Before that, we released R12 (12.1 and 12.). Even release 11i which is quite old, is still used by customers.

The architecture, code, and support are by Oracle. The product is stable and behaves as expected, according to the documentation. Customers can get the benefit from business continuity, recovery, load balancing, fault tolerance, consistency, and scale-out architecture when the implementation is done accordingly.  

It is highly scalable. It supports scale-out architecture with both load balancing and high availability. Applications can run on multiple nodes and database can run Active-Active on Oracle RAC (Real Application Clusters). This increases the computational resources. Note that, this is not only for increasing the throughput, but the high availability as well.

As EBS can leverage Oracle Real Application clusters techonology in the database tier, EBS databases can scale-out by adding database nodes to the configuration.. Thus, EBS database workload can be distributed to multiple Oracle database instances and EBS database throughput can be increased almost linearly. 

Similarly, in the application tier, we can have multiple application nodes working together to increase the application tthrougput.. In this context, we can have multiple application nodes, each have their own application servers (Weblogic), their own runtime and batch proccesses. By having this ability, we can increase application performance and make Oracle EBS handle several concurrent user connections.  Batch processing (which is called Concurrent Processing) can also work in the parallel mode (parallel across multiple application nodes) and can also leverage multiple Oracle database instances to provide better and guaranteed throughput.

When needed, more application and database nodes can also be added to the configuratio. We can also declare the role of these nodes according to our needs.. For instance, we can have one application node for serving the requests of internal users and we can have another application node for serving the requests of external users.. Similary, we can have a application node for serving all the web requests, and we can have another application node only for batch processing.

Having a multi-node application tier also provides high availability. That is, if we use a load balancer and configure our EBS well, application contiunity is guaranteed in case of a application node failure.

Moreover, EBS application and database tiers can be replicated to the disaster recovery sites for disaster recovery.. Oracle Data Guard Technology is used for database replication. A replication tool (such as rsync), a filesystem replication feature or a storage replication feature can be used for replicating the application tier to the disaster recovery sites. 

This type of a configuration can provide application continuity in case of a site failure..  Morever, active dataguard can be used for offloading some production reporting to Oracle EBS disaster site database instances..

Customers get their support from the Oracle support portal (support.oracle.com). Customers can also get local support from the Oracle Partner companies, which are quite capable of both implementing and supporting the solution. Both functional and technical support is available. Additionally, there are lots of public documents available, such as, books and blogs about EBS. This is also advantageous for customers who want to learn the product on their own and keep their support and consultancy cost minimum.

My customers and my ex-companies have used several custom and packaged applications before switching to EBS. They were using different application for different purposes. The applications they were using weren't modular.. 

The decision for switching to EBS was to have a centralized software system for bringing all the required functionalities and applications together. For one of my customer, the decision was made by head quarters which was located in another country. It was a big, global holding company and the head quarters decided to use the same software for all the companies under its control. 

Technically, it is straightforward. However, there are challenges in the functional side. This is expected as implementing ERP is a complex subject. 

When managed with a proper project plan and right resources, projects are completed on time and with success.

In most cases, I was on the vendor team that implemented the projects. In my experience, Oracle partners who are specialized in this area can be classified as experts with knowledge and real life expertise.

By using EBS, and putting almost all the functionality and applications integrated together inside this ERP, maintenance and consultancy costs previously required for different applications and application vendors can be reduced.

The labor and time required for manual data entry is avoided.

A better integration across the divisions is provided with these ERP implementations. This also provides a better visibility and reporting. Also, lots of business processes can be automated.

Thanks to online patching, Customers gain an opportunity to decrease their downtime.

In order to minimize the implementation and consultancy costs, business lines should have proper definitions. They need to have a proper way of retrieving their data, which should be structured well.

Both the current projects and future projects should be defined well. Licensing should be done according to current and near future plans.

Customer should do their sizing and understand their computational resource needs. They need to start sales negotiations according to their actual needs.

Customers should evaluate the partner who is responsible for implementing the project. 
The better the partner, the higher the success rate of the project.

