RDBMS -- About Oracle Market-Driven Support for 11.2.0.4

Extended Support for Oracle Database 11.2.0.4 is planned to end. That is, at the end of 2020, there will be no extended support for 11.2.0.4. With this in mind, 11.2.0.4 customers were worried.. However; Oracle annouced the Market Driven Support for 11.2.0.4, and 11.2.0.4 customers seemed relieved...

I also informed my followers about this earlier, in my last 2 webinars.

http://ermanarslan.blogspot.com/2020/04/ebs-oracle-ebs-19c-upgrade-webinar.html
http://ermanarslan.blogspot.com/2020/04/rdbms-19c-upgrade-webinar-presentation.html

In this post, I want to give some more info about this Market Driven Support.. Let's move on and try to find some answers to confusing questions.

11.2.0.4 customers have risks -> As of 1 January 2021 (extended support ends), they will have NO access to: new bug fixes, new security updates, or other critical-issue patches.

Mission critical systems will face operational and security risks.Sustaining support doesn't generally address any newly discovered defects or vulnerabilities. This means, no new updates, patches, code fixes or security updates..

This is huge, right? We still have lots of customers using 11.2.0.4 databases and they are unfortuneatly not ready to upgrade at the moment.

Fortuneatly, Oracle gave a helping hand to the customers.

This helping hand is the offering of Market-Driven Support..

Market-Driven Support is for 11.2.0.4 customers only.

By having Market Driven Support in hand, customers should also have the latest PSU/BP applied to the 11.2.0.4 databases.( this is recommended)

This type of support is available for 2 periods, 1 Jan 2021 to 31 Dec 2021 and 1 Jan 2022 to 31 Dec 2022. So, it's available from the end of Extended Support (Jan 2021) until Dec 2022.

Some valuable Oracle ACS (Advanced Customer Services) services are also included in this offer.

Let's see the key service components included in Market-Driven Support ->

• Severity 1 fixes or workarounds for newly discovered severity 1 problems( for PROD env)

• Critical security updates  to address potential vulnerabilities and reduce downtime risk. Oracle will manage the scheduling and decide the contents of these security updates.. It is important to note that, these security updates will not include updates for embedded Java/JDK functionality. Cryptography-related updates or patches are not included either. Standard SPUs are not included. So this means, limited security patches and updates..

• One Database Upgrade Planning Workshop to assist customer to develop their upgrade plans. Oracle ACS will provide this workshop.. This workshop is aimed to help customer upgrade their databases to a fully supported release.

• A Technical Account Manager (TAM) as single point of contact.

So far so good.. 

Well, there is an important issue I would like to underline.. That is, Market Driven Support is not an extension to Extended Support! It is not a sustaining support either.. It is somewhere in between :)

Check this website for the Extended Support offering -> 

https://www.oracle.com/support/lifetime-support/

There you will see a long line of benefits and you will also see Security alerts and Updates without any exceptions... In addition to that, you can create SR wity any level of severity.

Market-Driven Support is a completely seperate support type. So, the customers purchasing this support, should still plan their upgrades or cloud transitioning projects asap to avoid future risks.

I 'am not a Oracle Salesman, but the pricing seems fixed.

It just depends on how many production databases you have.

The prices vary according to the number of databases you have . (1) Up to 50 database (2) 51-500 databases, (3) 501+ databases.

Well, that's it :)

I wish you a healthy and beautiful week as I finish my writing...