Oracle Enterprise Manager Reviews

We use OEM for managing Production, Test and Development environments. It provides a centralized location for proactively administering all database components with the ability to do much more.

SQL Tuning allows massive performance gains behind the scenes in order to more easily troubleshoot the most complex SQL statements. The use of SQL Profiles and creating SQL Baselines, makes improving SQL performance a less time consuming exercise. We've developed a number of monthly metrics we use to show our customer performance and any potential bottlenecks. In addition, we have set up a number of alerts for quickly addressing potential issues.

SQL Tuning Advisor, ADDM, Top Activity, ASM Space Manager, Incident Notifications. The ability to identify performance bottlenecks and make an immediate impact can serve as a significant contribution to Database Administers which saves time and resources.

Patching. It's extremely difficult to determine what requires patching and the process to patch each component is slightly different. In desperate need of a single patch or a simplified process at a minimum. OEM 13c is out and we have it installed. There seems to be some potential bugs associated with implementing third party certificates and the Tuning Advisor so just something to consider before upgrading. 

One new issue came up recently. We upgraded to 12.2 and went with a container/pdb model for each database. After doing so, some of the functionality gets a little tricky with OEM. For some things you need to be in the PDB to work and for other things you need to be in the cdb$root. You can create SQL Profiles through OEM but dropping them through OEM has become a point in futility. Instead, we are doing more manual SQL Tuning Advisor functional through sqlplus which works well.

More than ten years

OEM is a very stable product.

Scalability is not an issue with OEM. It can support a number of targets and target types without sacrificing performance.

We used cron jobs and custom scripts for some of the capability. However, many of those scripts are no longer necessary.

The initial setup was not too painful with 12.1.0.3 as there's good documentation on it. Earlier versions presented some challenges and sometimes required opening a SR to cut through some of the confusion.

In-house

The initial setup was probably a couple of hours of installation time. Besides applying the quarterly patches which takes 2 - 4 hours (we have two Cloud Control environments) another "cost" is hardware resources on a VM. There are a few bugs with the software which require opening SRs with Oracle Support which contribute to the day-to-day cost. Perhaps 8 hours per month is spent dealing with support, just as a rough guess. I would highly recommend the Tuning and Diagnostic Packs for OEM to greatly aid performance tuning with come with additional licensing fees.

We also have Foglight and AppDynamics in house. Foglight will be going away and from my perspective, it doesn't offer any real value over what Cloud Control can provide. AppDynamics offers some nice capabilities in terms of drill down and identifying bottlenecks. I would say it's better about determining the root cause of a problem especially if the root cause is with the application code. However, if the problem is on the database side, Cloud Control will provide through the Advisors ways of fixing the problem which AppDynamics can not do.

The product is very powerful and should be used to automate more key DBA type tasks. Performance tuning bad SQL becomes extremely simplified as long as you leverage the out of box capabilities and you have purchased the Tuning and Diagnostic Pack. Those are a must have to really take advantage of the capabilities.

When we have a tuning problem, we use this solution. 

It's incredibly useful for drawing up the SQL that's being run, identifying and resolving a problematic SQL. You can monitor performance using the various performance data which is what some employees in the companies where I work use it for. 

The majority of the time, I use it to aid in the detection of a performance issue.

It makes things a lot faster. 

We used to have to try to run down the SQL by using queries against the database and run explain plans and go through a number of different processes by hand, which would be very time-consuming. I am pointing and clicking, seeing what the top SQL is in terms of performance and utilization, taking up resources, and I am more or less navigating through it to get to the problem. What used to take hours to solve a problem, can be done in a matter of minutes.

It's a useful feature to be able to see the top SQL, the number of executions, the CPU, and the resources that it's using.

Also, being able to utilize that to look at the plans that are being generated for that piece of SQL and then determine how we can change that to increase the performance.

In my opinion, rather than a younger DBA, think the user interface could be improved.