We did evaluate other options. Customers usually evaluate solutions from local software providers. However, most of the time, enterprise customers conclude that those solutions are less capable than EBS. Most of the vendors that supply those solutions are quite smaller when compared to Oracle.. 

According to my experience, enterprise customers also consider SAP. In these considerations, the conclusion usually depends on the costs and are indexed to the success in the sales and pre-sales activities.

Customers can run Oracle EBS on Oracle Cloud today.. If the client's needs and expectations are met and they are compatible with the regulations they are subject to, they can also think of running Oracle EBS on cloud.

We are using Oracle EBS for the health industry, focusing on supply chain, purchasing, and integration with Oracle FlexAccord GL and Gatch Management. It is integrated with Oracle EBS accounts receivable, particularly as a sub-billing module for our patients.

Oracle EBS has provided ease of use, robust integration, and reliable reporting functions such as General Ledger and FSG reporting. It has also automated certain processes creating efficiencies in accounting and reporting, benefiting the finance department.

The most valuable features of Oracle EBS are its ease of use, integration capabilities, and the General Ledger reporting, including the FSG reporting. These features make it helpful in fetching data and generating reports.

Additional improvements could include better healthcare management functionalities, such as specialized modules for OPD and IPD for patients. A more web-based user experience like Oracle Fusion would also be appreciated.

I have personally been working with Oracle EBS for about 11 years.

Oracle EBS sometimes requires service requests or optimizations which occur roughly every six months.

For the healthcare industry, Oracle EBS requires more work for integration, particularly in implementing healthcare-specific modules.

The technical support provided is reliable and responsive, especially when security levels demand their urgent attention.

Positive

Previously, an in-house developed software system was used with manual data imports and segregated modules.

The initial setup was tedious but manageable over time, and involved significant change management, which is a common industry challenge.

The deployment was handled by a small team, consisting of me and two other members as technical and functional staff.

Licensing costs were a significant consideration, and Oracle Analytics was deemed too expensive compared to Power BI, which we opted for due to Outlook 365 licensing.

In considering solutions, although acknowledged, Oracle Analytics was not chosen due to its cost compared to Power BI.

Being aware of the industry reluctance towards new technology adoption is crucial. Emphasis on the long-term benefits and operational enhancement is important to encourage this transition.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

We are using Oracle ERP to run our financial services, including accounts receivable, general ledger, and payments, accounts payable. The solution is utilized to manage our financial services and back-office departments that are not related to the product or insurance.

Oracle ERP has provided stability and integration with banks and financial institutions, which has been beneficial for our operations.

The most valuable feature of Oracle ERP is the integration APIs that they offer. They allow us to integrate data efficiently and manage various processes and tasks.

An area for improvement is related to the flexibility of the processes in Oracle ERP. It is challenging to change processes within the system, which sometimes hampers our ability to quickly adapt to new requirements. Adding a BPM (Business Process Management) layer over the ERP could make it more flexible.

The solution has been in use since 2021 or 2022.

Oracle ERP has proven to be very stable and solid.

Oracle ERP is very scalable. It provides a high degree of scalability, which meets our needs effectively.

On a scale from 1 to 10, I would rate Oracle's technical support an 8. It is pretty solid.

Positive

The return on investment is enough. While it is not exceptional, it meets our stability and integration needs with banks and financial institutions.

Oracle ERP is very expensive. The licensing fees are particularly high, making it challenging to buy new licenses. We often seek internal solutions to avoid purchasing additional licenses due to their cost. I don't have specific details regarding consultant fees.

We are using Oracle Red Hat and Oracle database. It's working on cloud Azure cloud.

Many of our customers have Oracle WebE business tools and databases. We are using single-tier, multi-tier, multi-node, single node. Recently, we have migrated the tenant to tenant, like Oracle E-Business Suite.

We use HR modules, and financial modules are a very common industry. 

Oracle could improve its licensing model by offering more flexible options, such as subscription-based pricing. Nowadays, people are going for more open-source products. 

I would like to see Oracle E-Business Suite include all the necessary patches and fixes in the main product instead of requiring customers to pay for support for each one.

