MDM - If You're Willing to Pay the Price
Oracle Utilities' Meter Data Management module is used by our metering services department, with tangential use by multiple other …
Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management (MDM)
Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management (MDM)
Overview
What is Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management (MDM)?
Oracle supplies a suite of utilities management applications, including the Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management (MDM) application.
Recent Reviews
Oracle Meter Data Management (MDM) a good product
Meter Data Management (MDM) is being used by our company to store Meter and Device information, all of the combination meter device types …
A complex but powerful tool for managing meter data
Oracle MDM is used by Duquesne Light Company to store our customers' meter data, estimate meter reads, and create billing determinants …
Oracle Utilities MDM Review
We use MDM to process the meter reads on a daily basis and which is important for the business to analyze the actual and trends of the …
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What is Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management (MDM)?
Oracle supplies a suite of utilities management applications, including the Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management (MDM) application.
For more information visit https://www.oracle.com/industries/utilities/products/meter-data-management
For more information visit https://www.oracle.com/industries/utilities/products/meter-data-management
Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management (MDM) Competitors
Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management (MDM) Technical Details
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
|---|---|
| Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
Oracle supplies a suite of utilities management applications, including the Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management (MDM) application.
OSIsoft PI System, from AVEVA and AVEVA District Energy Management are common alternatives for Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management (MDM).
Reviewers rate Support Rating highest, with a score of 4.8.
The most common users of Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management (MDM) are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
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February 25, 2020
MDM - If You're Willing to Pay the Price
Oracle Utilities' Meter Data Management module is used by our metering services department, with tangential use by multiple other departments throughout our utility company. As an electric-only utility, MDM is used only to measure and manage electrical meter data.
From the meter setup, to the initial measurement, to the algorithms and logic that determines a final measurement, MDM process this entire data flow. The main use of the finalized meter data is for billing customers in an integrated cross-application connection with our customer-centric system (which is Oracle's Customer Care and Billing module). Beyond this, meter usage statistics are used for revenue forecasting and daily and monthly load expectations for our public utility commission.
One of the primary reasons OU's MDM product was chosen was that we were moving off a mainframe system and wanted our customer-based and meter-based applications to be serviced by the same software, reducing any sort of integration errors or headaches. Though integration has not been an issue, MDM itself is not the most intuitive tool, and is likely the lesser of the two products.
- Integration-wise, MDM syncs with the OU product CCB without issue.
- The documentation behind the functional use of MDM is well maintained. This helps functional analysts when business issues arise and DBAs for technical issues.
- Integration-wise, MDM is flawless with CCB, but the amount of time it takes to load and interpret daily reads is nearly prohibitive. Through a process called "meter interrogation," Oracle is supposed to process initial reads into final measurements. This is supposed to run three times a day, but because the process is so resource-intensive, we are only able to run it barely twice a day. Production resources lag during this time and user experience is reduced.
- The amount of data the MDM require to be kept in just two of the thousands of database tables indicates a very poor design, or at least a poor integration of the Lodestar product that they purchased and turned into MDM. The initial measurements and final measurements tables take up around 85 to 90 percent of the database. This bloatedness in database size translates into slower performance for the front-end user as well as real costs in terms of data storage. Any user using Oracle's Exadata software will pay dearly for not having a purge and archive strategy.
Oracle Utilities MDM is well suited for users that have plenty of money to invest in technical hardware resources to support the requirements of this application. With the electric utility industry becoming more and more precise data-wise, the requirements for data storage and processing are only going to increase. For example, electrical usage measurement used to be a once-a-month practice; in the 1990s, hourly reading was introduced; recently, 15-minute interval readings have been introduced and will become the new norm. Going from one reading a month, to 720, to now 2,880 requires expensive hardware. MDM is able to handle this load, in our experience, only if you purchase Oracle's Exadata hardware, which is priced at a premium. Beyond data storage itself, we have also found that MDM real-time usage for users is also, unfortunately, best with Exadata. Likely because Oracle developed this hardware, and because it has built-in compression, portioning, and tuning features, performance is better.
One note is that Oracle does provide a purge-and-archive strategy in the more recent versions of MDM (i.e. ILM). However, implementation of this is a small project in itself, although worthwhile in the long run.
- Our former mainframe system would not have been able to handle the new requirement we have in Pennsylvania for 15-minute interval reads. MDM being able to handle this with base functionality saved us the cost of developing a custom solution for this.
- MDM's hardware requirements are quite expensive, especially if you want the best performance technically and for the front-end user, as you must purchase Oracle's Exadata hardware. This capital expenditure has been heavy for our utility and supported by increased tariff measures.
Although I have minimal experience with meter data management products outside of MDM, it does perform better than an in-house product developed by our utility 20 years ago for use on our mainframe-based system then. Meter management is headed the same way as other industries in terms of data usage and mining. The requirement for data is only going to continue to increase, and at this time it appears that MDM is only just keeping up with those requirements. Oracle has done a great job of purchasing products and integrating them into their overall framework, but the current database structure of MDM lends itself to poor performance if Oracle's own hardware is not purchased, and if their purge and archive strategy (i.e. ILM) is not employed.
Dealing with Oracle's help personnel in the "My Oracle Support" forum they have set up is at worst frustrating and at best time-consumingly adequate. Support personnel seem to be trained in immediately passing the onus for resolution back to the customer. For example, no matter what an issue is, a request for database logs will immediately be requested, whether or not they are relevant. Learning what to anticipate can help when logging an SR (service request), but the process and the SLA to resolve always seem to be painstakingly slow.