I like the tree-type system. In all of Oracles products, you can get anywhere in several different ways, and I find that navigation to be a little bit tedious. For instance, you might wonder, "How did I get there that time?" " Oh, I got there a different way" the next time. It would be easier for me to remember if there was only one route to get there. 

This is my point of view. If you spoke with a younger DBA who has just started, they would have no trouble at all. When you have been doing something for the past 30 years, or how you learned to do it, or how you learned to learn when you were younger versus what they are doing today.

We have been providing Oracle Enterprise Manager since its inception.

The version used, varies from customer to customer and what they have. 

Currently, we don't have it installed on a local machine.

The stability of Oracle Enterprise Manager is very good.

When it first came out, and I started using it, I was working for Oracle in Oracle Education. You could utilize it, and the SQL behind it to gather statistics was wrong. But they have that sorted out now, and things are looking up today.

It's very scalable. You can expand it to cover everything you need in that environment.

It could range between 10 and 20, depending on the size of the customer and the number of DBAs they have. However, DBAs and system administrators will use it in some cases. I have one customer where there are some power users who can look at things. Then we try to get the developers to use it as well, so they can look at their SQL to tune it. In my area, it's usually 10 to 20, but once you open it up to developers, it could be another 50 to a hundred. It all depends on the company, its size, and how it is used.

A good percentage of Oracle clients use this solution, but I don't have any personal plans to use it more or to use it less. We use it when it's available.

Oracle technical support is pretty good, but you have to know how to work with them.

You have to know when to bring on a duty manager, or when to raise the level of support that you need, but they're pretty good. They do a pretty good job overall.

I've used Toad before, as well as a SQL developer that they have, which does some of the same things as this, but none of those products provide the overall picture that Enterprise Manager does, though Toad is frequently used. That's something I've done for a variety of customers. Quest Spotlight was a product that was used in the past. There were a few products that did the same thing, and it's possible that those were the only ones. But these days, if I walk into a client and they're using a tool, I'd probably prefer it to be Enterprise Manager.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. It's not as simple as Microsoft products for example, but it's not difficult.

Oracle products, in general, are not Microsoft products; you will always have some configuration or some tweaking that you will have to do.

I haven't deployed this solution in quite some time. It has always just been there. I would say deployment, is typically part of a larger project. It's just one of the tools that you're going to deploy along the way.

In terms of timing, and how it takes to deploy, would be days, and planning would be on the backend of a larger project. You are preparing databases and applications before you get to the core of what is to be done, then you can start including tools around it, which is normally on the backed.

One person can easily deploy and maintain this solution.

The licensing is the responsibility of our customers.

Other than having the expertise to put it together, and then use it properly, there are no additional costs incurred beyond the standard licensing fees that I have encountered.

My advice would be to find someone with experience who has implemented it before, and if they're not on staff, bring them in as a consultant. Have them work with the staff to show the staff how to do it. As I am a consultant, of course, this would be my recommendation.

You can save yourself a lot of time and a lot of heartaches, by working with someone that knows what they're doing. Of course, you want to ensure that all of that knowledge is transferred, but if you find someone who knows what they're doing, it can save you a lot of time and they can set things up correctly and show you how to use it efficiently.

Because it's a good product, and I worked for Oracle when they first released it, which was more than 20 years ago, but things have changed dramatically since then. 

It did not replace the DBA as they claimed when it was first introduced, but we, the DBAs, knew it wouldn't. It's a really good product and can be a really good tool in the right hands. I would rate Oracle Enterprise Manager a nine out of ten.

When my company has to deal with complex customers along with the many products from Oracle, we use Oracle Enterprise Manager as a dashboard to get a view of all the implementations of Oracle products.

The fact that Oracle Enterprise Manager is an expensive solution is a matter of concern and needs to be considered for improvement.

I have been using Oracle Enterprise Manager for many years. I am a seller of the solution for my company.

My company's technical team uses the solution since it is stable. It is a stable solution.

