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SharePlex

Score10 out of 10

9 Reviews and Ratings

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What is SharePlex?

SharePlex from Quest Software is a data replication software offering near real-time replication and supporting a wide variety of databases.

Categories & Use Cases

Reviews

What users are saying about SharePlex.
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Resourceful, Standard, and Simplistic Database Solution.

Incentivized
Angel CarolineView profile
Information Technology Consultant in Information Technology at FCCI Insurance Group (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

SharePlex is our outstanding data replicating solution, in terms of getting value for data, and ensuring that the database among other procedures runs out smoothly and security is well maintained. Besides, SharePlex has ensured there is the accuracy of data, through the inbuilt monitor, a simplistic conflict resolving procedure, and high data synchronizing features. SharePlex is highly flexible, fosters data migration, and improves on dealing with different data cases. Finally, SharePlex has real-time replication, a feature that is authentic and digitized.

Pros

  • Data migration with flexibility and efficiency has been supported by SharePlex.
  • SharePlex has simplistic ways of deployment and high replication capacity.
  • The analytical services from SharePlex are scalable and efficient.

Cons

  • Documentations from SharePlex are outdated and a bit weak.
  • The monitoring demands from SharePlex are handful and stressful.
  • Data syncing from SharePlex fails sometime.

Most Important Features

  • Data migration and synchronization are elaborate features that SharePlex provides.
  • Credible database analysis and security, more so for the complex and meaningful databases.
  • Finally, SharePlex has multiple support systems, where flexibility has been established.

Return on Investment

  • Data migration allows the company to make solid business changes, more so on new business plans.
  • Further, system flexibility supports multiple business plans, hence, efficient and reliable.
  • Finally, real-time decisions are arrived at using SharePlex, a procedure that ensures there is transparency in the entire operations.

Alternatives Considered

Toad for Oracle

Other Software Used

Demandbase, Built InForm, Accenture Cloud Platform

SharePlex should be at the top of your list for replication software

Incentivized
Sean ScottView profile
Oracle Database Administrator in Information Technology at Bodybuilding.com (201-500 employees employees)

Pros

  • Speed. We see little to no delay in replication streams between source and target databases.
  • Tuning and options: There are a myriad of options available for tuning and customizing replication streams.
  • Support: I've been consistently pleased with the support we've received from Quest. They're prompt and knowledgable and solve issues quickly and without drama.

Cons

  • Documentation: There are some areas where the documentation is weak or dated. In particular, running SharePlex on RAC is a more involved process than the implementation guides would have you believe. When reaching out for assistance, the answer from Dell (a few years ago) was to engage their consulting team.
  • Built in scripts/agents: SharePlex comes with a handful of monitoring and management scripts that can be run as cron jobs. Unfortunately, these scripts are primitive and rigid, requiring the user to hard-code values into the script body and limiting their usefulness when you're running multiple replication streams. Some of the methods and dependencies are heavy. We ended up writing custom scripts that do what we need but it would be helpful if there were greater functionality and flexibility out of the box.
  • Compared to other tools, there is not as wide (or at least as active) a user presence. If you're having difficulties you may have to engage a consultant since it's less likely that you'll find an answer in a forum or blog post.

Return on Investment

  • SharePlex allowed us to relieve the load on our production databases by migrating batch and analytic processes to dedicated resources.
  • SharePlex performed admirably during a migration and upgrade of our production databases, allowing us to accomplish ambitious goals without endangering availability of critical systems.
  • Quest is regularly adding value to the product with enhancements and new features.

Alternatives Considered

Oracle GoldenGate

Shareplex for Oracle - It just works!

Incentivized
Joel BarrowView profile
DBA in Information Technology at OC Tanner Co. (1001-5000 employees employees)

Pros

  • It is a light weight service that is easily configured and changed with the use of simple text files that define source tables and target tables. You have complete control of adding or removing tables to the configuration without interfering with other already configured tables.
  • It comes complete with utilities to synchronize data and to repair the data should it ever get out of synchronization. It also comes with an independent monitoring system that alerts admins should any errors occur.
  • Technical support is excellent. The support team is very responsive to issues. When there is an issue one of the engineers will take ownership of the problem and follow through until a solution is provided.
  • It is versatile for maintenance. The admin has control over each of the services used to replicate data. Any of the services can be stopped and restarted throughout the replication process to allow for maintenance or troubleshooting of the replication process. There are a multitude of parameter options available for controlling behavior of the replication process.

Cons

  • When first introduced the Change Data Capture process was awkward. Each subsequent release has improved the process.
  • Sometimes the Shareplex monitoring service in Foglight gets overly aggressive in sending out error notifications and can end up spamming the admins with email alerts for one problem. We have had to tone that down.

Return on Investment

  • Shareplex allows us to have a near real-time reporting database and we have been able to improve our reporting capabilities eliminating the negative impact on our OLTP systems.

Other Software Used

Oracle Enterprise Manager, Oracle Database, Toad for Oracle, SQL Developer

SharePlex - the solution for a robust and reliable data replication pipeline

Incentivized
Robert Xu
Director, Database Administration in Information Technology at Connexity, Inc. (201-500 employees employees)

Pros

  • SharePlex is highly configurable and versatile. It can handle virtually any kind of data replication needs.
  • SharePlex is very robust. Its message queuing mechanism provides fast data transfer from the source to the target.
  • SharePlex software is very stable and mature, and it is highly scalable and reliable.
  • SharePlex support is exceptionally good. We are very satisfied with its support engineers.

Cons

  • SharePlex could have provided more detailed documentation and examples for its "qview" utility. It is the tool of choice in many cases when we encounter tough issues.

Return on Investment

  • Faster data ETL process, which in turn speeds up business analysis and decision making.
  • Fault-tolerance: when some replicated databases go down, others can stay up with the same data replicated by SharePlex.
  • Higher capacity when business ramps up.

Other Software Used

Oracle Database, DataStax, Cloudera Manager

Usability

Shareplex is good for some cases

Incentivized
George FuView profile
Sr.Database Engineer in Engineering at Xtime (201-500 employees employees)

Pros

  • Replicate data for Dev/QA
  • Easy setup/upgrade
  • Support is easily reachable

Cons

  • Lost data, out of sync
  • Re-sync is very hard for large tables
  • Doesn't support all Oracle commands, like rename table a to b

Return on Investment

  • Postive: easy to replicate data for non-prod use
  • Negative: we spent a lot time due to data out of sync

Other Software Used

Oracle Database