Ten years of Oracle Support – what did it cost? [2024 Updated]

How does Oracle Support work?

Oracle has many different products, all of them varying in age and version.

It states it cannot reasonably manage that number of products and that level of variation at all times, so the megavendor only offers support and maintenance on the most recent releases.

This is essentially Oracle saying, “in a few years, we won’t help you – not unless you upgrade.” Such is the limit of its support.

Support Revolution, on the other hand, support all older versions in line with response and resolution SLAs, all within ISO quality parameters.

It’s not just a matter of covering what Oracle won’t — we also do it better.

The newest products that receive Oracle’s full support are entitled to legislative and security updates, critical patches, and so on – the technical fixes necessary to keep organisations functioning, protected, and compliant.

As time passes and Oracle continues to develop and release new products, older versions are relegated to lower tiers of support, and no longer receive the same services as before.

If customers don’t (or can’t) keep up with Oracle’s endless upgrade cycle, they are left behind and expected to make do with the support they have, because products have an established number of years on Oracle’s top tier of support until they “expire.”

The vendor’s expectation is then for organisations to upgrade to the latest version and maintain its top-tier of support. Otherwise, the product moves down the tiers and the level of support and service diminishes, all while the costs continue to rise.

What are Oracle’s levels of support?

Oracle splits its support model into three key headings: Premier, Extended, and Sustaining.

What is Oracle Premier Support?

Premier Support is Oracle’s top tier of support. It is the level that every new product release starts on, and it includes patches, security, legislative changes, bug fixes, access to My Oracle Support, and more.

Premier Support ends on a designated date. This is usually a few years after the product’s release date, but not necessarily a long time after the customer bought the software.

This can become a problem for the buyer. An organisation could be sold a product on Premier Support and soon after be told that it needs to upgrade to maintain it, otherwise it’ll move onto Extended Support.

What is Oracle Extended Support?

With Extended Support, the clue is in the name; it’s a way of extending the shelf life of Premier beyond its deadline.

For this service, organisations pay an additional fee: an extra 10% on the existing support fee in year one, an extra 20% in year two, and another 20% in year three.

Extended Support usually lasts for three years after Premier, but it can be more depending on the product, and often Oracle will extend the Extended cut-off date even further.

Sometimes, Extended Support isn’t offered at all.

What is Oracle Sustaining Support?

The bottom tier, Sustaining Support, lasts indefinitely.

Organisations have access to My Oracle Support, fixes, updates, critical patch updates, and upgrade scripts that were created during the Premier Support stage, but not new ones.

The lack of legislative and security updates leaves organisations on Sustaining Support at risk of threats, and/or falling out of compliance, and it can force organisations into an unwanted move they may have been reluctant to complete.

Despite this significantly reduced level of service, organisations on Sustaining Support must continue paying the same support costs with the percentage increases added from Extended.

In the first year of being on Sustaining Support, an organisation can be paying way more on support costs than when it first purchased the product.

Below is our simplified breakdown of the differences between Oracle’s Premier, Extended and Sustaining Support tiers:

*Unless created during the Premier Support stage.
** Extended Support may not include certification with some new third-party products/versions.

How much does each level of Oracle Support cost?

Short answer: it depends. But it always costs too much.

It depends entirely on:

• What products you have and how many
• Which tier they’re on
• How long they’ve been on that level
• How long you’ve been with Oracle
• What price increases you’ve already been through, and so on…

With so many variables, it’s difficult to comprehend the figures.

To make things clearer, here is a ten-year timeline of how Oracle’s support costs can stack up:

For this example, we’ll use Oracle Database 19C.

A Processor Licence costs £36,500 per licence with support fees charged at 22%. Your organisation decides to pay for 100 Processor Licences on Oracle Database 19C, totalling £3,650,000.

Customers spending this much would likely expect a discount, of at least 50%. The licences would therefore cost £1,825,000 and support & maintenance – charged at 22% – would be £401,500.

(Annual increases calculated by “previous cost + 8%” | Extended Support increases calculated by “(previous cost + 8%) + 10%” and so on.)

Ten years later…

A decade on and your organisation has gone from paying £401,500 in support fees in year one, to £1,231,773 in year ten.

That is a price increase of 206% (or £830,273 extra) in just ten years!

During that time frame, you will have spent a grand total of £7,874,934 in support fees on £1,825,000 worth of Processor Licences.

In addition to this, the amount of support you received has decreased dramatically.

Bear in mind that this represents just one portion of your Oracle estate. It doesn’t include additional costs for applications and middleware support or even audit fines.

Even if you upgrade to the latest version of Oracle Database and return to Premier Support, that support cost will follow you.