Can someone please share if they did a vendor comparison, why they chose Oracle Enterprise Manager?
Can someone please share if they did a vendor comparison, why they chose Oracle Enterprise Manager? What should someone looking into OEM be considering?
Team Lead - Oracle Applications DBA at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 5
Apr 3, 2014
We did evaluate what would work better for us: buying OEM with a bunch of plugins to operate all the related infrastructure (NetApp, VMWare, Oracle VM, SQLServer, etc.) or doing MS Server Mgt Studio, or HP OpenView and again, buying more plugins to support Oracle and MSSQL.
In the end, we use a hybrid solution (we outsourced our help desk, so the OEM Incident Mgt can't create the tickets automatically there). OEM does all the Oracle-related technologies, HPOV covers the blade farms, OVM Mgr handles the OVM farm, NetApp for the SAN. The DBA group uses OEM to peer into the other technology stacks to give the Unix admins a lead on what we're interested in investigating, but they can use the detailed tools to inspect what's actually happening (and saves on the extra OEM plugin licenses).
So, figure out how large of a landscape you need to monitor. If only a few databases (and you're up-to-date with 11g or 12c) then use the built-in DB Console or EM Express, respectively, to check each instance's activity. If you're dealing with hundreds or thousands of DB's and middleware then you'll want something more robust to quickly pinpoint trouble areas. Depending on how wild the mix of products you're using, you may look to 3rd party solutions (like how Confio's Ignite works to monitor activity on all sorts of different databases, but doesn't have the same level of details as OEM on an Oracle database, with the appropriate plugin licenses of course; But it works with all the older 7, 8i and 9i versions of Oracle databases.)
This will not be a 3 competitive bid, low-bid wins, type of analysis. You will be evaluating based upon the desired featureset and levels of capability, which will be more like having architects compete on building your house. Ultimately, you'll probably end up with a Build to Cost solution, unless you have an unlimited budget.
Consultant at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 5
Apr 3, 2014
Agree with GaryM. Why do you need to compare two similar products? The reason is that normally this product is bundled up with some existing product like Oracle DB or Oracle Servers & Oracle Solaris boxes. So far what I've seen is that large organizations always go for a single company like Oracle/Microsoft/IBM. They have solutions from top to bottom systems along with corporate level contract. If you are from a small organization which is highly dependent upon open source and does not have a contract with such an organization then look for better options. In general, follow the advise from GaryM and look at your needs before choosing the product. Hope this helps.
So the question I think that's on many minds reading your question is, why? Why would you compare vendors to something you already have that's free? Is it you feel that OEM isn't meeting your needs? If so, then please explain what you need it to do.
I would instead recommend identifying your needs, use OEM identifying what it doesn't do for you which you need. Then after articulating those gaps and some sense of value with those gaps to determine whether competing vendor tools can fill those gaps.
Database Expert at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Mar 27, 2014
Some of the basic reasons for choosing is that OEM is a free (for the most part except the Performance and Cloud Pack) tool from Oracle . It's 12c version has some great self provisioning features.
Does OEM not come free with the Database? OEM has a lot of things built into it and it seems Oracle is building OEM to be a "single" management tool. There is a lot to learn about the tool to get effective results and solutions. I would guess, it all depends on what you get used to using for database monitoring. However, the cost should also be considered.
Oracle Enterprise Manager is an on-premises management platform that provides a comprehensive integrated solution for managing and automating your various Oracle products, including applications, databases, middleware, hardware, and engineered systems located either in your Oracle data center or in the cloud.
With the Oracle Enterprise Manager's console, you can administer multiple databases and servers, distribute software to multiple servers and clients, monitor objects and events...
We did evaluate what would work better for us: buying OEM with a bunch of plugins to operate all the related infrastructure (NetApp, VMWare, Oracle VM, SQLServer, etc.) or doing MS Server Mgt Studio, or HP OpenView and again, buying more plugins to support Oracle and MSSQL.
In the end, we use a hybrid solution (we outsourced our help desk, so the OEM Incident Mgt can't create the tickets automatically there). OEM does all the Oracle-related technologies, HPOV covers the blade farms, OVM Mgr handles the OVM farm, NetApp for the SAN. The DBA group uses OEM to peer into the other technology stacks to give the Unix admins a lead on what we're interested in investigating, but they can use the detailed tools to inspect what's actually happening (and saves on the extra OEM plugin licenses).
So, figure out how large of a landscape you need to monitor. If only a few databases (and you're up-to-date with 11g or 12c) then use the built-in DB Console or EM Express, respectively, to check each instance's activity. If you're dealing with hundreds or thousands of DB's and middleware then you'll want something more robust to quickly pinpoint trouble areas. Depending on how wild the mix of products you're using, you may look to 3rd party solutions (like how Confio's Ignite works to monitor activity on all sorts of different databases, but doesn't have the same level of details as OEM on an Oracle database, with the appropriate plugin licenses of course; But it works with all the older 7, 8i and 9i versions of Oracle databases.)
This will not be a 3 competitive bid, low-bid wins, type of analysis. You will be evaluating based upon the desired featureset and levels of capability, which will be more like having architects compete on building your house. Ultimately, you'll probably end up with a Build to Cost solution, unless you have an unlimited budget.
Agree with GaryM. Why do you need to compare two similar products? The reason is that normally this product is bundled up with some existing product like Oracle DB or Oracle Servers & Oracle Solaris boxes. So far what I've seen is that large organizations always go for a single company like Oracle/Microsoft/IBM. They have solutions from top to bottom systems along with corporate level contract. If you are from a small organization which is highly dependent upon open source and does not have a contract with such an organization then look for better options. In general, follow the advise from GaryM and look at your needs before choosing the product. Hope this helps.
So the question I think that's on many minds reading your question is, why? Why would you compare vendors to something you already have that's free? Is it you feel that OEM isn't meeting your needs? If so, then please explain what you need it to do.
I would instead recommend identifying your needs, use OEM identifying what it doesn't do for you which you need. Then after articulating those gaps and some sense of value with those gaps to determine whether competing vendor tools can fill those gaps.
Some of the basic reasons for choosing is that OEM is a free (for the most part except the Performance and Cloud Pack) tool from Oracle . It's 12c version has some great self provisioning features.
Does OEM not come free with the Database? OEM has a lot of things built into it and it seems Oracle is building OEM to be a "single" management tool. There is a lot to learn about the tool to get effective results and solutions. I would guess, it all depends on what you get used to using for database monitoring. However, the cost should also be considered.
I have not have done comparison. If any one knows please share.