It is a scalable solution. So far, my company has not faced any issues with the scalability part of the solution.

Around six or seven customers of my company use Oracle Enterprise Manager.

Whenever my company needed assistance, Oracle's technical support has been helpful. Since my company knows people from Oracle, we get support from Oracle's local team, too.

From whatever knowledge I have gathered from my team, I can say that the beginning phase of the initial setup process of Oracle Enterprise Manager can be complex. Lately, my team has been using Oracle Enterprise Manager as any other solution.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

Oracle Enterprise Manager is a free-of-cost solution. Oracle Enterprise Manager can be expensive only if you go for its licensing part.

I recommend the product to those who plan to use it.

I rate the overall tool an eight out of ten.

Enterprise Manager is a single window plane of glass which allows one to look into every aspect of the systems deployed in an organization. We use it to mange our internal infrastructure, including Oracle Exadata, Oracle Exalytics, Oracle VMs, ERP solutions (such as Oracle Applications and Fusion Middleware, like SOA and AIA), and Oracle Linux servers.

This solution allows us to quickly drill down when there are issues. It helps us monitor solutions both in-house and at our customer premises. We use it extensively for performance tuning testing, monitoring, and configuration.It is also the only tool that can monitr all apects of Exadata , Exalogic and other Oracle engineered systems.

The database performance monitoring features are very useful and allow us to quickly zero in on DB-related issues.Exadata storage server and Infiniband switches can be viewed from the GUi in OEM which cannot be done in other tools . The ability to deploy metric extensions makes this tool extensible for our custom monitoring also.

The product is pretty comprehensive, but quite resource hungry. This might be due to the majority of the application seemingly being written in Java. 

Also, better mobile access would be useful.

More than ten years.

There were some issues with the software due to its resource requirements. Be careful to follow the recommended sizing guidelines.

No issues. It is very scalable. Ther are also comprehensive documents for both HA setup and DR setup. One caution is that for DR setup additional licensing is required.

We have not faced any major issues with the product. Auto deployment may be difficult in certain customer environments due to the firwall port issues but in those cases manula deployment of agents is an acceptable workaround. We originally had some timezone related issues due to the fact that my home timezone changed from Asia/Calcutta to Asia /Kolkata but this is no longer an issue

Oracle Enterprise Manager is the only solution which can monitor and drill down into the inner workings of engineered systems, like Exadata and Exalytics. Thus, we had to use this system when we deployed those systems. Being system integrators we work with a wide variety of tools however this tool has very wide support across all of oracles hardware and software.

Setup can be complex depending on the options required. There is a simple express install and a much more elaborate enterprise class setup, which is also possible.

Our in-house team has the capability to implement this (with customers).

This solution was the only one which allows us to monitor all our solutions from one interface. However, the optional packs are expensive, hence your mileage may vary. Please take advice before choosing what exactly to purchase. Remember that the base configuration is free to monitor any Oracle product.

Evaluate your requirements carefully. Elaborate DR and HA setup of OEM can become expensive. 

Be careful to only enable the packs for which you have a license as this is an issue we see time and again. I.e., customers who do not understand the licensing model have not turned off access to packs that they are not licensed for, then get into legal issues for it later.

None of the other options out there have the breadth and depth of this solution. This is the only solution which can drill down to the cell level of an Exadata system. Finally, it has modules available for almost every Oracle product available.

If you are an Oracle shop, or even an Oracle SI, then familiarity with Oracle one stop management solution is an imperative. Everything ties into this solution, so it has become a de facto standard for Oracle-based software given that the base is free to use with Oracle products. There is no downside to deploying this solution in your data center.

My organization is a software company that develops application files and uses Oracle databases along with Oracle EBS for interface.

The most valuable features of the solution are its stability and the performance of the databases from Oracle.

The interface offered by Oracle Enterprise Manager has certain shortcomings and needs improvement to become a nice tool. The interface offered by Oracle Enterprise Manager needs to be more user-friendly.

