RE: Third party support
Date: Thu, 12 May 2016 13:13:48 +0000
Message-ID: <92C2516C1D75EB4A922A8EE402EC23D5EA5E36CF_at_helo.usa.burton.com>
Jeremy Schneider wrote:
> On Wed, 11 May 2016 16:57:38 -0500 "Oracle List"wrote:
> > Similar to what Oracle Support provides when we open SRs for bug
> > fixes, patches, or have to download new Oracle version etc.
> >
> > > On May 10, 2016, at 11:44 PM, Hans Forbrich wrote:
> > >
> > > Please define 'support'.
>
> As others have said in this thread, no third party company can legally provide
> you with bug fixes, patches or new Oracle versions.
>
> They can't give you anything that you can download unless it's a script or
> something that they wrote themselves.
I do not consider this statement true in all circumstances.
For example: SAP users who purchased their Oracle licenses from SAP as an ASFU (application-specific-full-use) receive full distributions of Oracle version upgrades, downloadable from SAP's support site. Monthly patch sets incorporating some-but-not-all Oracle recommended and security patch sets are also produced by SAP in coordination with Oracle and provided by SAP as a download from the SAP site.
Such users pay their support fees directly to SAP, not Oracle, and IMO SAP thus qualifies as a third party company legally providing bug fixes, patches, and new Oracle version. Such users have no entitlement to access MOS or contact Oracle support (unless available via a separate contract for another Oracle product unreleated to the SAP environment). SAP provides first line support and will escalate issues to Oracle on the back-end when necessary, as I recently spent a good month or three working with SAP/Oracle support to resolve an ORA-600 appearing on a production system during bitmap index creation.
This flavor of third party support may only be available from vendors that have reseller/support contracts with Oracle; for all I know SAP may be the only third party operating along this principle.
-Brian
-- http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-lReceived on Thu May 12 2016 - 15:13:48 CEST