In addition to support being mediocre, Implementation and DBA documentation is sometimes rife with typos and errors, not lending a reassuring level of confidence to the product itself.
One positive is that My Oracle Support does post articles on past issues and their resolution, and I believe Oracle does try to incorporate the resolutions or bug fixes into future releases.
October 21, 2019
Oracle Meter Data Management (MDM) a good product
Verified User
Employee in Information Technology
Utilities Company, 1001-5000 employees
Meter Data Management (MDM) is being used by our company to store Meter and Device information, all of the combination meter device types and then the configuration types. MDM is also used to organize and store all of the data, reads, scalars, voltages, etc... MDM is used by a large portion of our company, mostly meter analytics groups, customer service groups, and IT. The business problems that MDM helps address and avoid is inconsistencies in usage, wrong readings and voltage usage. This in turn helps to avoid payment issues from customers, overpayments cause grief for both the customer and the company and MDM helps avoid these.
- Data Management is crucial and MDM does this well
- Device Configuration organization
- Readings, usage, measurement units, service points, device management
- Unfamiliar areas can be harder to use. If you know what your doing everyday your fine, but at times, I find myself in unfamiliar application aspects where some clearer tip buttons with better details could help the reason know what they need to do and guide them more clearly.
- Error message codes could be more helpful, sometimes I get error messages, I look them up and there's not much information on it. Therefore, I am not sure how to fix the error.
Oracle Meter Data Management is very well suited for exactly what its called, Data Management. It stores our data accurately and historically in the database and does a good job of signaling errors if and when incorrect data, or what is perceived to be incorrect data is found. You can check on the history of meters and other devices, whether that be location, data, readings, voltage, usage, etc... I would say MDM would not be as well suited for the Customer Information data management. Although you can find some of this in MDM, it is not built for this type of usage.
- Preventing errors for us always turns into money saved. Error flags that MDM throws help to prevent incorrect data entry, which almost always turns into money and time spent on sending somebody out into the field to ensure accurate data was given. So by not allowing for the possible errors, we save money.
- No Negative Impacts.
CCB and MDM work hand in hand. MDM handles the device management area of running our business while CCB handles the actual customer side. Using a SOA tool, which provides the pathway/ connection between CCB and MDM, they are capable of updating each other with new or added information whether it be about the premise or the device at the premise.
I feel the overall support has been great, oracle employees are easy to work with, quick to answer, and very knowledgeable. If they don't have an answer for support you might need, they are eager to find the right path to get the solution.
October 15, 2019
A complex but powerful tool for managing meter data
Oracle MDM is used by Duquesne Light Company to store our customers' meter data, estimate meter reads, and create billing determinants which are sent to our CIS software for generating and sending bills to our customers. We also create profiles for different kinds of customers and apply those profiles to different estimation routines.
- It is highly configurable.
- It is user-friendly for those who are computer savvy.
- It is highly extendable and customizable.
- In some ways, MDM is too customizable. There is a delicate balance to be struck between allowing implementers the ability to create custom algorithms to meet their business needs and making those features part of the base product. Lots of things can go wrong if you customize it too much.
- The cost/time to upgrade is very high.
- Cost of ownership is very high.
MDM is well suited for any medium or large utility company to store their meter data whether it be water, gas, or electricity. It is configurable enough to fit whichever kind of utility needs to use it.
MDM is not well suited for a very small utility. It requires a lot of support and IT organizations with limited budgets have to very carefully consider if the cost works for their budget.
MDM is not well suited for a very small utility. It requires a lot of support and IT organizations with limited budgets have to very carefully consider if the cost works for their budget.
- We use it daily and for the most part works on its own without manual intervention.
- When manual intervention is required, 90% of the time only simple interventions are required.
- The integration with our CIS helps keep everything in sync.
N/A - I haven't evaluated any other kinds of software like MDM. There are lots of competitors out there but our utility is committed to Oracle at the moment so there is no need to evaluate anything else at present. If we were to start looking elsewhere, one of the key areas I would look for improvement is in processing performance. MDM can sometimes struggle when certain database tables are too large.
Oracle Support is not very helpful. If you have any customizations, they ask you to remove them before they will look at any SRs for the product. I understand the rationale as they don't support custom code, however, sometimes the customizations have nothing to do with your issue and it seems the presence of any customization is used as an excuse to close the SR.
October 04, 2019
Oracle Utilities MDM Review
We use MDM to process the meter reads on a daily basis and which is important for the business to analyze the actual and trends of the usage and billing the customers using the CC&B.
- Gathers consumption data from analog and smart meters and validates, edits, and estimates (VEE) meter data automatically or manually.
- It manages the massive influx of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) and traditional meter data.
- MDM is designed for the highest levels of automation and scalability to meet the current and future needs of utilities.
- Configuring the batch on different servers using the same SPLEBASE on a shared mount is a lot complex to configure. Appreciate it if there is a way to do it in simpler way.
Oracle Utilities MDM is helpful anytime we need to capture meter reads and process them for usage calculation and billing.
- It avoids a ton of manual effort and streamlines the reading process.
We used MDAS for Automatic Meter Reading in previous implementations. But the maintenance and customizations are much simpler in Oracle MDM.
We get prompt responses from support, but sometimes solutions take weeks or even months to come.