SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise Reviews

I have worked with SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise, SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise IQ, and Replication Server. I also worked with SQL Anywhere at one point. SAP acquired Sybase at one point, and these products are being aged out essentially.

SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise is on par with its rivals outside of certain circumstances. If you happen to go through a character set conversion, that becomes a major stumbling block and becomes less than useful in those circumstances. You can spend a long time going through the cross-platform character set conversion plus index rebuild. If you had to rebuild every index on large databases, then you could spend a week doing that.

Instead of SAP investing more money into recompiling the binaries to take advantage of the new instruction set, they have taken a really poor position. There is one person I talked to at technical support who said they do not make changes for vendor peculiarities. They are acting as if Intel is just another vendor as opposed to 80% of their market. They are not supporting the product by not putting the investment in. Recompiling the product is a major stumbling block for doing a cross-platform character set conversion.

SAP is not putting money into modernizing SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise. One of the things I discovered on the last project I was on was that they did not incorporate the Intel new instruction set in SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise.

Intel has augmented its instruction set referred to as new instructions. They did that to make conversion easier. When you migrate SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise cross-platform, you go through a process where it converts the character set. If you are going from AIX to Linux or from Solaris to Linux, Linux is referred to as Little Endian, while AIX or Solaris are considered Big Endian. This is determined by how the product stores data. The word size of these processors is 32 bits long. If you start numbering from the little end, it is referred to as Little Endian. If you start numbering from the big end, it is called Big Endian. To migrate a SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise database from a Big Endian setup like AIX or Solaris to migrate to a Big Endian setup on an Intel, the operating system determines whether it is Little Endian or Big Endian. When you migrate from Big Endian to Little Endian, the database has to go through a character set conversion, and some of these databases are quite large with gigabytes and gigabytes of data. They have to do a character set conversion to the existing database before they do anything else. The worst part is that you have to rebuild all the indexes when you do that. When you switch endianness of the database, you have to rebuild all the indexes. It will automatically do that for system tables, but for actual user databases, you have to rebuild all your indexes, and it takes a long time.

SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise is a relational database and is the predecessor of Microsoft SQL Server. All that functionality that Microsoft SQL Server had came from essentially SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise. The problem with SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise these days is it is not expanding its place in the marketplace or expanding its position in the marketplace. A lot of companies have migrated away from SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise. It works fairly well, but the problem is SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise was architected to be an OLTP engine and is now doing things for larger databases that were not in its original intended purpose. The endianness of the RDBMS is a major impediment to continuing to use SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise. You have a multi-gigabyte database, and it will go through a conversion process in a single-threaded fashion, and then you have to rebuild the indexes. Rebuilding the indexes is lengthy and time-consuming.

The part of the conversion process that is concerned with conversion of the character set is single-threaded. You may have eight cores on your machine or virtual machine and only one can be used in the conversion process. There is another problem with the whole thing in that it will sometimes not operate properly. Under certain workloads, SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise will become overwhelmed. When you convert it, it does not operate properly in all circumstances. The root cause of that is that SAP in its desire to save money and desire to orphan the product has not recompiled or redeveloped the product to take advantage of the Intel new instruction set.

Other relational databases such as Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server have the same issue to deal with, but with those platforms, they are taking advantage of the new instruction set. There are some additional Intel instruction sets or instructions in their Intel instruction set. With SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise, they did not bother to incorporate support for the new instruction set instructions. In certain circumstances, the database does not operate properly. It is unable to do what it needs to do.

If you do your research and go on the internet and see what happens with Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server, what comes back is that it takes 4% longer to perform a lot of the instructions. When you are using the new instruction set, it adds 4% to the runtime of the database.

With SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise, it does not do that. In certain circumstances, SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise is unable to perform the instructions efficiently. You would think that SAP would simply have recompiled the binaries. There is probably more than just hitting the recompile switch, but in certain circumstances, SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise gets trapped in trying to perform these operations without the benefit of the new instruction set. I would say that it is a major handicap for the product.

