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The New Year is well underway, and your Oracle support is still lacking despite the considerable chunk it’s taken out of your 2024 IT budget. And the inevitable 8% yearly price increase.
You’ve had your kick-off meetings and discussed options for streamlining your systems, but you’re still faced with looming upgrade deadlines, long wait times for security patches, and ever-increasing price rises on licenses you no longer use.
It’s 2024. This shouldn’t be the case anymore (and doesn’t have to be!).
These are four reasons why your Oracle support is no longer fit for purpose, and alternatives that will give your 2024 roadmap a much-needed boost…
Premier Support for Oracle Database 19c ends this April. Premier Support for Oracle Database 21c ends next year, in April 2025.
If you’re on these systems, you have two options:
Option 1 – Let support for your systems run into Extended Support where you’ll pay an additional 10% on your existing support fee in year one and an extra 20% in years two and three (and Extended Support is only available for 19c NOT 21c).
Option 2 – Upgrade and move to the next product release. This comes at great cost and time to your teams, taking them away from other Digital Transformation projects.
But wait! There is a third option Oracle won’t tell you about…
Migrating your systems to third-party support gives you Premier levels of support (and more!) without the deadlines. You’ll receive this level of support on any version of Oracle software you’re currently running — including those versions no longer supported by the vendor.
You can take back control of your roadmap and keep your systems supported with Support Revolution as long as wish, or temporarily migrate to third-party support while you transition to AWS or Microsoft Azure. You’ll be able to pass the workload of supporting your older systems onto us, while your teams focus on your Cloud transition.
You’ll no longer be tied to Oracle’s deadlines. It’s your roadmap on your terms.
There are two big issues you need to be aware of regarding your Oracle Security.
Firstly, Oracle only releases its Critical Patch Updates every quarter. This means if you have a vulnerability with your systems, you could be waiting up to three months for a resolution from the vendor. Even longer if you don’t have the time to dedicate the additional hours to implement these updates and test them. In the meantime, your business-critical systems are left exposed.
Secondly, if your systems fall into Sustaining Support (which yours could do in April 2025 if you’re on version 21c), you’ll no longer receive new program updates, new fixes, new security alerts and new critical patch updates.
Support Revolution provides enterprise grade security patching.
We recommend and deploy the Intrusion Prevention System of Trend Micro Deep Security, protecting your systems with a tailored virtual patching solution that requires no downtime.
Using this virtual patching method, your systems are not only protected against ‘North to South’ traffic (external traffic) but also against ‘East to West’ traffic (traffic flowing within your network). Traditional methods, and those used by Oracle, typically only protect against the former.
There’s no need for regression testing. As virtual patching acts like a shield around the whole network, your systems will remain online throughout the whole process.
You’ll also receive weekly updates, compared to the three-monthly releases you’re currently receiving from Oracle. Should a fix not be made immediately available, Support Revolution will work with Trend Micro to provide a solution within just a few days, and 24 hours for any zero-day vulnerabilities.
Your critical systems shouldn’t be left exposed for months on end. With Support Revolution’s virtual patching, they won’t be.
Whenever your teams raise critical issues with My Oracle Support, there’s no guarantee that the issue will be resolved.
Oracle quotes a response time to Severity 1 requests within 15 minutes, but there is no guarantee to resolve this and get your critical systems back up and running within a certain timeframe.
The only promise it does make is that:
“Oracle will work 24x7 until the Severity 1 service request is resolved, a reasonable work-around is put in place, or as long as useful progress can be made.”
‘…as long as useful progress can be made.’ As determined by who? Oracle? Your organisation? Larry Ellison? As usual, the language is (deliberately) vague.
How long will you be waiting? Who knows. Not what you want from a service supporting your business-critical systems.
Any support ticket you raise with Support Revolution has a response AND resolution time within a strict Service Level Agreement.
Raise a Severity 1 ticket, and you’ll receive a response within 15 minutes (just like Oracle), and a resolution within two hours (quite different to Oracle’s vague ‘useful progress’ promise!).
Response and resolution times are guaranteed for all levels of tickets raised. Fail to meet these targets (which we’re proud to say we never have) and you’ll be free to make use of the termination clause in your contract.
There’s a high possibility you’re over licensed with Oracle software you no longer use. But the vendor won’t adjust its support price accordingly.
This is before Oracle decides to increase your annual support bill by 8%. And then increase your support bill if you fall into Extended Support by an additional 10% on your existing support fee in year one and an extra 20% in years two and three.
This leaves organisations – like yours – in the unenviable position of paying much more on underused or unused licenses, for less of a service.
When you move to Support Revolution, we’ll help you sweat your assets. You’ll only pay for support on the licenses you actually need.
The price you pay on your Oracle support costs will reduce according to the systems you use. For example, if you scale down from 100 to 80 licenses, your support cost is reduced with it. You can build your own business case!
That’s how you’re able to save up to 90% on your Oracle support costs by moving your support to third-party support.
We’ve stripped the process right back and broken it down into six straightforward steps for you to make your transition to third-party support as smooth as possible, with our in-house transition team.
Few organisations are happy with their Oracle support. We’d like to bet, you’re no exception.
Third-party support from Support Revolution addresses both cost and service quality frustrations your teams are currently facing.
To speak to one of experts about how your organisation can start 2024 by taking back control of your Oracle roadmap and make huge savings to put back into your budget, drop us a message.
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