I have been using Oracle Enterprise Manager for twenty years. I use the solution's latest version, which is Oracle Database 19c.

It is a stable solution.

All the employees in my company use Oracle Enterprise Manager.

The solution's technical support is nice since they respond very fast to queries, especially if you have an account with them. There is a forum where a lot of people talk about anything you can search for if you don't have an account for Oracle's support.

The initial setup of Oracle Enterprise Manager was straightforward. The setup phase of all Oracle products is straightforward.

The solution comes as an in-built solution of the database of Oracle. One can install the database from Oracle in 20 minutes.

You need to download the installation file from Oracle's website for the installation process.

Oracle Enterprise Manager is the tool for managing the database, and we use Oracle database in our company.

I would recommend other tools to those planning to use Oracle Enterprise Manager.

Oracle Enterprise Manager provides all the features to its users for the price paid for it.

I rate the overall solution a seven out of ten.

The most valuable feature is the performance monitoring. This is one single-point dashboard, which presents the health of the database, at a particular point in real time. It helps you see which queries are running, and the top file sessions that are running. That helps you accurately identify what is bogging down the system.

That top session, which is chewing up CPU resources and memory, helps you see if it is doing the right thing, using the right indexes, using the best EXPLAIN PLAN. If everything is all good, maybe that tells you the box’s resources is not enough. However, 90% of the time, there are bad queries, rogue queries; it provides ample opportunities to queue.

Thanks to this tool, it helps us drill down, get to the bottom of the problem really quickly. Quick identification of a problem is key. Once the problem is identified, then you have other tools to figure out how to make this query run fast.

There are nice features like the hash report and AWR codes. At the click of a button, on the fly, you can generate these reports, which tell you exactly at the time of the clicking the health of the database; how well or how bad it is running. That is what the business is looking at from the DB. DB is like a doctor. They want the cure. They want to know what is the problem for the disease. This helps us identify the health of the database in real time, fast.

The main benefit is the quickness; the speed at which you identify, diagnose and resolve problems. The old-fashioned way depends on the DBA’s manual skills. It would take him forever, if we were to go the legacy route. This is nice, like a MRI scan. That helps. It is very fast; the queries are faster, the work gets done faster, you generate the reports faster, you are able to deliver how well the company's doing faster.

You can talk about the different features in IT, but at the end of the day, what it boils down to, what matters to management when they come into the office is that they want to look at the reports. They want to see how well their business is doing. These tools help make sure these queries are done well, so that you generate more reports, more quickly, so that management knows about the health of their company early and fast. That helps them slice and dice this information, and arrive at meaningful, logical conclusions to how well they want to run their business.

As it is, this product has so many features. We have yet to explore its full potential. There is one feature that tells you how long the query has been running. It would be nice if they could introduce a GUI feature in the performance monitoring section that shows when the query will finish. We can see when it started by looking at the session history. People are looking at you to tell them when will it finish. It would be nice if there is a GUI feature that tells you the start and the finish times. That way you can set the right expectations.

The product is very stable and doesn't take up a lot of resources. We have seen products that work well in the short-term, but that cause more harm. What was supposed to be a small footprint, ends up chewing up all the box’s resources, whereas that's not the case with this product.

There are times when you have to troubleshoot during the height of a crisis, when the box is already busy, and the chances are you are inflicting more pain. Nonetheless, this product still works very well, despite how busy the box is, because of the small footprint. Meaning, it doesn't take up a lot of resources. With fewer resources, it strives to get the job done.

Technical support is excellent. They get back to us really fast, if there is an issue. Also, there are tons of material out there on the Oracle support website. 90% of the time, you can get the answers very simply, without the need to reach a physical person to guide you to resolve your issues.

We had other solutions such as Toad and Spotlight, but once we saw this, there was no going back. It was pretty good. It's a one-point destination; one umbrella. It has so much to offer. Basically, if someone were to start using this product, they will not deviate. It has so much potential, honestly.

