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Tech Lead at NCR Corporation
Real User
A critical product that my company uses extensively, but data monitoring needs improvement
Pros and Cons
  • "This is one of the critical products for my company and we use it extensively. We currently use each and every feature of Oracle SOA."
  • "An important area that can be improved is the product's data monitoring. When we use the solution for interfacing or end-to-end data monitoring, we want to know exactly where the data is going and exactly where it is failing, or where there is an issue."

What is our primary use case?

We mainly use the solution internally to interface between two applications. 

We also use it for our external customers. They send us data and we transform that data to use in our applications, or we store it in our database for further use.

What needs improvement?

An important area that can be improved is the product's data monitoring. When we use the solution for interfacing or end-to-end data monitoring, we want to know exactly where the data is going and exactly where it is failing, or where there is an issue.

For how long have I used the solution?

Our organization has been using this product for 10 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable because it's quite an old product from Oracle.

Buyer's Guide
Oracle SOA Suite
October 2024
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What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Since we are using the solution on-premises, scalability may be the real challenge. We are moving towards using the cloud or Oracle cloud, so maybe the scalability will be easier if we move to the cloud. This challenge isn't caused by Oracle, it's because it is on-premises. I don't want to blame Oracle for the scalability challenges.

How are customer service and support?

Oracle's technical support is not very good, but it is good.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

How was the initial setup?

It was not really complex and not really straightforward. It was somewhere in between the two.

We are currently using the DevOps model, so it is deployed through DevOps. Deployment is not taking much time because we are not doing it manually. It is an automated deployment.

Usually regarding Oracle products, deployment takes time because it requires manual effort to go around and deploy the code correctly.

What other advice do I have?

Over one thousand people in my organization use this solution, including external customers, IT engineers, and our administration team. This is a middleware product for our organization. I mean that it's one of the critical products for my company, and we use it extensively. We currently use each and every feature of Oracle SOA.

I would rate this product either a six or a seven. If you are going to use this product, I suggest making sure that it is designed well by an architect so you can use it effectively. The effectiveness depends on the architect who is going to introduce and implement this product. 

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
Uriel Juárez - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at Sygno IT Services
Real User
Top 10
Useful proxy services, flexible, and reliable
Pros and Cons
  • "The Oracle SOA Suite has many useful features, and different organizations may place different emphases on the importance of each feature. Certain features are particularly important to the organization, such as the ability to access databases and transform messages, as well as the use of proxy services to secure web services with usernames and passwords. These features can be critical for enabling effective integration and data exchange between systems and applications."
  • "Other solutions might be better componets such as Salesforce."

What is our primary use case?

I am using Oracle SOA Suite to do different web services. For example, web service Type SOAP and REST.

How has it helped my organization?

Oracle SOA Suite has been beneficial for my organization because it enables us to consume other services and access databases to transfer data. It also allows us to receive messages from web services and transform them into different formats, such as XML. This helps us to effectively integrate and exchange data between various systems and applications.

What is most valuable?

The Oracle SOA Suite has many useful features, and different organizations may place different emphases on the importance of each feature. Certain features are particularly important to the organization, such as the ability to access databases and transform messages, as well as the use of proxy services to secure web services with usernames and passwords. These features can be critical for enabling effective integration and data exchange between systems and applications.

What needs improvement?

Other solutions might be better componets such as Salesforce. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Oracle SOA Suite for approximately six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of the solution is easy because I have experience with it.

What other advice do I have?

This is a good solution and you can use it with different web services. You have the flexibility to use other technologies. For example, PHP Web Services and Java Web Services.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Oracle SOA Suite a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Buyer's Guide
Oracle SOA Suite
October 2024
Learn what your peers think about Oracle SOA Suite. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.
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Enterprise Architect at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW)
Real User
Easily share data between disparate applications
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature of this solution is the option to design, and the development can happen at the same time."
  • "If the disk space expansion can be made more flexible, not requiring a database restart, it would be a major benefit."

What is our primary use case?

We use this solution for complex integrations between disparate systems that can be done securely, as light-weight services, automation, recovery, robust ETL options, and a lot more.

Comparing with other integration products, Oracle SOA Suite, being offered by Oracle Corporation, brings along a lot of benefits like Cloud and Database features that are an integral part of their offering.