At one point, I was talking to technical support and they told me they do not modify their product for this little company Intel. They are basically making their user base suffer with not fully functional products. This is related to the endianness of the way certain operating systems work. It becomes more difficult to perform certain operations. I was talking to somebody who worked with Oracle and he said it adds 4%. When you have to perform operations at runtime, it adds 4% overhead. 4% overhead is acceptable, and you can run with that. But not when the product suffers serious decline in performance. Then it becomes a major problem.

SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise was basically as good as its rivals in my experience. Now it is kind of crippled in certain circumstances. The cross-platform conversion process was a major stumbling block. You could put a multi-gigabyte database through the conversion process and it would take the better part of a week to do. This is a major impediment, and for companies that do not want to think about reducing the size of their database or something along those lines, it becomes a major operational problem going through that character set conversion.

The support has become much more bureaucratic. Often when you log a question with support, they will not be able to adequately answer the question.

Positive

The support has become much more bureaucratic. Often when you log a question with support, they will not be able to adequately answer the question. The product itself has problems in that other relational databases such as Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server have the same issue to deal with, but with those platforms, they are taking advantage of the new instruction set. There are some additional Intel instruction sets or instructions in their Intel instruction set. With SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise, they did not bother to incorporate support for the new instruction set instructions. In certain circumstances, the database does not operate properly. It is unable to do what it needs to do.

If you do your research and go on the internet and see what happens with Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server, what comes back is that it takes 4% longer to perform a lot of the instructions. When you are using the new instruction set, it adds 4% to the runtime of the database. With SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise, it does not do that. In certain circumstances, it is unable to perform the instructions efficiently. You would think that SAP would simply have recompiled the binaries, but in certain circumstances, SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise gets trapped in trying to perform these operations without the benefit of the new instruction set. This is a major handicap for the product. At one point, I was talking to technical support and they told me they do not modify their product for this little company Intel. They are basically making their user base suffer with not fully functional products. This is related to the endianness of the way certain operating systems work. It becomes more difficult to perform certain operations. When you have to perform operations at runtime, it adds 4% overhead. 4% overhead is acceptable, and you can run with that. But not when the product suffers serious decline in performance. Then it becomes a major problem.

If you are running into this issue, it is a show stopper. If you are not running into that and are remaining stable on one platform, then it is fine. There may be other areas where SAP is not putting the investment into SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise where in a previous Sybase independent world they would have because it was necessary.

A cross-platform dump and load makes it a critical issue. Aside from that particular case, it is kind of an eight. They turned a functional product into something where you have to go through a difficult process to do the conversion. They could not have been more short-sighted, and I do not think they put more development dollars into the product because they were being cheap and made a decision to not invest further. The overall rating for this review is 8.

I have two main use cases for this solution: one for main data and also for replication.

I work with the Query Optimizer in SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise, and it makes it much easier to work with compared to Oracle, where you have to write a query every time to find out particular things. In SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise, there are some built-in stored procedures that you can use to fire those commands and get the data in a very systematic manner where you can see the results.

The positive impact I see from the product is beneficial from a security perspective, because most of the applications are open client servers. These are not open clients or open source, so they cannot be hacked for sure, and that is the best feature we have. From a performance standpoint, I would give it five out of five. Whenever an issue happens, there is one command you can run, and it will give you an explanation of what needs to be done on that particular database or tables. That will fine-tune your query, and within a fraction of time, it will be sorted out and your query will be ready.

From a security standpoint, the product is very reliable and we can rely on those security features, so I would give it a 10 out of 10 on that one.

I see drawbacks here, particularly with deadlocks. When we acquire a new project that is sometimes related to data migrations, after getting those data, there are lots of deadlocks happening. The query part that application users are running requires a very fine-tuned query, or else it will take a longer period of time. If you are using the built-in query optimizers, those are very fast. If you are introducing your own query, the first time it will take five minutes, but from later on, it will be within seconds or fractions of time to generate the data.

I have worked with the product for 10 plus years, and it is the main product I use.

