Oracle Database vs. SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE), legacy

I believe Oracle Database is still the best RDBMS database which is the database to consider for OLTP applications and for Adhoc requests. They are good in Datawarehousing in certain aspects but not the best. Oracle is also a great database for scaling up with their Clusterware solution which also makes the database highly available with services moving to the live instance without much trouble.

Incentivized

High-performance, high-concurrency transactions are well suited for ASE. ASE is lacking some features in my opinion such as history tables, however there are ways to implement them via workarounds or by using Replication Server. I do think the way the ASE parser and optimizer works are far superior to other products as it is a true cost-based optimizer and the order of the tables in the FROM clause does not really matter although a good SQL coder will place the tables in a meaningful order to make the SQL more readable. ASE is good for applications that require high availability and can be used for mission critical systems.

Incentivized

• Best thing about it is that it supports PL/SQL which is helpful in writing complex quarries easily.
• Its storage capacity , backup and recovery features make it the best database storage tool available.
• Other thing I like about this software is its interface is so good.

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• Easy to setup and maintain
• Reliable, rarely has major hiccups requiring reboots or crashes
• Very responsive with complicated queries spanning various tablespaces and hundreds of millions of rows

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• The memory demand and management makes it impossible to run it in a container.
• It is hard to perform local unit testing with Oracle even using the personal edition (aggressive all the available memory grab for itself).
• Lack of built in database migrations (e.g. as Flyway).
• The need to install the Oracle client in addition to its drivers.
• The cost of running it, especially in the Cloud.
• Comes with very spartan community grade client/management tools whereas the commercial offerings tend to demand a premium price.

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• Full database encryption - need to utilize external keys vs internal - for better separation of duties.
• History Tables.

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There is a lot of sunk cost in a product like Oracle 12c. It is doing a great job, it would not provide us much benefit to switch to another product even if it did the same thing due to the work involved in making such a switch. It would not be cost effective.

Incentivized

Our licenses are perpetual. It is the support that we will be renewing. We will renew because we continue to use and receive value from the product.

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Many of the powerful options can be auto-configured but there are still many things to take into account at the moment of installing and configuring an Oracle Database, compared with SQL Server or other databases. At the same time, that extra complexity allows for detailed configuration and guarantees performance, scalability, availability and security.

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It does almost everything we need and for the things it doesn't do natively, we are still able to do using other features. For example, natively history tables weren't supported but we were able to create them using triggers.

Incentivized

1. I have very good experience with Oracle Database support team. Oracle support team has pool of talented Oracle Analyst resources in different regions. To name a few regions - EMEA, Asia, USA(EST, MST, PST), Australia. Their support staffs are very supportive, well trained, and customer focused. Whenever I open Oracle Sev1 SR(service request), I always get prompt update on my case timely. 2. Oracle has zoom call and chat session option linked to Oracle SR. Whenever you are in Oracle portal - you can chat with the Oracle Analyst who is working on your case. You can request for Oracle zoom call thru which you can share the your problem server screen in no time. This is very nice as it saves lot of time and energy in case you have to follow up with oracle support for your case. 3.Oracle has excellent knowledge base in which all the customer databases critical problems and their solutions are well documented. It is very easy to follow without consulting to support team at first.

Incentivized

Incredibly responsive, saving us countless hours in troubleshooting.

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Overall the implementation went very well and after that everything came out as expected - in terms of performance and scalability. People should always install and upgrade a stable version for production with the latest patch set updates, test properly as much as possible, and should have a backup plan if anything unexpected happens

Oracle is more of an enterprise-level database than Access and SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise isn't getting developed much (some people wonder how close it is to end of life) but SQL Server is miles ahead of Oracle IMO in terms of user experience and comparable in terms of performance AFAIK. As stated, a vendor forced our hand to use Oracle so we did not have a choice. If you are looking for help with an issue you are having, there are lots of SQL Server articles, etc. on the web and the community of SQL Server developers and DBA's is very strong and supportive. Oracle's help on the web is much more limited and often has an attitude that goes with it of superiority and lacking in compassion, IMO. For instance, check out the Ask Tom Oracle blog - a world of difference. If you choose Oracle, go into it with eyes wide open.

Incentivized

Much less effort than Oracle. Much better customer support than Oracle. Roughly equivalent to SQL Server in performance and ease of use. Much better customer service than SQL Server. Different ballpark from IQ. Same customer service.

Incentivized

• Oracle Database 12c has had a very positive impact on our ability to build strong and robust custom applications in house without the need to come up with our own methods of data storage and management.
• Oracle Database 12c has the strongest user interface of any database I have worked with and continuously is improving its strength with the addition of support for JSON and XML type objects in the database.
• Oracle Database 12c is sometimes very heavy and DBA intensive, but the benefits far outweigh the costs, which we need to spend on DBA support for enabling security and access features.

Incentivized

• Negative - Costs a lot ... but so do they all.
• Positive - It does what we need it to do.

Incentivized