How has it helped my organization?

This solution is specifically suitable for applications or systems that would not provide any option to share data or integrate with each other. Having data from applications like a parking system imported into the financial system reduces the revenue processing cycle by ninety percent, with the added benefits of automation, security, and reliability.

Oracle SOA Suite has been in use for more than a decade at our organization and has provided a lot of benefits across the departments.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of this solution is the option to design, and the development can happen at the same time. Also, it can be done by business users as Oracle SOA Suite allows designing the logical flows that get translated into the actual implementation for the integration.

We have automated incident reporting and closure for critical applications, which is a function that has been very valuable. 

What needs improvement?

With respect to the feature that allows each process to be accessible and reviewed at a later time, it is a great debug option, but we did notice the database size getting larger by the day. Is there any option available that will allow the process history to be moved to a different schema? If so, it would not affect the performance.

If the disk space expansion can be made more flexible, not requiring a database restart, it would be a major benefit.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for more than ten years.

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

We have evaluated MuleSoft and other ETL products. We found Oracle SOA Suite to be the most suitable for our needs, with Cloud features and Database compatibility.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Enterprise Integration Architect at Capgemini
Consultant
We have primarily been making use of SCA, BPEL, Mediators, and JMS, along with a number of extension products.

What is most valuable?

There are many facets to this product, but we have primarily been making use of SCA, BPEL, Mediators, and JMS, along with a number of extension products. We are expecting to make extensive use of several other aspects of the SOA (and its containing WebLogic server) in the near future, specifically OSB and Coherence.

How has it helped my organization?

It has allowed us to build integrations using an enterprise-class platform. It has also meant that we have been able to purchase prebuilt integrations from Oracle for their products, meaning we have been able to focus largely on our own solutions.

It should be noted, and we have proven with our own experience, that to really get good value out of the product you need to have some good development approaches, as well as knowledgeable people on the team because middleware is very easy to do badly, and then it becomes an impediment. As they say, with great power comes great responsibility.

With the availability of Maven the adoption of Continous Integration can be really driven fowards.

What needs improvement?

Configuration of the product is a very complex and demands a lot of knowledge, but we do recognize this is the process to pay for a flexible platform. Nevertheless, providing simplified tools for common activities would be very helpful.

For how long have I used the solution?

My employer has been using Oracle SOA Suite for three to four years. I have been working as an architect for this amount of time as well.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Deployments are complex.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Once correctly configured, scaling and stability have not been an issue. When issues have occurred, we have traced the problems back to poor deployment configuration, particularly environment factors such as the network, etc.

How are customer service and technical support?

Oracle official support channels can be a bit slow (although no worse then any other significant vendor, e.g. Red Hat). But there is a wealth of information in the Oracle community that can help, and it is possible to seek help through the community if you know how.

Additionally, if you have appropriate contacts within Oracle, then you can reach out that way as well and typically see friendly, responsive engagement.

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

We have in the past heavily used Red Hat's Fuse products. They're also good, but require a far greater level of investment in good development skills to exploit. The need for more basic development skills has meant the development of the ISO of on-site integration practices.

How was the initial setup?

It's complex for 11g, but in getting started with the new 12c platform, we have seen far greater development although production environment are still a fairly sophisticated task.

What about the implementation team?

The majority of the work we have had done with Oracle SOA Suite has been through a major systems integrator with a few internal individuals with some knowledge for basic operational support. Given the choice, use smaller specialist Oracle partners -- they may cost more per person, but they know how to get the most out of the platform and can deliver a lot more in the same time. The big SIs we have seen approach things with just training staff to use the tools and then assume that is good enough, rather than invest in the underlying principles and support the development of good skills through experience.

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

Do some upfront work to figure out what you're likely to want to do with the technology and get some meaningful volumetrics before you start negotiating on licensing. The Oracle PaaS platform offers an opportunity to try and see and understand the art of the possible before you start ramping up. Without this, you may find that you buy into license constraints to keep the cost down and then later regret the constraints. Understand how to get the most of the pre-sales engagement. Oracle can offer a lot here to help you bottom out the right solutions to make sure you get it.

What other advice do I have?

