Larry Goldman, Senior Director, Product Marketing
This is the fourth installment in our five-part series that addresses some of the most frequently asked questions we hear from those who doubt the value of third-party Oracle software support. The response is taken from “The Skeptics Guide to Oracle Third-Party Support,” a complimentary resource available for you to download.
“Won’t our productivity suffer without My Oracle Support?”
Over the last decade, Oracle’s software support has moved away from live, responsive service from experienced Oracle engineers. Now they force their customers to rely on self-guided research through the My Oracle Support (MOS) web portal, shifting the heavy lifting of problem resolution to your staff.
Your own employees are spending time identifying the root causes of issues, researching solutions, and looking for fixes, all drags on their productivity and potentially on the overall performance of your systems. Instead of moving your business forward, your team is stuck in “fix and maintain” mode. All the while, Oracle is charging you more for support every year.
But when you broach the subject of third-party Oracle support, the same users who often complain of the inefficiencies of MOS may surprisingly rise to its defense. That’s because when you switch to third-party support (or don’t renew a product with Oracle’s support program), you are no longer allowed to access to MOS for support information on those products (you can still get licensing information, though).
This initial fear of loss is understandable because Oracle has trained your DBAs and other users to see MOS as an irreplaceable source of assistance. However, this anxiety isn’t driven by fact but rather by an unfamiliarity with the third-party model. Your goal as the initiative leader is to help everyone understand what they will gain when they switch to live, personalized, support.
What exactly are you missing without My Oracle Support?
We recommend directly asking your Oracle users, “What are you really losing?” and hearing them out. They will immediately point out the access to helpful updates, patches, and user contributions. Coax them into talking about what they wouldn’t miss about MOS and Oracle support overall. For example, our customers tell us that MOS:
- Usually provides large numbers of results that must be sorted and reviewed
- Offers little-to-no assistance for interoperability and custom code issues
- Does not usually include updates for older releases
- Makes requesting on-demand assistance or priority escalation difficult to impossible
You can also ask them what would happen to their productivity and system performance if they had live, senior engineers immediately focused on resolving their problems for them. What initiatives could they complete and skills could they master with all the saved time?
How Third-Party Oracle Support Replaces MOS
In contrast, Spinnaker Support improves productivity and support quality because it replaces MOS with an on-call, personalized, “concierge” service from an assigned team of senior engineers, not an account manager. This model offers the following advantages:
- A simple email, ticket request, or phone call immediately sets your team into motion. They actively work on your case and communicating directly with you.
- Because your Spinnaker Support team knows you and your technology stack well, they can more quickly research, test, and resolve an issue for you. This includes security issues and effective ways to solve break/fix issues outside of the source code.
- When your Oracle users and IT team no longer have to sort through the clutter of MOS, they can stay focused on their daily and strategic priorities.
- You can also ask general inquiries about your supported products (like “Have you ever seen…” or “Do you think this could work…?”) or for technical advice on subjects like interoperability and cloud migration. These come standard with our support.
And we further eliminate the need for MOS during the initial onboarding process by:
- Performing a detailed knowledge transfer. We review your unique application environment, technology stack, ticket history, geographic footprint, IT staff capabilities, and more. Spinnaker Support uses this information to assign you a team of engineers who understand your particular needs and provide the fastest possible response.
- Building you an accessible archive. Our team downloads a searchable archive of files and information that you are legally entitled to from MOS to your network. This gives you access at any time to the updates and materials your team would have been searching for in MOS.
Is third-party support a direct replacement of My Oracle Support? No, it is not. But our customers all tell us that after several months of our service, they are fully satisfied and do not miss or need MOS. They prefer the connection with a familiar engineer they trust to quickly resolve their issues.
“It replaces almost all support systems with its support solution, reduces the cost by half, and provides an amazing experience and support. After working with it, we have seen high changes in the support process and had an amazing experience with it.” – Gartner Peer Insights Customer review (5/5 stars), Asia Pacific Services company
Download the Complete Skeptics Guide
The above response is an excerpt from “The Skeptics Guide to Oracle Third-Party Support,” a resource that addresses 16 of the most frequently asked questions we hear from prospective customers – ones that you may have as well. Throughout the guide, we offer recommendations and links to other resources to help you determine if third-party Oracle support is a good fit for your organization.
Skeptics are direct people who want direct answers, so this guide presents straightforward, honest, and fact-based explanations. If you’re a skeptic of third-party Oracle support, then this guide is for you. If you’re not one yourself but have one or more on your team, then this guide can be a powerful tool to help you to win them over.