We have been using it for the last ten years.  I'm a system infra architect and also have some DBA training or Oracle DBA, backup, cloning, deployment, patching, and migrations.

The product is stable, but with the passage of time, if you leave some kind of new feature and apply and customize the product, then you have to patch the product. 

For example, we raised the request to the Oracle technical team, and the technical team recommended and applied the dispatch; the issue will be fixed. So, we are continuously applying the patches. 

But this is a continuous process.   Nothing is 100%. Everything is streamlining with passive providers, even in  Microsoft, Oracle, EVS, etc. Patches are there, and bugs and fixes are there. We continuously apply everything.

Oracle's technical support is better than others.

Positive

I simultaneously worked with SQL Server from 2000 to 2004, 2008, 2017, and 2019.

Oracle E-Business Suite is a complete business suite, while SQL Server is only a database. All customized applications in front-end development use SQL. If they have a high budget, they use Oracle.

We have over 200 customers and use a variety of solutions on Azure, including SQL Server and Oracle E-Business Suite. We primarily provide technical support for our customers.

Oracle is a vast domain. For a skilled person, it is not complicated, but for a new person, it is a bit complex.

There are OS and EBS within compatibility libraries. Most issues and bugs are due to the compatibility of configurations. Otherwise, it's not so difficult. 

For deployments, we have streamlined the processes and migration. We have also streamlined the migration process, whether it is a VM migration or either it is cloning. We streamline everything.  

It's pricey. Oracle's pricing is on the higher end, but it is justified given the product's maturity, stability, and feature set.

I have been working with Oracle E-Business Suite for the past 10 to 12 years. There are always some bugs and missing patches, so I would rate it a nine out of ten.  Also, they have fixed it, but with the passive time after month-to-month payments, we have to beg to apply the patch to the product. That is the main thing we are missing.

I would like to see Oracle E-Business Suite include all the necessary patches and fixes in the main product instead of requiring customers to pay for support for each one. This would make it easier and more efficient to customize the product to meet specific needs.

I am an Oracle applications architect/DBA/sysadmin, hence my review will be from this perspective. 

My task is to size and deploy solutions both for building our internal solutions and for our various customers. We also work to migrate On premise Installations to Oracle cloud infrastructure using Oracel cloud manager for Ebusiness suite

We have had a lot of success in implementing Oracle EBS for various customers. For example, the shared services modules have helped to reduce manpower in many areas of finance, where previously each individual organizational unit had their own staff.

• The robust architecture
• Ability for near zero downtime patching
• High availability
• Security
• RAC
• Data Guard in the architecture

These make for a very resilient solution in an ERP platform.

One issue with the product is because it build on a lot of older technologies, there is a substantial technical debt in the system. For example, the use of Oracle forms which are a much older technology, and are basically a two-tier client server setup shoehorned into a three-tier architecture, it might create issues over a wide area network. It would be good if the EBS team enables multitenant fatures beyond the current single pdb cdb architecture allowing for pdb snap clones in the same oracle cdb database.

More than fifteen years across various versions ranging from 11.

When correctly configured, this is a very stable solution. We have customers running their process automation manufacturing based off of this solution.

This software scales very well across various implementations.

There are both knowledgeable and unknowledgeable support people in the vendor organization. Hence, it is imperative to keep pushing on various issues in order to get a resolution.

We are part of the Oracle Centers of Excellence within our company, so we only have experience with the Oracle ERP products. However, we do have capabilities on various Oracle ERP products, like J.D. Edwards, PeopleSoft, etc., and can contrast among these solutions.

Initial setup is complex, hence it is recommended to use a system integrator (SI).

As we are system integrators for this solution, we have implemented it in various locations using our own in-house team.

At our various customers, the software tends to pay for itself in less than two years.

Licensing and costing of Oracle EBS is very complex. We recommend to use a system integrator during the negotiation process since Oracle sales representatives sometime do not know the actual minimum requirements and may oversell the necessary licenses through ignorance.

Since we are focused on Oracle ERP technologies, we do not have a mandate to do comparisons on other products.