For stability, I would give nine.

I would rate scalability as an eight.

For technical support, I would give 10.

Positive

I do not have experience with Oracle specifically. I have worked on MS SQL first, then Sybase, then MongoDB, and now I am currently working on PostgreSQL.

Deployment and installation are very smooth.

From a pricing perspective, I would say the solution is fairly priced. In Oracle, you have two or three databases at most on one machine. In SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise, one machine can have multiple instances installed on it, and on multiple instances, you can create multiple databases. There is no restriction for that. The only thing is that your performance will degrade if you do not invest money in machinery, such as your CPUs and your hardware.

You can consider PostgreSQL or MongoDB as alternatives.

Transaction handling efficiency is dependent on how fine-tuned you have done that part, depending upon your organization's requirements. If you need some data to be fetched in less than a fraction of seconds, if it is a read-write operation, or if it is only a read operation, the tuning of the database is done depending upon that. If your requirement is to fetch data, suppose you are fetching data from a bank about how much account money is there, if you fetch your data for that simple thing, it will take five to 10 minutes that will hold up for you. It is better to have an environment where you can access the data within a fraction of seconds. This type of server can be relied upon for that fraction of seconds response time. Overall, I would rate this product a 9.

I use the solution in my company as a database management system, specifically as a relational database management. Mostly, the tool is used in the banking environment to keep historical data, especially in banks like Deutsche Bank and UBS. Banking environments use SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise because they can store historical data, after which manipulating data can be done at a fast pace. When it comes to reporting, SAP IQ is good because it can pull crores of records in minutes, and it is one of the things that can be used in the banking environment.

The most valuable part of the tool stems from the fact that it is a very cost-efficient product compared to the newer technologies because it needs a very small amount of RAM. The infrastructure required for the product to run is much less. The maintenance required for the product is also very low. Even in a small project, one person is enough to maintain and handle the solution.

SAP is least bothered about Adaptive Server Enterprise nowadays since it wants to focus on promoting its new product, which is S/4HANA. If SAP gives out new releases and a patch upgrade to improve performance and provide additional options, then SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise can compete with other relational database systems in the market. The overall performance of the product is an area where the tool has certain shortcomings and needs to improve.

I work in a very stable environment, and I prefer a very stable replication and database management system. Most of our company's customers do not want to opt out of SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise, but SAP has announced that it will be ending its support for it in 2027, and though I feel SAP might extend it, I feel SAP will want to promote its new product. Previously, I heard that SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise's end-of-support dates were announced for 2025, but now I think that they have extended it to 2027 or 2030.

I have been using SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise for nine years. My company is a customer of SAP.

It is a stable solution, but when you end up facing some issues with the tool, you will start facing problems since there are very few technical persons in the market who can handle the product. It is not very easy to fix the issues with the product since there are only a few technical people left in the market who know about the product, and most of them have moved on from the solution already.

It is a scalable solution that can handle a large amount of data.

As far as I know, my company deals with around seven to eight customers of SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise, but there are no technical people to help with the solution. I am the only technical person in my company who is available when it comes to SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise. I only work on two accounts associated with the product, while there are seven to eight accounts needing support. SAP does not want to give its complete billing process to a technical person, which is the major reason why SAP manages it by itself.

Earlier, there were not many applications using SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise. These days, most of the applications are connected to the database provided by SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise, after which many have started facing new issues in the product, which may, to an extent, be a new one even for SAP. SAP has been releasing notes and fixes to deal with the issues associated with the product. Sometimes, if SAP faces a new issue with the product, it notes it down and releases a solution for the problem.

The product's initial setup phase is easy. SAP has made the setup phase of Adaptive Server Enterprise easier to deal with compared to how its process was in the past.

Mostly, SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise is deployed on a private cloud while some of our company's customers have it deployed on Azure or on an on-premises model.