If you're starting from scratch with Oracle, seed your team with some resources who have knowledge and reputation. Invest in your own people to develop knowledge in the breadth of the tool. Even if you use SLS to deliver, having some knowledge of your own can help hold them to account. This is most critical if you've engaged them on a fixed-price model as they will want to keep the cost down, which might work to your best interests.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user448434 - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
With careful planning and performance benchmarking, you can ensure the applications are used at full capacity and not pass the critical load point.

What is most valuable?

The Service Bus is a solid tool with native throttling out of the box capabilities. Using this feature one can ensure that at any point an application getting "rogue" will not overrun the capabilities of the main back end and by doing so endanger the entire IT landscape of the organization. With careful planning and performance benchmarking, you can ensure the applications are used at full capacity and not pass the critical load point. Another good feature was the introduction of the Composite Application Architecture which I believe it simplifies the entire development lifecycle.

How has it helped my organization?

This application impacts upon the overall architecture and directly influences directly the governance within the organisation. From my experience, having a middleware solution implemented, allows the organisation to organically move into a more disciplined development style where the application data ownership is far better respected than before.

What needs improvement?

I would like to have a cloud version available with virtualization capabilities which will reduce the implementation turnaround time.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using it for seven years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

There were no issues with the deployment.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We had issues with the early versions but lately the product is performing well.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's been able to scale for our needs.

How are customer service and technical support?

Oracle is providing good support for this tool.

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

I have used other middleware applications before and I also evaluated a few. The recommendation for using one tool versus another is usually based on the entire IT landscape, the maturity of the organisation, and the complexity of the entire implementation.

How was the initial setup?

The initial implementation has improved a lot with the latest version. It used to be a more complex activity in the past, while with the latest version the installation is smooth and more straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

I have been on both sides of the fence. It is important to leverage the experience of an implementer who can bring the know-how and protect the organization from making mistakes that can prove to be very costly in the future. If the budget allows try to learn from the mistakes which were done by others before you.

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

Done right you can see an impact pretty fast. It is always a good idea to package it with other Oracle products in order to take advantage from the discounted rates. Your Oracle Sales Manager should be able to advice what is the best way to have the maximum savings.

What other advice do I have?

Plan carefully and make sure that the SOA is part of the vision of your enterprise. The last thing you want is to make it an "after thought" which can prove itself to be a risk on its own and very intrusive in nature.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Solution Architect at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 10
Helps us implement integrations with great stability and a straightforward setup
Pros and Cons
  • "The stability of the solution is the most valuable feature."
  • "Its function options can be improved."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case for the solution is an enterprise integration solution. However, it depends on the business needs. For example, in the telecom domain, it involves connecting multiple systems, sending the data from one system to another, getting the data, and synchronizing it between various systems. Currently, we use the solution to implement integrations. For example, if we need to connect an HCM SaaS solution to an ADP application, PeopleSoft, or Salesforce application, we use the tool for the integrations.

What is most valuable?

The stability of the solution is the most valuable feature for us because when we initially started working with the solution, it was not stable. However, when Oracle acquired this product in 10G and moved it to 11C, we used to create a lot of Oracle support tickets. But as the product has matured, we're confident that we are getting a good integration solution. Currently, the solution is stable, and we hardly see any issues with it, and the issues we do see are easy for us to resolve without support.

What needs improvement?

The solution can be improved by creating a lightweight product that can provide persistence features. Additionally, they can include function upgrades in the next release that will offer custom functions like a zip file and encoding.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using the solution for approximately twelve years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is scalable. I rate it a seven out of ten, and six people currently use the solution in our organization.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is stable. It is very unlikely that you will face any product issues or see any unwanted exceptions. I rate the stability as nine out of ten.

How are customer service and support?

I rate customer service and support a six out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward. I rate it an eight out of ten.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented the solution in-house.

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

Advice on pricing and licensing will differ from one organization to another and their business needs. I rate the pricing for this solution a seven out of ten.

What other advice do I have?

I rate the solution a nine out of ten because it is one of the best and most global products available on the market. The product is good, but its function options can be improved.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user446754 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Integration Developer at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
I like the all-in-one installation, management from one console, enhanced JVM for great throughput, and memory management.