This is definitely one of the more robust on-premise solutions. Given the sensitive nature of ERP financial information, there will always be concerns in taking such software to the cloud, which is why we still see a future for this software. 

It was recently announced that there will be at least one more version of Oracle EBS which will come out to satisfy customer demands.

The functional knowledge is the most valuable feature. Oracle EBS has many different problems, but I think the main feature is the functionality, how it works together. You can probably find other products that work with Oracle database, but because that’s their own product, EBS tightly integrates with it. I think that's the most valuable thing.

We needed to use financial software, anyway. I think it comes from the historical fact that we had Oracle software; we always had Oracle Database. So, from a licensing point of view, it made perfect sense. It integrates well.

We have a very strong presence from the PL/SQL developers point of view. We have good resources. We have a lot of in-house developed software and it has to integrate with Oracle. We do a lot of invoicing and so on feeding into the Oracle EBS system from our in-house system.

It was natural. The system is naturally a good fit, actually.

Their UI is not the best. It is an area with room for improvement, big time. I think they can go completely out of Java, the applet version. If they make it completely browser driven, like HTML and so on, that will be the best. Today, once in a while, it'll get out of sync. You don't have the latest version of Java. It uploads a whole slew of Java products and applets, which is very heavy-duty stuff. It doesn’t have to be.

These days, actually, everybody uses HTML-related stuff. They have started using it. It's a mix of both, actually, but they're not there yet. That's why you see a lot of other products that complement it.

I met one company at an Oracle conference that did just the re-skinning, just because their skin is not up to the mark; there's a lot of outdated stuff.

I would say 12.1, we upgraded two years ago. At this point, we are a little bit stable. We do have sometimes hanging systems, but I think it's mostly stable now.

We do have some problems sometimes, but we are a small shop, we have 35-40 users, so it's not a huge shop. If you have a 200-something, or 500, users, I think they definitely would have issues. Personally, I haven't encountered many problems.

Once in a while, I'll have some problems. I'll have to restart the system. If it's in the middle of the day, we have all the users get kicked out, and then just a restart. It doesn't happen that often.

It was not easy to set up.

That's actually one of the reasons we use Salesforce; we're loving it. We use Salesforce for our sales and marketing; no software, no maintenance. I have only a 2-3-person team. I myself oversee the department. I have one developer and one support person. Effectively, that support person is not even 100%, so he probably uses 20% of our time, maybe sometimes a little more than that. The developer is very rarely used. If you add all these three persons, it's not even one person who is actually managing the entire team.

Oracle, oh, my God. I have a team for hardware; you need some Oracle-related hardware stuff. Of course, they're not only doing the Oracle stuff, but you have to have someone. We have an Oracle apps DBA. I'm outsourcing that one. I have a functional guy; he uses 25% of his time now, but at one point, he was using 50% of his time. We also have our in-house PL/SQL developer. You can see how many people. It’s a lot of resources. Oh, man.

Upgrading is a nightmare. I mean, I shouldn’t describe it as a nightmare, but I get nervous whenever they upgrade. It's a lot of work; a lot of coordination; a lot of testing and all those things.

If it was in the cloud, I wouldn't worry about any of those things.

We did look at other products. We did look at Workday, and Salesforce also has a product called FinancialForce. Actually, the Workday partners are very, very expensive. They force you to choose one of their suggested partners; Oracle doesn't have that problem. I get it dirt cheap from somebody from India, Brazil, or somebody else, and I can get it done. As much as Workday’s licensing costs, it costs as much for doing the implementation. I wouldn't do that, but maybe there are companies who will do that. If I have to do that, no, not in the route, unless there is some overwhelming benefit in the 5-7 year timeframe.

We also looked at NetSuite, but not as much as Workday. We actually were thinking of doing more on that, but we didn't have anybody come to our site to show that.
With FinancialForce, they had some other comment there that they would not be pursuing that direction. We didn't feel comfortable that they would keep it for a long time or not.

You have to have patience, and be willing to spend more time due to the fact that eventually it pays off. Sometimes, the first impression is the best impression. Oracle EBS is not that. The first impression might be terribly bad, but once you get through there, you dig deeper, you'll get your money's worth.

