A new global survey has revealed that Oracle Database customers continue to face persistent challenges around support quality, costs and responsiveness, leading many to seek alternative solutions and third-party providers.
Support frustrations
The study, which polled more than 200 Oracle Database professionals, found that a majority of respondents experience dissatisfaction with the support offered by Oracle. Sixty-three percent said support costs are too high.
A significant 87 percent indicated that slow issue resolution is problematic for their organisation. Only 16 percent said the initial Oracle support engineer was highly skilled, with some respondents stating they "always need to escalate to a more skilled engineer" to get appropriate assistance.
Third-party shift
In response to these challenges, organisations are increasingly turning to third-party support providers. According to the survey, 25 percent are already using such partners, while 30 percent are considering doing so. Key areas of opportunity identified for third-party support include cloud database management (37 percent), data migration (36 percent), performance tuning (34 percent), and backup and recovery (32 percent).
"Organisations running Oracle Database depend on system stability, speed and support expertise they can trust. At Rimini Street, we've built our reputation as the global leader of third-party support for Oracle Database with our industry-leading, guaranteed 10-minute response time for critical issues by a dedicated primary support engineer from a team that averages 20+ years of experience. Beyond the cost savings of up to 90% on total support costs, clients like Hyundai see firsthand how our proactive, high-touch support model resolves issues quickly, optimises performance and redirects team focus on innovation and growth," said Rodney Kenyon, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Support Solutions, Rimini Street.
Alternative approaches
Oracle Database customers are also diversifying their database strategies in light of ongoing frustrations. In the past three years, 77 percent of surveyed organisations have deployed new applications or datasets on databases other than Oracle. SQL Server is used by 59 percent of respondents, 45 percent use MYSQL, 40 percent have deployed PostgreSQL, and 28 percent make use of Amazon RDS. High costs (58 percent) and concerns regarding support and innovation gaps (31 percent) are cited as top reasons for seeking alternatives.
AI and ML needs
There is a clear demand among Oracle Database customers for modern capabilities such as artificial intelligence and machine learning integration. Nearly half (47 percent) said they would like to see native support for large language models (LLMs). However, awareness remains low that Oracle already offers such support in its 19c and 23ai database versions, potentially reducing the need for further upgrades or new provider relationships in order to access LLM capabilities.
"Organisations are racing to realise the promise of large machine learning models to power intelligent automation, and you can do so without incurring unnecessary cost, risk or disruption to the business," said Robert Freeman, Rimini Fellow, Oracle Technology at Rimini Street.