Price-wise, the product is worth it since one needs very less infrastructure to use it. If you speak in numbers, I would say that when it comes to S/4HANA, you need RAM memory to be in terabytes. If one uses 128 GB for a production system, it will be very high as it can hold data till three or four TB, and it can give you results in seconds.

My company chose the product over the other tools in the market in the late 2020s, and it was a booming solution. Oracle had been sidelined by many since earlier when there were no new releases from SAP. When I entered the IT field, seizing a better opportunity, I chose SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise because I knew that it would have very few complications. I also knew that if you were well versed with SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise, then you would have great demand in the field and would get opportunities to work on the solution.

Whether I would suggest the product to others or not is something that depends on the kind of business they do. If you want to pull reports or store data and do calculations, then you need to have additional products along with SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise. If you want to store data that may run into terabytes, then it is possible to do so with SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise, and such data will not get corrupted.

I don't think that it will be easy for someone to learn the tool, but it may be easier if done on a black and white screen. There are not many graphical user interfaces available for the product, and it has more SQL and is a tool that has a simple English language, which is not like any programming languages but something like a simple query language.

I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

In our case, it's majorly used for OLTP transactions. Since we have a banking client, the basic workload of ASE is OLTP transactions. 

Although, in the latest version, we can configure it for DSS transactions or data warehousing, the majority of use is OLTP.

It's pretty good at handling a large number of transactions, which is critical for a banking client. When online transactions are happening, there should not be any failures. If any failures occur, they should be properly rolled back. ASE is pretty good at those things. 

However, when it comes to the latest features, other databases have gone ahead compared to ASE. It's not upgraded with time.

It is easy to learn. It's not that difficult. If somebody knows basic DBMS concepts, people can easily catch on to it.

The main thing is it's not getting upgraded to meet today's needs. It's not upgrading at the level of transaction needs. 

For example, PostgreSQL or Oracle, these are pretty good databases. They can handle much heavier transactions and produce enterprise-level query plans. But SAP ASE is lagging behind in those things. 

Secondly, in my opinion, product support is not that great from SAP because they have already declared the end-of-date for SAP ASE. They will be stopping product support.

Since they have already declared the end of life for the product, something around 2025 or 2030, SAP ASE plans to decommission this whole product line itself.

I have been using it for eight years. Currently, for the firm I'm working at, the deployment model is a mixture. The majority is on-premises hardware. There are some instances on a cloud platform, but very few.

Bugs are there, but it is pretty stable. Even if you go to major banks, they are still using SAP ASE. They haven't entirely migrated their critical applications. Most banks still have them on ASE. So, it is a pretty stable product. In terms of that, it is good. 

But, in new versions, you will find certain bugs. Usually, DBAs and those handling the database servers know about the workarounds.

In my organization, we have a pretty good number of end users. 

The number of applications on SAP ASE should be in the hundreds. In terms of people, it can be in the thousands. Every application needs to be supported.

The customer service and support are okay. But, I don't see improvement coming in, as I think the company will start seeing it as a product without a future. 

From what I've heard from other peers, if the company has already decided on the end of life, that affects things. Because from a higher management perspective, when you're already planning to decommission something and the decision has been made that it's the end of life, then you won't be supporting it after that. 

So, because of that, there are hurdles. Nobody can do anything in that sector because the company will also spend significant resources on a product that has a future. 

If companies use it much more and plan to extend its capabilities, then they will significantly invest in its support as well. But here, in SAP's case, it's a little bit different. Since the end of life is decided, the people working on that product are also affected.

In terms of installation, it's easy. It's not a difficult task. You can download the software online, and it's a pretty easy process. Obviously, you need to create some devices and complete some prerequisite tasks, but after that, it's easy. Not that much of a hectic work in terms of installation.

The licensing cost for ASE is pretty low when you compare it with Microsoft SQL Server. If you compare it with SQL Server, it is pretty low. 

On a personal level, if someone is going for a new database and it's entirely new to their firm, I would rather suggest going for the latest technology. 

Ultimately, if SAP is going to decommission it, for example, if somebody implemented it today, and in five years, SAP decommissioned ASE, you would be in a place where you have to migrate from ASE to another database. That would be another hectic task, particularly if your production is live. 

