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Ask HN: Who uses Oracle and why?

6 points by gamesbrainiac 11y ago

With so many different databases to choose from, why would anyone choose to use a proprietary database like Oracle?

arethuza 11y ago
I would suspect that a lot of people who run the Oracle database engine use it because they want to run Oracle applications - finance, ERP etc.
BjoernKW 11y ago
Oracle Database is a typical enterprise product if there ever was one. The people buying it won't be the ones using it. From a developer's or systems administrator's point of view PostgeSQL for instance certainly offers a similar - if not superior - feature set and better usability. That's not the main selling point for enterprise software, though. For enterprise customers aspects such as maintenance, service contracts and having a large company that can be held accountable if anything goes wrong are far more important. Another reason is the way enterprise sales processes work. In general, they take far longer than sales decisions in SMEs and involve a variety of stakeholders. Oracle employs a large number of smart salespeople and Oracle can afford wooing prospective customers for months or even years before a deal is made. That said, Oracle Database is a fine product that generally performs very well.
- matt_s 11y ago
  Another point for large companies is essentially vendor lock-in. If you had Oracle 8 way back in the day (90's), then the upgrade and pay maintenance path is much easier than even the thought of switching to a different system. Think of how much testing and conversion you would have to do to switch to Postgres. ANSI SQL is a standard but there are little shortcuts and tuning and other things that are very vendor specific. An upper management viewpoint would ask the question of what is the ROI of switching?
davismwfl 11y ago
In short Oracle is an Enterprise sales agency focusing on Enterprise clients, not the average implementations for companies less than $1B in revenue (my best guess). I know some companies smaller use it, but it isn't common to see it in smaller Enterprises. In general through the 90's and even up until the last 5 years or so, telling your Enterprise C suite that you were installing Oracle was the equivalent of selecting IBM back in the day. There was a saying that *"no one ever got fired for going with IBM", when it comes to Databases, ERP/Financial software etc Oracle was in a similar boat. Oracle is also a sales agency that happens to make software, and they are damn good at sales. They typically lock companies in for long periods of time and get paid handsomely for it. Oracle is also like an infestation, they get in and start spreading as much as possible. I honestly can't blame them, I'd do the same in their shoes trying to sell more product/services, but my issue with them is they have projects that drag on and on and so many fail to ever do 20% of what was promised. They aren't alone in that realm, and companies bare some of the blame too, but by far I see more Oracle solutions fail to get implemented than almost any other. As for if their products are worth it, I will say their Database is really a solid product and has some really nice capabilities. I personally would never choose it or any product they push, but that isn't a judgement on its capabilities. In fact, I admire that they created the RAC cluster and how it is architected etc. Not that they are perfect, but at the time RAC was introduced it was truly a unique way to package and solve some common problems for Enterprises. For my money though, I'll bet on PostgreSQL or other solutions before I ever use/recommend Oracle.
totoroisalive 11y ago
Because it has the kind of support enterprises needs. Not your typical "I don't know how the fuck monetize so I'll pivot again" mindset.
potatosareok 11y ago
We have Oracle RAC clusters with GoldeGate for cross data center replication. What's the alternative in the Postgres/MySQL world?
thorin 11y ago
I used Oracle DB for >10 years. After using C/C++/Assembly in my degree course I was trained in Oracle development tools by an investment banking consultancy. Oracle was/is very strong in enterprise companies in Banking/Utilities/Government/Defence/Retail. The database was always really solid and scalable and Oracle was probably the first modern relational database server multiplatform from the 90s onwards with great SQL dialect and PL/SQL enabled very fast data manipulation for ETL and business logic. Almost all Oracle products are free to download and play with and the tooling for building front end (client/server and web) were very easy to use and could provide useable (maybe not pretty) front end applications easily. There is a lot more competition now from SQLServer and Postgres but for a while Oracle was miles ahead. I'd still choose to use it as I have a greater knowledge of it than other db servers. It doesn't need to be that expensive if you have a small server especially for internal use APEX is great and it's all freely downloadable to evaluate.
cafard 11y ago
We picked it a long time ago. The licensing costs annoy me, but are small compared to our organizational budget. I'd be happy to see it gone, but there is a hell of a lot of PL/SQL code that would have to be rewritten.
sidcool 11y ago
My enterprise web application uses Oracle heavily. It provides many features to ease DB development. It's a bulky monster, but it helps.

