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PeerSpot user
Sr. Professional Services Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
Newly introduced in SOA 12c, Enterprise Scheduler Service helps to schedule components or services and manages the complete lifecycle of a job.

What is most valuable?

  1. Easy to install and configure SOA 12c development environment by using SOA 12c new Quick Start Installer. There is no need to think of creating a database to store repository of SOA to use this particular installer. It is now possible to install and configure an environment for a developer under 30 to 45 minutes.
  2. Number of changes in Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control with redesign of SOA dashboards to focus on consolidated view of faults and issues in system. It helps in troubleshooting and health check of a SOA system.
  3. Enterprise Scheduler Service (ESS) is newly introduced in SOA 12c. It helps to schedule SOA components or services and manages the complete lifecycle of a job. It is now possible to schedule activation or deactivation of pooling adapters at specified time to optimize performance of system in peak hours.

What needs improvement?

In general, any Oracle Fusion Middleware product 12c, has a requirement of database for creation of repository to store metadata of the product as part of installation requirement. SOA 12c also has the same requirement inline with Oracle Fusion Middleware 12c stack.

In my view, Oracle should rethink it's overall strategy to store product repository in a file system rather than database. It adds not only another layer of point of failure but also another requirement which clients need to keep in mind while building the environment or upgrading.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been working with SOA 12c for over 1 year and it's previous version ,SOA 11g for over 3 years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

The deployment process is well documented and available on the OTN site. No issues observed apart of one observation of SOA managed server taking longer time to start. It appears to be a known bug in this SOA version. The issue was resolved by enforcing managed server to startup by adding startup parameter for IPv4(java.net.preferIPv4Stack=true)

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Oracle SOA Suite
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a very stable product.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No issues noticed.

How are customer service and support?

Customer Service:

Excellent.

Technical Support:

Excellent.

How was the initial setup?

It is very easy to set up a development environment by using Quick Installer.

The effort and complexity remain same for traditional setup of production or test build as we used to have in it's previous version 11g.

The complexity increases with implementation of high availability environment in expected line.

What about the implementation team?

In-house.

What other advice do I have?

As a consultant working on both 11g and 12c , I will strongly recommend customers move to 12c as soon as possible and leverage the huge number of new features the product provides in the 12c version.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Prashan Thilakawardena - PeerSpot reviewer
SAP MM Consultant at Applexus Technologies Inc.
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
The product is not user-friendly, the initial setup is complex, and the stability must be improved
Pros and Cons
  • "The product provides transparency in finances."
  • "The product is not user-friendly."

What is most valuable?

The product provides transparency in finances.

What needs improvement?

The product is not user-friendly. It is very complicated. It is very hard to get the reports.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for one year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate the tool’s stability a four out of ten. The stability could be improved.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is moderately scalable. However, it is not effective. The solution must improve the scalability. Around 20 to 25 people use the solution in our organization.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was complex. It was more of a brownfield. The deployment took one year.

What about the implementation team?

We need technical support for the deployment. We needed three developers and two engineers to deploy the tool.

What was our ROI?

The ROI was okay. Our customers have not dealt with other competitors’ products. Hence, they are okay with the solution.

What other advice do I have?

I will not recommend Oracle to others. Overall, I rate the product a three or four out of ten.

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 SOA Suite
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about Oracle SOA Suite. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user522006 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT Analyst at Xilinx
MSP
It connects to any and every application, and with different sources: files, databases and web services.

What is most valuable?

I guess connecting to any and every application. Different sources: it can be a file source, a database, a web service. It's a single source for integration.

What needs improvement?

I think it has already improved quite a bit. At the system level, when you are running a website, it should be easier to diagnose the source of problems, for example, why the CPU is high, and make the error logs and log files easier to work with to find why an issue happens. Sometimes the Java can be a bit tricky to diagnose the actual problem. I think probably this area can be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I started in 2010, so for over six years now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's stable enough. It has its problems as with any other Java application. Java, you know, sometimes can go down; JVM crashes; it has stuck threads. So as with any Java applications, it has its fair share of minor issues; but it's getting better.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable.

How is customer service and technical support?

The technical support was average. It's a complex product, so it really takes time before you can find someone who knows, or someone who can get the right answer that we are looking for, and sometimes you don't, even if it takes ages.

How was the initial setup?

If you know it, it's straight forward. If you don't know it, it's rather complex and can be very tricky. If you haven't invested time, you will make mistakes. Then it is not very simple to get back and start again.

What other advice do I have?

If you want to invest in this product, I recommend to go ahead and do it. If someone is starting ,start with the latest version. It version is a lot better than it used to be. Don't even look back at the old version.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Oracle Ace Director at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
By being more agile and reusing services, it shortens software development lifecycles.

Valuable Features

  • Pure play integration (ESB)
  • Orchestration (BPEL)
  • API Management (Rest Adapters, API manager, etc.)

