Re: Alternative to Oracle support

Margaret wrote:
>
> Are there any alternatives to paying Oracle for support (any 3rd
> parties offering support?). We have an 8 CPU 2-year license for Oracle
> Enterprise and Oracle wants $35,200 per year for support and upgrades
> and won't allow monthly payments of that (has to be paid all at once).
> For a startup company such as us, this is not small change.
>
> Margaret
> mlouie_at_transzap.com

Weren't you aware of the support costs before you signed the license? As Tanel implies, if you are running the kind of workload that requires EE on an 8 CPU box, $35K/year for support should be "chump change" (i.e., negligible). If not, your system is over-configured. DBMS vendor (not only Oracle) licensing practices create a great incentive for customers to deploy their database on a server with the minimum number of CPU's needed. One common mistake is to collapse multiple of the N-tiers onto a single computer. You will then be paying Oracle (or IBM or M$ or whomever) for processing power that is, instead, allocated to your Web or application servers. Also, a careful study of required features often (but not always) allows a startup to use Oracle Standard Edition, saving 60% of the cost of Enterprise Edition. The server can be upgraded at a later date, should business success justify the advanced features of Enterprise Edition.

And, as Paul suggests, it is not practical to run in production without support and, AFAIK, no third-party vendor has the information required to assist you in resolving ORA-600 (internal logic) errors. When others refer to the availability of third-party support, they may have in mind services such as remote database administration (which are common).

Your best bet now may well be to beg Oracle to release you from your earlier mistake (over-configuration) and instead reallocate those funds to a reduced license of some form (fewer CPU's or SE), plus support for that new configuration. They are under no legal obligation to do so (a deal's a deal), so it really depends on the individuals involved. If you have any additional future purchases (e.g., 9iAS or JDeveloper) to make from them, those may give you some bargaining leverage.

Good luck,

Mark

(For direct e-mail, use <first_name>.<last_name> before the at-sign.) Received on Wed Feb 12 2003 - 15:17:11 CST