The solution is basically used to support our ordering system, which generates a huge number of orders for our customers.
Good GUI, easy to learn, and simple to install
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The way the nodes are managed is interesting. If you want to remove a node, it's much easier to fill it and take it out. You can also add capacity.
The XDCR is the best feature that I have seen on Couchbase. When you want to start XDCR, stop it, or change a few things in order to filter out the data, it's easy. The XPCR seems to be a very useful and very creative feature.
It's a one-click solution. You just stop it. You start it, and you're good to go.
There is no rebuilding access as well, and it's quite a hassle for us on other databases. Couchbase monitoring is also fairly easy, thanks to the dashboards that are provided.
Overall, the backup feature seems very easy. Log collection is easy too. It's very user-friendly. Even for a beginner, it's pretty simple to get started, thanks to the GUI. That helps people get comfortable with it pretty quickly.
What needs improvement?
The architecture is complex. I do understand that. However, the GUI is very user-friendly. Sometimes all these things are a little difficult to understand for a person who is not experienced in Couchbase.
There is a constant requirement to upgrade the versions. We need to constantly keep on upgrading the latest version for the newest one. Currently, we are dealing with an issue where some of the servers are on the 6.5 version, and a few have moved to 7.5. So we are in a mixed mode right now. We are having a high IO issue on our servers, which we are already dealing with. We have these cases with Couchbase, with Red Hat, et cetera. We feel like this constant need to upgrade is something that is very mundane yet a very difficult task. If you have three clusters, which have around thirty nodes, the data is quite sensitive. Whenever there is Couchbase upgrade that is going on, we see that our SR is dropped. The purchase rate and success rate drop. This affects our business and the clients.
Rebalancing could be improved. I find it to be a very slow process when it comes to rebalancing the clusters. If you talk about other architectures like Oracle, they are pretty fast. Couchbase is a little slower. Rebalancing, taking the node out, doing the upgrade, putting it back, rebalancing it, is a very difficult and cumbersome. For Oracle, we have been running on version 19.5 for the past five years. There were absolutely no issues. Yet for Couchbase, every six months, we have to go do the upgrade.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for three years. We've been using it since version 6 and we are now on version 7.5.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is generally good on version 7.5. The clusters operating on that are fine. We're not sure if we're having issues with a different version. Once all of the clusters are upgraded, we will know more about the high IO we've been seeing. CPUs are spking.. We'll be able to determine if 7.5 is stable then or having issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I haven't had any issues with cluster additions. Capacity enhancement is pretty easy.
They have a compaction feature. It helps us greatly since, most of the time, we don't have to handle any disk utilizations manually. It is running in the background, so it is always taking care of that particular component.
We have a team of seven or eight people working on the solution. We're working on a pretty big project and Couchbase is a crucial component.
How are customer service and support?
We have we have platinum support with Couchbase. Every now and then, we speak to the Couchbase representatives. We also conducted a few sessions with them, during which they helped us do health checks for our servers. We also call Couchbase support to get immediate attention. They simply ask us to upload the log as soon as possible, which is a fair ask.
They are very specific about uploading those logs. This task becomes very difficult in that you have to upload these logs, or some OS whatsoever files, TF files, et cetera. That becomes very difficult for us. Also, I constantly have to run behind the vendors in order to get proper support to get them on calls. Their processes are stringent, wasting a lot of your time. They need to improve their support system.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did not previously use a different solution.
How was the initial setup?
The installation is very easy.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It does cost extra to get platinum support.
The cost is worth it as the product is well-designed.
What other advice do I have?
We are Counchbase customers.
Depending on your application, it is good to use Couchbase where you have high OLTP systems where you know there will be constant data loading, deleting, et cetera, happening. It's a good approach to choosing the Couchbase system, and it's fairly easy to use. The main factor to remember is the tuning component in Couchbase. It can be a nightmare if it's not done properly. That said, the resident ratio, for example, the RAM allocations as per the bucket sizing, et cetera, needs to be looked at very carefully while deploying your buckets. Capacity management is something which needs to be looked into. Think long-term and keep adding the capacity as and when it is needed since that will also not be good for the product itself.
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