Improvements to My Organization

We're an SI, so I can only comment on behalf of our customers. By implementing SOA, underpinned by Oracle SOA Suite, we have been able to help customers save thousands of dollars by optimizing business processes, shortening software development lifecycles by being more agile and reusing services, and APIs. Our business is able to deliver products to the market quicker and cheaper.

Room for Improvement

API Management and BPM both need work, but I believe Oracle is already working on this.

Use of Solution

We've been using it since its inception, 10.3.x, so that's nine to 10 years.

Deployment Issues

We've had no issues with deployment.

Stability Issues

There were no issues in v11.1.1.7, but in 12c, the very early releases were a bit unstable. However, with Oracle's new release cycles were able to release patches very quickly, and now v12.1.3.x and v12.2.1.x are very stable products.

Scalability Issues

There were issues scaling, but mainly because the customer didn't set up the product properly, and didn't do capacity planning properly. If the product is setup properly according to the right capacity design, it scales as expected.

Customer Service and Technical Support

7/10

Initial Setup

The complexity of setup depends on the set up. For developers and/or development environments, setup is very simple. With SOA Quickstart, it only takes a few minutes to have SOA Suite and full IDE up and running. For production environments, it takes a bit longer. However, there are several ways including products that will automate full installation out-of-the-box.

Pricing, Setup Cost and Licensing

Do proper capacity planning. Engage an expert in the field to assist in defining what the requirement is, what approach to follow when licensing (Oracle processors, named users, metered/unmetered if cloud), and then size to the actual needs throughout time. This approach will almost certainly result in much cheaper license costs, probably less than other competing products that have less flexibility when licensed.

Other Solutions Considered

We also looked at Mule ESB/CloudHub, TIBCO, and IBM. There were many reasons that we chose Oracle, including that it's a more robust and scalable product, more features, better future roadmap and product vision, better integration with Oracle Apps, and Oracle Cloud SaaS.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
it_user450861 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of Training at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
Real User
Scalability is a strength, and customer support is responsive.

What is most valuable?

The following features of this product are the most valuable to me:

Integration to underlying applications and technologies via its OOTB adapters
Scalability of deployed solutions
Business Process Management (BPM)
Business Activity Monitoring (BAM)

How has it helped my organization?

For my most recent customer, we automated an accounts payable process that integrated four different ERPs into an approval process.

What needs improvement?

Customers experience issues standing up environments. Unless an experienced administrator is involved, having an environment that is clustered and load balanced requires quite a bit of time. There are third-party tools to automate this configuration, but there is nothing currently out of the box to ease difficulty the installation issues customers run into.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used this solution for 8+ years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

SOA has been stable through the years, other portions of the suite have had issues when they rolled out. Customer support is very responsive when issues are found and the product is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is one of the strengths of the product. We did not encounter any issues with scalability.

How are customer service and technical support?

I know others with issues, but our experience has been that they have been outstanding. Escalations are handled timely and the expertise of the support techs we've been assigned has been outstanding.

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

I did not previously use a different solution. We works exclusively with Oracle SOA Suite.

How was the initial setup?

This is a complex environment so unless an experienced administrator is involved, having an environment that is clustered and load balanced requires quite a bit of time. There are third-party tools to automate this configuration, but there is nothing currently out of the box to ease difficulty the installation issues customers run into.

What about the implementation team?

The vendor team was not used. Full disclosure - I work for a consulting company and we were brought in to facilitate the BPM and integration aspects of the project.

What other advice do I have?

Get training up front. Hire an experienced administrator. Bring in experienced consultants to help on the initial project to help mentor and provide best practices.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We have a long relationship with Oracle as a consultant to their customers.
PeerSpot user
it_user448332 - PeerSpot reviewer
SOA Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Reusability of services is an important feature which allows users to eliminate extraneous legacy systems.

Valuable Features

  • Reusability of services
  • Scalability

Improvements to My Organization

We have implemented SOA for many clients. The organizations are getting benefit as they are eliminating complex integration (point to point) among several legacy systems, and having a low cost solution. The reusability of services is a game changer because one of our clients is saving big money by eliminating extraneous legacy systems.

Room for Improvement

There is a dashboard available in SOA Suite, and it's called BAM (Business Activity Monitoring), however, very often, clients need more customization, and this is limited. I want more customization in BAM.

Use of Solution

I've been using it for two years.

Deployment Issues

There are many issues in deployment, and it is an ongoing process of improvement in any product. We get support from Oracle to resolve these issues.

Stability Issues

We've experienced no issues with performance.

Scalability Issues

It's been able to scale for our needs.

Customer Service and Technical Support

There is a good customer support available and it depend on the severity of the issue.

Initial Setup

Initial setup is straightforward and there is plenty of documentation available on the Oracle website to help you with it.

