83% of Oracle Database Licensees Cite Vendor support costs as excessive or too much

Oracle Database licensees may consider using third-party support to provide better, more cost-efficient support and extend the lifespan of current releases

Rimini Street, Inc., a global provider of business software products and services, the leading third-party support provider for Oracle and SAP software products and a Salesforce partner, today disclosed findings from its survey of Oracle Database licensees conducted to understand their top challenges, priorities and strategies in regard to their Oracle Database landscape and usage.

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Cost is Top Challenge with Oracle Database

When asked what the top three challenges with Oracle Database were overall, cost was the #1 challenge cited by an overwhelming 97% of survey respondents. License compliance came in at #2 with 51% and “regular updates to maintain support” from the vendor was challenge #3 identified by 50% of the respondents. Additional challenges noted include “security and the cost and effort to apply security patches” (42%), “maintaining performance/availability” (34%) and “poor support from Oracle” (21%). When specifically asked about the cost of vendor support, nearly 83% of respondents noted that Oracle Database support and maintenance costs are excessive or that they are paying too much. 73% of respondents feel they are not getting enough or any valuable database enhancements to justify the cost of support from Oracle.

Oracle Database Licensees Seek Options to Manage Costs and Extend Lifespan

With the high cost of Oracle Database support amid tight IT budgets and limited resources, companies are seeking better, more cost-efficient alternatives for managing their Oracle Database strategy, including deferring major database upgrades, switching to third-party support and adopting open-source options over time. For example, Oracle Database licensee Rent-A-Center found such a solution with Rimini Street Support.

“We have many instances of Oracle Database and were struggling to keep up expensive and disruptive upgrade cycles – not only that, but when we peeled back the onion on our maintenance contract, we realized the available enhancements did not offer significant ROI to our business specifically and the required upgrades just to maintain support simply did not justify the high cost,” said Juan Rajani, director, IT Application Services, Rent-A-Center. “We switched to Rimini Street Support to better maximize our mission-critical database system which the business heavily relies on, and we now receive a much higher, ultra-responsive quality of support – it’s like night and day.”

Survey respondents cited they are considering or are moving to open source databases (35%) or non-Oracle Cloud databases (34%) where possible because of lower costs and/or quicker development as part of their overall Oracle Database strategy. For those survey respondents who are looking at open source databases specifically, the most popular options were PostgreSQL, MySQL and MongoDB. 

The survey underscores that a large percentage of respondents (41%) have adopted the strategy to actively reduce their Oracle Database footprint over time. Of those respondents whose database strategy includes reducing their Oracle footprint, their #1 reason for doing so is the high total cost of their Oracle Database deployment (nearly 45%), which includes the cost of licensing, supporting and maintaining, upgrading and patching their database instances. 

Many Oracle Database Releases No Longer Fully Supported After 2020

At least 73% of the survey respondents were running either Oracle Database releases that would become no longer fully supported by Oracle in December 2020 or that were already in Sustaining Support at that time (or they didn’t know). This suggests a trend toward maximizing the lifespan and value of currently licensed database releases, with third-party support as an enabling solution option in many cases. Currently, Oracle Database release 11.1 is in Sustaining Support, and Oracle Database release 11.2 recently entered Sustaining Support at the end of December 2020. 

“The survey results suggest that most Oracle Database licensees are frustrated with high annual maintenance fees and costly forced upgrades under Oracle support, and are seeking better options for managing their Oracle Database strategy and landscape,” said Frank Reneke, group vice president and general manager, Oracle Services. “Rimini Street helps Oracle licensees maximize the return on their Oracle Database investment by extending the lifespan of current releases, significantly reducing annual maintenance costs and not requiring unnecessary upgrades to maintain full support.”

To access a copy of Rimini Street’s report, “Survey Report: Licensees’ Insights into the Value of Oracle Database and Support,” click here. You can find more information on Rimini Street Support for Oracle Database here.