6 points by gamesbrainiac 11y ago

With so many different databases to choose from, why would anyone choose to use a proprietary database like Oracle?

I would suspect that a lot of people who run the Oracle database engine use it because they want to run Oracle applications - finance, ERP etc.

BjoernKW 11y ago

Oracle Database is a typical enterprise product if there ever was one. The people buying it won't be the ones using it. From a developer's or systems administrator's point of view PostgeSQL for instance certainly offers a similar - if not superior - feature set and better usability. That's not the main selling point for enterprise software, though. For enterprise customers aspects such as maintenance, service contracts and having a large company that can be held accountable if anything goes wrong are far more important. Another reason is the way enterprise sales processes work. In general, they take far longer than sales decisions in SMEs and involve a variety of stakeholders. Oracle employs a large number of smart salespeople and Oracle can afford wooing prospective customers for months or even years before a deal is made. That said, Oracle Database is a fine product that generally performs very well.

matt_s 11y ago
Another point for large companies is essentially vendor lock-in. If you had Oracle 8 way back in the day (90's), then the upgrade and pay maintenance path is much easier than even the thought of switching to a different system. Think of how much testing and conversion you would have to do to switch to Postgres. ANSI SQL is a standard but there are little shortcuts and tuning and other things that are very vendor specific. An upper management viewpoint would ask the question of what is the ROI of switching?

davismwfl 11y ago

In short Oracle is an Enterprise sales agency focusing on Enterprise clients, not the average implementations for companies less than $1B in revenue (my best guess). I know some companies smaller use it, but it isn't common to see it in smaller Enterprises. In general through the 90's and even up until the last 5 years or so, telling your Enterprise C suite that you were installing Oracle was the equivalent of selecting IBM back in the day. There was a saying that *"no one ever got fired for going with IBM", when it comes to Databases, ERP/Financial software etc Oracle was in a similar boat. Oracle is also a sales agency that happens to make software, and they are damn good at sales. They typically lock companies in for long periods of time and get paid handsomely for it. Oracle is also like an infestation, they get in and start spreading as much as possible. I honestly can't blame them, I'd do the same in their shoes trying to sell more product/services, but my issue with them is they have projects that drag on and on and so many fail to ever do 20% of what was promised. They aren't alone in that realm, and companies bare some of the blame too, but by far I see more Oracle solutions fail to get implemented than almost any other. As for if their products are worth it, I will say their Database is really a solid product and has some really nice capabilities. I personally would never choose it or any product they push, but that isn't a judgement on its capabilities. In fact, I admire that they created the RAC cluster and how it is architected etc. Not that they are perfect, but at the time RAC was introduced it was truly a unique way to package and solve some common problems for Enterprises. For my money though, I'll bet on PostgreSQL or other solutions before I ever use/recommend Oracle.

totoroisalive 11y ago

Because it has the kind of support enterprises needs. Not your typical "I don't know how the fuck monetize so I'll pivot again" mindset.

potatosareok 11y ago

We have Oracle RAC clusters with GoldeGate for cross data center replication. What's the alternative in the Postgres/MySQL world?

thorin 11y ago

I used Oracle DB for >10 years. After using C/C++/Assembly in my degree course I was trained in Oracle development tools by an investment banking consultancy. Oracle was/is very strong in enterprise companies in Banking/Utilities/Government/Defence/Retail. The database was always really solid and scalable and Oracle was probably the first modern relational database server multiplatform from the 90s onwards with great SQL dialect and PL/SQL enabled very fast data manipulation for ETL and business logic. Almost all Oracle products are free to download and play with and the tooling for building front end (client/server and web) were very easy to use and could provide useable (maybe not pretty) front end applications easily. There is a lot more competition now from SQLServer and Postgres but for a while Oracle was miles ahead. I'd still choose to use it as I have a greater knowledge of it than other db servers. It doesn't need to be that expensive if you have a small server especially for internal use APEX is great and it's all freely downloadable to evaluate.

cafard 11y ago

We picked it a long time ago. The licensing costs annoy me, but are small compared to our organizational budget. I'd be happy to see it gone, but there is a hell of a lot of PL/SQL code that would have to be rewritten.

sidcool 11y ago

My enterprise web application uses Oracle heavily. It provides many features to ease DB development. It's a bulky monster, but it helps.