What is most valuable?

  • The EM console
  • The WebLogic Server
  • The SOA suite
  • The BPEL processes.
  • I think it's good, as we have done our POC on 12c, and it comes with great features, like all-in-one installation, management from one console, enhanced JVM for great throughput, and memory management.


12c play around reviews

12.1.3== SAP adapter dave so much trouble while configuring it.

Not proper documentation is helpful from Oracle.

After the installation and configuration the classes and jars are not loaded which leads to issues with Fusion SAP connectivity.

Over all the The look and feel of the EM console is ok.

I would recommend to use this version of product with 1.7_81_ version of Java/jre environment.


The rcu is combined inside the soa infra jar installation so that is good thing that I found as I don't have to worry about the RCU to download and install and then configure the SOA_INFRA schema's.


so good this is fair deal of my experience. Happy SOA.!!!!

How has it helped my organization?

This product provides a robust and scalable integration solution for our organization’s business needs.

What needs improvement?

In the current version of SOA Suite 11.1.1.7.8, we are having fewer issues as compared to earlier versions. We have had severe issues being denied, and upon following up with Oracle these have not yet been solved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using it for the last six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability is sometimes a challenge.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It’s a very scalable application.

How are customer service and technical support?

3/5

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

Oracle being reliable, robust and scalable is always chosen.

How was the initial setup?

Initial setup was full of learning.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented it on our own, although on certain modules the Oracle team had helped us.

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

It’s a bit costly.

What other advice do I have?

I think the world is moving is towards Cloud solutions and in the same path Oracle has cloud solutions, if you are ready to shell out few extra bucks for your Business’s IT infra and solutions, then Oracle is the one.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user106299 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of Technical Architecture with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
I like the integration with Oracle Fusion middleware products and the native support.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features for us are the integration with Oracle Fusion middleware products and the native support.

Bringing all the data to central warehouse and generating reports that helps business to forecast business strategy is one of the most useful features.

How has it helped my organization?

We have manual sales order processing for customers and book new PO to supplier. Using Oracle forecasting tools and SOA Suite we have integrated our Order Management System and Forecasting System. BI reports helps business users to generate report and raise PO accordingly to fill the demand supply gap.

What needs improvement?

I'd like to see more plug-and-play adapters, preferably similar to Cloud Integration's browser-based adapter. It saves time to cope with the ever growing business and to meet requirements in more a more agile manner.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using it for the last eight years. Alongside SOA Suite, we're using Oracle AIA 11.1.1.7, ODI 11.1.1.7, OBIEE 11.1.1.9, Oracle Data Quality, OER, OSR, PeopleSoft, Oracle Applications 12R, Deloitte and Accenture are our implementation partners.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

We have always seen issues around integration tools and it's difficult to resolve issues sometimes when things pile up.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We've had no issues with stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

An effective alert mechanism needs to be put in place for deployment and to help scale environments.

How are customer service and technical support?

Existing bugs have been identified proactively. However, in several SRs, we have seen intermittent delays for new products.

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

Our older systems were IBM Mainframe and SeeBeyond Solutions for integration between other systems. We have chosen the product from the stability and brand value.

How was the initial setup?

The installation was very straightforward. We have encountered issues in the production environment for missing several configuration where we spent more time in streamlining all the environments.

What about the implementation team?

We hired Oracle for a few of our implementations when we were setting up our in-house team. We began implementing with vendors and later on formed an internal team with knowledge transition. If you're a company that does not have COE in the areas that you are implementing, it's advisable to consult the vendor team for industry experts and gradually move the technology over.

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

Oracle does offer a competitive licensing price if you are purchasing a suite of products from them to maximize the ROI. However, if anyone chooses selective products from the stack, the percentage of ROI is less.

What other advice do I have?

In our enterprise, we have a mix of products and each product helps the business in different ways. It's advisable to measure the business needs first and then plan for the implementation, because once implementation starts with an older version by the time it stabilizes, the stack needs to be upgraded. Oracle product upgrades are not very straightforward. Sometimes there is a slight unwillingness from the stakeholders to stay on the updated version rather than continuing with the existing.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Oracle SOA Suite Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: October 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Oracle SOA Suite Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.