Initial setup is very straightforward. It is very easy to install and configure. It is also easy to migrate to different platforms. It is easy to fix if it is broken. It's not rocket science. I have seen other products where, once it is broken, it is broken; you have to do it properly from scratch. That's not the case here. With simple fixes, you can be back in business and running.

We were considering going with Quest Central and couple of other vendors, but being a big Oracle shop, it made sense. Sticking with one vendor made sense, so that we can get a better offer on the pricing. Considering Oracle is the database, it is no wonder the product has more insight into the database functioning. That's why we chose this solution.

My high rating reflects its ease of use and that it contains a host of features, anything and everything a database administrator would want it to perform; all the way from creating a database to adding space, to performance monitoring, to back up and recovery, to exports and imports, and security. You name it, they have it.

Cloud is the big buzzword. The reason why companies are moving from on-prem to cloud is cost-cutting. IT companies knowingly or unknowingly have spent top dollars on IT, but the thought process is changing. It all boils down to cost-cutting. Basically, the IT companies want to continue to do the same great stuff but with low costs, so that they can pass the benefit to the investors. I would say, cost. At the end of the day, cost is the most important criteria when I am considering working with a vendor. If you can bring down the cost, there is nothing else like that.

I strongly recommend using this product. This is going to make your life easy, so that you can use whatever time you save for better things in life.

We primarily use the solution to manage the environment. We can manage and monitor the availability and the health of the database.

The dashboards are great for gathering analytic information and seeing where the problems are. 

You can look at many databases from one single point of view.

The solution is stable.

It scales very well.

It's easy to set up. 

The cost is far too high.

Technical support could be more responsive.

I've used the solution for a long time. I've used it for more than ten years. 

The solution is quite stable. I'd rate it eight out of ten in terms of reliability. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. We've had a very stable environment.

There are no issues with scaling. The product is designed to scale. 

We have 20 users at this time. 

Our barrier to scaling and upgrading is based on the cost.

There is plenty of online support that you have access to if you have issues. 

Overall, technical support has been good. Sometimes the issues are fairly complex, and there is a delay in response due to the issues. We'd like a faster turnaround. 

Neutral

We did have another database tool, and we wanted a more stable environment. Oracle offered good stability and a rich toolset. It was the preferred database at the time. 

The initial setup is very easy.

It was a massive project initially when we started. We had to do a lot of user training and went through the whole cycle of integration testing before rolling it out. 

We pay one database administrator to maintain the solution. 

We handled the initial setup in-house. 

We haven't evaluated ROI per se. However, the low downtime and great user experience have made it a positive investment. 

The cost is high, especially for smaller businesses. It is not affordable at all. 

We pay for the license on an annual basis. 

I'd rate it ten out of ten, where ten is the most expensive. It's not affordable.

We do not incur any extra costs or fees beyond the standard license. 

We did look at some other database tools.

I'm not using the latest version of the solution. 

We're still on-prem and have to move to the cloud.

I'd recommend the solution. It's easy to understand your environment when you use it.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. 

We use Oracle Enterprise Manager for a lot of services like ERP and PLM. We have different applications that are using the solution.

The solution’s pricing could be improved.

I have been using Oracle Enterprise Manager for more than ten years.

Oracle Enterprise Manager is a stable solution.

I rate Oracle Enterprise Manager a nine out of ten for stability.

Oracle Enterprise Manager is a scalable solution. Around 500 users are using the solution in our organization, and we have plans to increase the usage.

Oracle Enterprise Manager's technical support is good.

Oracle Enterprise Manager's initial setup is easy.

The solution was implemented by Oracle.

I rate Oracle Enterprise Manager’s pricing a five out of ten.

I would recommend Oracle Enterprise Manager to other users.

Overall, I rate Oracle Enterprise Manager an eight out of ten.