So, if somebody is going to start using SAP ASE now, on a personal level, I wouldn't recommend it. I would suggest going for some of the latest databases that offer much better product support.

Overall, I would rate the solution a seven out of ten. 

I use it for planning, both production and scanning. Overall, it's for logistics.

It's user-friendly, especially in the logistics field.

At the moment, I think it's the best, but there could be some improvements in barcode scanning and RFID access. And also improving the synchronization with RFID in SAP.

I have been using this solution for over five years. I use the latest version. 

It is a stable product. There are more than 100 users in my company using this solution.

The initial setup is easy. 

It is a little bit expensive. It is expensive compared to other solutions.

Based on my experience, I would rate it higher than the other ERPs I've used, so let's say ten out of ten.

The cloud-related features are particularly valuable. They provide easy integration with other systems like Salesforce, making it convenient to use adapters.

There is room for improvement. Cost-wise, SAP is still expensive compared to other available products. That would be a major difference.

I have been familiar with SAP for almost 16 years. I'm quite comfortable with SAP products, actually.

It has been a stable solution. 

It is a scalable solution. It is recommended for medium-sized enterprises.

For older versions, the support is not as strong. However, for the latest cloud version, they are more supportive. It might be part of their marketing strategy to improve their cloud business in the future.

I worked with different solutions, such as the SAP Integration Suite, which includes BPM and process integration tools.

It's quite user-friendly and easy to deploy.

We have proposed it to our customers, but so far, none of them have opted for it. They already have their own services and prefer to operate those or choose a more cost-effective cloud service.

We consider any good fitting solution for our client's needs, not necessarily limited to SAP. If there is a suitable alternative, we propose it.

The main advantage is cost. It is comparatively less expensive. That's the major drawback of SAP at the moment.

I would suggest that you consider it is loaded with a lot of features. However, the cost could be a constraint. If you are comfortable with that, then you should go for it.

Overall, I would rate it a seven out of ten. The rating is based on the services it provides, which we find good. The drawbacks include price. 

When I talk about services, I refer to the integration capabilities. Integration capabilities encompass various aspects, such as B2B (business-to-business) and B2C (business-to-customer) integrations. SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise has predefined standardized methods in place, reducing the need for customization.

The primary use of SAP ASE is to create scripts and fields to store various types of data. Its programming language allows you to elaborate on everything in the output part of the code and all the data in the given program. You use various statements, like "select," "or," "nor," and many others. The functional part of the programming language is more or less is similar to C.

SAP ASE improves our daily data collection. The application list viewer helps produce the absolute modules, improving both the functionality and readability of the programs.

I like that SAP ASE can match code and the database index to index data in the programming language. There are many other valuable features, such as the table buffer, tuning, and various control agents like dispatcher. SAP ASE can handle many different data types, including views, domains, data elements, structures, objects, and various table types that are most useful in the application. Its modularization technique is also handy.

SAP should refine its debugging method, and the process needs to be a little faster. It should use more Pragmas and fewer pseudocomments. I would like if SAP added more features based on advanced technologies, like artificial intelligence and voice control. The modularization and if-else techniques could also incorporate the latest technology to code and solve complex problems. The SAP Editor should be more elaborative, and it should allow many more types of statements for all uses.

I've been using SAP ASE for more than a year. 

I previously used SAP SE. Now I use SAP ASE, which is a more advanced version.

The setup cost is a bit expensive, but the pricing and licensing are just right.

I rate SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise eight out of 10. 

Our company offers consulting for professional services and we currently use this to store database backups in the cloud.

This is a wonderful database that is, in my opinion, underrated. Users are able to get the most out of my experience by taking advantage of its centralized environment.

I think that the solution needs to be positioned better within the market as it appears as though the Adaptive Server is being left out of the SAP scope.

I have been using the solution for about 30 years.

This has proven to be a very stable solution over the years.

The solution is very stable.

