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Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management (MDM)

Score9 out of 10

8 Reviews and Ratings

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What is Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management (MDM)?

Oracle supplies a suite of utilities management applications, including the Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management (MDM) application.

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Reviews

What users are saying about Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management (MDM).
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MDM - If You're Willing to Pay the Price

Incentivized
Chris Oros
IT Analyst in Information Technology at Duquesne Light Co. (1001-5000 employees employees)

Pros

  • Integration-wise, MDM syncs with the OU product CCB without issue.
  • The documentation behind the functional use of MDM is well maintained. This helps functional analysts when business issues arise and DBAs for technical issues.

Cons

  • Integration-wise, MDM is flawless with CCB, but the amount of time it takes to load and interpret daily reads is nearly prohibitive. Through a process called "meter interrogation," Oracle is supposed to process initial reads into final measurements. This is supposed to run three times a day, but because the process is so resource-intensive, we are only able to run it barely twice a day. Production resources lag during this time and user experience is reduced.
  • The amount of data the MDM require to be kept in just two of the thousands of database tables indicates a very poor design, or at least a poor integration of the Lodestar product that they purchased and turned into MDM. The initial measurements and final measurements tables take up around 85 to 90 percent of the database. This bloatedness in database size translates into slower performance for the front-end user as well as real costs in terms of data storage. Any user using Oracle's Exadata software will pay dearly for not having a purge and archive strategy.

Return on Investment

  • Our former mainframe system would not have been able to handle the new requirement we have in Pennsylvania for 15-minute interval reads. MDM being able to handle this with base functionality saved us the cost of developing a custom solution for this.
  • MDM's hardware requirements are quite expensive, especially if you want the best performance technically and for the front-end user, as you must purchase Oracle's Exadata hardware. This capital expenditure has been heavy for our utility and supported by increased tariff measures.

Other Software Used

MBS inSite eCommerce, Cherwell Service Management, Jenkins

A complex but powerful tool for managing meter data

Incentivized
Aaron Baker
Senior Systems Analyst in Information Technology at Duquesne Light Company (1001-5000 employees employees)

Pros

  • It is highly configurable.
  • It is user-friendly for those who are computer savvy.
  • It is highly extendable and customizable.

Cons

  • In some ways, MDM is too customizable. There is a delicate balance to be struck between allowing implementers the ability to create custom algorithms to meet their business needs and making those features part of the base product. Lots of things can go wrong if you customize it too much.
  • The cost/time to upgrade is very high.
  • Cost of ownership is very high.

Return on Investment

  • We use it daily and for the most part works on its own without manual intervention.
  • When manual intervention is required, 90% of the time only simple interventions are required.
  • The integration with our CIS helps keep everything in sync.

Other Software Used

Oracle Utilities Opower Energy Efficiency Cloud Service, Toad for Oracle

Oracle Utilities MDM Review

Incentivized
Praveen Dasari
Technical Architect in Information Technology at Duquesne Light Company (1001-5000 employees employees)

Pros

  • Gathers consumption data from analog and smart meters and validates, edits, and estimates (VEE) meter data automatically or manually.
  • It manages the massive influx of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) and traditional meter data.
  • MDM is designed for the highest levels of automation and scalability to meet the current and future needs of utilities.

Cons

  • Configuring the batch on different servers using the same SPLEBASE on a shared mount is a lot complex to configure. Appreciate it if there is a way to do it in simpler way.

Return on Investment

  • It avoids a ton of manual effort and streamlines the reading process.

Other Software Used

Oracle Customer Care and Billing, Oracle Utilities Work and Asset Management, IBM Maximo

Oracle Meter Data Management (MDM) a good product

Incentivized
Verified User
Employee in Information Technology (1001-5000 employees employees)

Pros

  • Data Management is crucial and MDM does this well
  • Device Configuration organization
  • Readings, usage, measurement units, service points, device management

Cons

  • Unfamiliar areas can be harder to use. If you know what your doing everyday your fine, but at times, I find myself in unfamiliar application aspects where some clearer tip buttons with better details could help the reason know what they need to do and guide them more clearly.
  • Error message codes could be more helpful, sometimes I get error messages, I look them up and there's not much information on it. Therefore, I am not sure how to fix the error.

Return on Investment

  • Preventing errors for us always turns into money saved. Error flags that MDM throws help to prevent incorrect data entry, which almost always turns into money and time spent on sending somebody out into the field to ensure accurate data was given. So by not allowing for the possible errors, we save money.
  • No Negative Impacts.

Alternatives Considered

Oracle Customer Care and Billing

Other Software Used

Oracle SQL Developer, Oracle Customer Care and Billing

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