Implementation Team

We have an in-house team that did it.

Pricing, Setup Cost and Licensing

It is always good if there is a win-win situation for client and service providers, and there is definitely some room for improvement in this area.

Other Solutions Considered

There are many factors that meant we chose this product over others, including its low cost, variety of integration options, and virtualization through Oracle Service Bus.

Other Advice

Perform a proper requirement gathering and check where this product is best suited in your organization.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer2194350 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 20
Useful capabilities, helpful support, and reliable
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature of Oracle SOA Suite is all the platform's capabilities."
  • "The solutions can improve the communication or translations between formats, such as JSON and XML. The JSON REST API could improve."

What is our primary use case?

I am using Oracle SOA Suite for integration purposes.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of Oracle SOA Suite is all the platform's capabilities.

What needs improvement?

The solutions can improve the communication or translations between formats, such as JSON and XML. The JSON REST API could improve.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Oracle SOA Suite for approximately 10 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Oracle SOA Suite is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This solution is scalable if it is designed well.

Three people are using the solution.

How are customer service and support?

The support is decent.

I rate the price of Oracle SOA Suite a seven out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

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

I have WSO2 and Microsft Bistock before they stopped production.

What other advice do I have?

This is a good solution and I would recommend it 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.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1752774 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oracle Training Consultant at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Consultant
Integrates well, versatile, and high level support
Pros and Cons
  • "In Oracle SOA Suite some applications are not able to use REST, but it can support both SOAP and REST. You're able to integrate quite a lot of systems, which may not be able to in other solutions. You can also use XML and JSON. It is a standardizing type of tool. It doesn't matter whether I'm using JSON or XML, it can convert them."
  • "The technical support is good, we have premier support which costs extra."

What is our primary use case?

We are using Oracle SOA Suite for integration for both our internal and external systems. For the internal systems, we use a gateway to connect to it, and for the third party connections. We use Oracle SOA Suite for orchestration, transformation, and translation.

What is most valuable?

In Oracle SOA Suite some applications are not able to use REST, but it can support both SOAP and REST. You're able to integrate quite a lot of systems, which may not be able to in other solutions. You can also use XML and JSON. It is a standardizing type of tool. It doesn't matter whether I'm using JSON or XML, it can convert them.

After starting to use this solution your time to take products to production becomes a bit faster. I've learned to embrace new technologies and to take the opportunity to learn and make use of the new technologies that are there. For example, if you can reuse an API or a service, then it saves you a lot of development time and makes the teams deliver much faster.

Overall the solution is quite versatile.

What needs improvement?

The resiliency of this application can have problems with a downstream system., sometimes it's unable to recover quickly. You have to restart the services. However, this is most likely because I'm using an old version, which is 12.1.3, but if I upgrade to 12.2, then that will problem will be resolved. I'm in the process of thinking of upgrading it.

For how long have I used the solution?

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

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Oracle SOA Suite is stable as long as you do the correct installation, with the architecture. It's good and very stable. I have quite a lot of services that run using it.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is highly scalable because I'm using three nodes, three physical nodes, or virtual machines, and if I want to add a fourth one, I can add it very easily. You can add more nodes and more managed servers. We call them managed servers, without any downtime. We have more than one node, and maintenance becomes very easy. If your architecture is done well everything will work perfectly. For example, installing the solution on at least two nodes for higher availability is scalable.

We have approximately 300 services running and the number of users can vary. The user count can vary because different applications can call the same service, we reuse these services. For example, at any one time, we could have approximately 50,000 messages passing through in about 10 minutes every ten minutes.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is good, we have premier support which costs extra.

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

We previously have not used another similar solution.

How was the initial setup?

The installation can be straightforward if you follow the right guidance from Oracle. The infrastructure needs to be properly done.

The full implementation took use approximately one year, but it was because we have a  disaster recovery(DR) site also. We had to install it on both sides. We installed it on the DR site, used it, then copied it onto the DC site, the goal was for it to be faster.

What about the implementation team?

We used Oracle consulting services for the implementation, they are very good.

We have at least four infrastructure engineers working on the support of the solution because you need people shadowing each other. Four should be good.

You will need an infrastructure person because it runs on WebLogic. Another person who can set up the infrastructure, and someone else who can work on the Oracle SOA Suite, which involves many services. Your security team needs to get involved too, they are part of this project. However, there are only two main technical people involved, infrastructure and product person.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We have evaluated other options.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend others to use Oracle SOA Suite, it's a great product. Now that we have the cloud solution, if your other products are in the cloud, then you can implement the cloud-based version. Most of my applications are on-premise, and that is why I am using the on-premise version. I would recommend the solution to anyone who wants stable, scalable, very versatile, and resilient, integration software.

I rate Oracle SOA Suite 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
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Oracle SOA Suite Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: November 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Oracle SOA Suite Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.