They are not super efficient in the cloud business yet. They are getting there. We are using it on-premises. Fusion is the cloud-based offering for EBS. We never went that route. We're not comfortable yet.

We use the tool for typical ERP use cases. 

Financials, which are essential to all ERPs, and manufacturing and sales models are among the most valuable features. The specific features implemented depend on the company's needs.

The tool integrates data across all transactions. 

Oracle E-Business Suite is hard and takes six months to one year to implement. 

I have been using the product for 20 years. 

Oracle Support operates 24/7 worldwide, but the quality of support can vary based on your specific needs and your chosen support plan. They provide documentation and a support line tailored to your support agreement.

Positive

Deployment requirements vary depending on the models. For the financials model, you typically need between 10 and 20 people for setup and implementation. Depending on the company's levels, this includes various functional areas, key users, and support personnel. 

For financial modules, there are about five people involved in the installation. If you include manufacturing and sales solutions, the team supporting it would require around ten people. Each module typically requires specialists to implement it.

Oracle E-Business Suite is cheaper than SAP. It is expensive. 

SAP and Oracle have the best ERPs. Many distribution and retail companies in Mexico use Oracle E-Business Suite. I rate the overall product an eight out of ten. 

We have been using this as an enterprise solution for many things including for financials, for supply chain, for sales, for maintenance, for manufacturing, et cetera. You name it. It helps us with many business processes.  

As we have been using this for the past nine years we have had the opportunity to explore the product. Really everything has worked well and all the modules are very good. The financial parts are very good, the sales part is also very good, the maintenance of our supply-chain is meeting our requirements. It has been very helpful and it is hard to separate out one thing that is better.  

After the announcement of the cloud products, the on-premises products from Oracle are not garnering as much development attention. Some of the new features that used to come to us earlier before the cloud product are now coming at a slow pace. So we want Oracle to work on the on-premises product in parallel with their cloud product. E-Business Suite should not fall behind.  

What I want to improve about this product is the user interface. In some of the modules compared to recent, cloud module releases do not have a very nice look-and-feel because they are letting the on-premises product age. Compared to the advanced cloud modules, this product has some rigid look-and-feel for the user experience.  

We have been using the Oracle E-Business Suite for about nine years.  

I am satisfied with the stability of most of the Oracle products which we are using right now. The problem is not the stability but a lack of new development.  

I think the E-Business Suite is very highly scalable. Right now in my organization, we have around 1000 total users. We have been increasing usage over the years and have plans to increase usage going into the future. We are going to continue to use the on-premises product in the future because it is not easy for us to migrate to any other products. That is primarily because it is a huge implementation here.  

We do have experience with the product technical support. Whenever the support is assigned to India, we are not satisfied with it because we do not get quality support from teams in India. But whenever that support is assigned to any other country — that may be from the US or any European country — the support is phenomenal. When we reach good support they know the product very well and the experience is good. That is where I think the Indian resources are a bit concerning. The support from them really takes a lot of time.  

We were using another product nine or ten years ago. It was a very old product made by IBM. That was AS/400.  

I think the initial setup is done in a very smart way. It is not very complex. If a person is technical enough to do it, it will be easy for him or her. If someone is not comfortable doing the installation, it will be difficult for him or her. 

The deployment was about nine years back, so I do not remember everything exactly. I think it took us around two to three days. What I consider deployment may have a different definition for some people and may not be the same definition for me. As long as by 'deployment' it means just the installation and initial configuration, then it is just a few days. When it comes to setting up and finalizing all of the business requirements and going live with the system, it took us four to five months.  

We used a consultant for the deployment. It was from an Oracle partner in Pakistan.  

Even though we used the services of a consultant, we have an in-house support team. We do not require any support from outside and no longer require or include any external vendors. So we have a team of around 25 people supporting this application.  

The advice that I would give to others who want to start using this product is that, in this day and age, you need to first evaluate different products. At the very least you would want to compare the E-Business Suite with the other Oracle cloud products.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate the Oracle E-Business product at an eight-out-of-ten.