There is lack of good support in Mexico - I would prefer Oracle or IBM over SAP in terms of support.

The initial setup is very easy, especially when in comparison with other competitors. The whole process takes about fifteen minutes.

The database server is used for the operations of the entire company, both financials and operationals. I'm the executive director, and we are users of this solution. 

The financials is the most valuable feature for us in operational terms because we deal with a lot of services and SAP has integrated everything for us, both financial reporting and operations.

I'd like to see a more friendly user interface. The solution is complicated and some of the field engineers, who are less exposed to the solution, are having problems which could be solved by simplification. The concern is that the data they provide might not be accurate and simplification would resolve that issue. I think the management feels that more can be done to get better value. The issue is not the performance of the product but the usability for people who are less skilled in using it.

Additional training would be helpful, but because of the nature of operations, those that support staff from the office find it easier because we spend more time using it than those in the field. Most of our engineers are on rigs, so it's a bit difficult getting them to come off the rigs for training, because that would require our operations to shut down. 

I've been using this solution for five years. 

This product is very stable. 

Scalability is very good. We scaled up gradually from module to module and didn't have any problems. 

We signed on for technical support from the initial consultant but when that didn't work, the second consultant finished implementation and provided support. We haven't had big issues that have required a lot of input so it's hard to rate. 

We previously used Sage. 

The consultant we used was not as competent as we had expected, so it was a bit of a drag and took some time. At some point we changed consultants and that helped. The migration period from Sage to SAP took a while but we got there - it wasn't a very smooth ride. For a while, management was concerned about the bumpy ride to implementation. 

The licensing is expensive but it's worth it for our company. 

We considered Oracle as an option, but it was a no go area because it was too complicated. For our purposes, there wasn't really any competition.

It's important to make sure the product fits your requirements, otherwise it's a waste of money. We needed to solve workflow management issues, that was very, very critical. There might be cheaper applications out there that can solve other issues. 

I rate this solution a seven out of 10. 

SAP ERP offers an integrated financial management system for real-time interactions between two separate but dependent financial bureaus to track cash flow management.  The SAP system runs across four servers (Win Server 2008 R2) for development, testing and production purposes. All server are virtually hosted on vmWare EXSi server. 

SAP ERP offers us a robust platform where financial stakeholders spend less time collating and sourcing out records and implementing payments. The seamless collaboration has improved access to timely and valuable resources and at the same time reduced redundancies and errors. 

The most valuable aspect of the solution is that it's customized for our operations. It's a special package that we have; it's not like a regular one that's out-of-the-box. Every time we have to remodel some part of it, or every time there needs to be some modification made, we work with the team from Mississippi to improve the system. It's continuously being updated and streamlined.

The actual interface is good.

The product in use is already customized. For now, we have no need for major improvements or new features. 

We've been using the solution for two years.

The stability of the solution is good. We haven't faced any issues.

The solution, in our case, doesn't have a need to scale up. It's optimized for a smaller scale. If we do need to scale up, I'm sure it's possible, however, we didn't design the solution for this purpose. Currently, we have 30-40 users on the solution and they use it daily.

We're in constant contact with technical support. They help us troubleshoot problems often and are quite good.

The initial setup was a bit complex. Deployment didn't take more than two months.

We had a consultant set up the Virgo servers and then we had two professionals from FTC set everything up. The setup was a collaboration between Google IT and very technical team members.

Every user needs a license, so for every new user will come with a cost. If we add users, we need to buy licenses for them. The solution is kind-of expensive. It's a very good ERP, however.

I don't know how to calculate the costs versus the benefits. If someone has the capital, I believe they should go for it, and they should go for the full innovation package where they can incorporate even areas like IT or HR planning and get everything included. For some, the cost should probably be something to consider before implementing the solution.

We're using a whole package of software from SAP.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. There's nothing the solution needs to improve, although no solution is perfect. There are just minor technical bugs that we need to contend with occasionally. We also need some things that were not part of the original design.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. The solution is very good. We do have a few problems here and there, but technical support is right there to assist whenever anything arises.