This blog was originally published in June 2023 and was updated in May 2026.
Software support contracts generally don’t age well. It seems to be part of the modern vendor playbook to discourage you from using your highly configured, paid-for software by cutting back on support services. Meanwhile, you’re expected to progressively pay more for less support and increase your budget to address the gap.
That’s the situation for many Oracle Database customers who, despite the vendor’s guarantee of lifetime support, find themselves relegated to Oracle Sustaining Support status. According to a recent DBTA/Unisphere Research study of Oracle Database customers, 63% cited an issue with high support costs, and 23% have experienced pressure to upgrade. This is especially frustrating given that the same report found 66% of organizations still see moderate to significant value in their database investments.
If you’re an Oracle Database customer facing Oracle Sustaining Support or Restricted Upgrade Support status, you may wonder what you’re actually getting in your Oracle Support contract. By taking a deep dive into Oracle Sustaining Support, including what it covers and what alternatives are available, you can equip yourself with the knowledge to make the best decisions for your IT roadmap and budget.
What are the different Oracle Lifetime Support levels?
To help set the context, let’s look at the Oracle Lifetime Support tiers:
Oracle Premier Support
Overview: Oracle Premier Support is available for the database product from the date it becomes generally available and typically lasts for five years. Premier Support includes regular (generally quarterly) product updates, which include bug fixes and security updates, along with the ability to freely upgrade to newer versions of the Oracle Database product. Premier Support allows you to create database bug reports, and, at its discretion, Oracle may be willing to create one-off bug fixes.
Cost: The annual cost for Premier Support typically starts at 22% of the license fee, which is then adjusted annually for inflation.
Oracle Extended Support
Overview: Oracle Extended Support prolongs support for specific software releases, typically by an additional three years for customers willing to pay extra.
Cost: The cost of Extended Support can be anywhere between 10% and 20% more than Premier Support, though there have been times in the past when Oracle has waived the additional cost increase for Extended Support for various reasons.
Oracle Sustaining Support
Overview: Oracle Sustaining Support provides limited, ongoing support for older Oracle Database product versions that aren’t eligible for Premier or Extended Support. It’s available as long as you continuously maintain and pay the annual support fees for your Oracle program licenses. However, with Sustaining Support, Oracle licensees no longer receive new program updates, fixes, security alerts or critical patch updates. You won’t get access to any new fixes; instead, you’ll only have access to those released before the product version entered Sustaining Support. This option doesn’t include new upgrade scripts or enhancements.
Cost: According to Oracle’s support policy, you can indefinitely stay on Sustaining Support for the same annual price of approximately 22% of the license fee, plus any Oracle-applied increases over time.
Oracle Restricted Upgrade Support (RUS)
Overview: Formerly known as Oracle Market-Driven Support, RUS is a kind of support specific to Oracle Database 11.2 (retroactively), 12.1 and 12.2. Customers must contact Oracle to apply for RUS support. If approved, customers will have RUS support until the end of 2026 as motivation to upgrade to Oracle Database 19c. It’s worth noting that RUS support is provided by Oracle Customer Success Services (CSS), not Oracle Support.
Cost: The cost of RUS can vary, as it’s serviced through CSS.
Oracle Database support timeline
For those running an earlier version of Oracle Database, the graph below shows how long Extended Support lasts for each release and when Sustaining Support goes into effect:
Oracle Premier Support vs. Extended Support vs. Sustaining Support
The following table demonstrates the key differences between each level of Oracle Lifetime Support:
Comparison of Oracle Lifetime Support levels
Coverage |
Oracle Premier Support |
Oracle Extended Support |
Oracle Sustaining Support |
|---|---|---|---|
Technical Support (Service Requests) |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes, but limited to existing knowledge and fixes |
24/7 Support for Severity 1 Issues |
Yes |
Yes |
No guaranteed SLA |
My Oracle Support Access |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Knowledge Base & Documentation |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
New Bug Fixes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
New Security Patches/Critical Patch Updates (CPUs) |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Previously Released Fixes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes, but only fixes released before product entered Sustaining Support |
Tax, Legal and Regulatory Updates |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
New Product Enhancements |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
New Certifications (OS, DB, Browser, Third Party) |
Yes |
Limited |
No |
Upgrade Scripts & Tools |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Upgrade Rights |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Support Duration |
Time limited (typically 5 years from GA) |
Time limited (typically an additional 3 years, if offered) |
Indefinite (as long as support fees are paid) |
Annual Support Fee |
Standard support fee |
Standard fee plus surcharge |
Standard support fee continues |
Sustaining Support means less value for the same price
Sustaining Support is really a bare bones form of ongoing support for Oracle Database, as it doesn’t include new bug fixes, security updates or product patches. It’s clear that, with Sustaining Support, you don’t get the same level of support you received with Premier or even Extended Support. Yet, you end up paying the same annual maintenance fees you were charged while on Premier Support — for reduced service scope and quality.
With this limited level of support, you’re also potentially leaving your mission-critical systems open to security threats and vulnerabilities, which can lead to a whole host of problems, including unplanned downtime and security breaches that could potentially cost your organization millions of dollars.
To address customer concerns about Sustaining Support, Oracle positions upgrading as a solution, though it’s far from ideal. Moving to the latest release does enable you to maintain the same support coverage you received before. But upgrading also comes with a long list of considerations related to operational and financial risk.
For organizations that don’t want to undergo an expensive, disruptive upgrade — or settle for scaled-down support — a robust, cost-effective alternative exists: third-party support.
Third-party support as a proven alternative to Sustaining Support
Many Oracle Database customers report high satisfaction with their existing release, stating it meets their business needs. In fact, a Rimini Street survey of Oracle Database customers found that 64% are open to independent support to extend the useful life of their investment and forgo costly, disruptive upgrades. More than 1,700 Oracle Database customers have chosen to get better support with Rimini Street, the global leader in third-party support for Oracle, including guaranteed support availability for an additional 15 or more years from the date of contract, with savings of up to 50% off the cost of annual Oracle Database support.
What Rimini Support™ for Oracle Database includes
- Proactive, preventive and patchless protection complete with security vulnerability analysis reports (SVARs) and support for security-related cases, no downtime required
- A named, dedicated Primary Support Engineer (PSE) from a team averaging 20 years of experience
- 24/7/365 support available in 8 languages and in your time zone
- An average response time of less than 2 minutes for P1 and P2 cases
- AI-patented tools and processes to help resolve cases 23% faster
- Guaranteed 4-hour target resolution* time for P1 cases
- *Resolution can be a solution, workaround or action plan
- A dedicated account manager to help you fully leverage your partnership
- And more
With Rimini Support for Oracle Database, you receive comprehensive support for less while gaining the time to explore your options, along with the flexibility to choose the best path forward for your database needs. See the differences between Rimini Support for Oracle Database and Oracle Support:
Support Features |
Rimini Street |
Oracle Premier & Extended |
Oracle Sustaining |
|---|---|---|---|
Support Services |
|||
Product break/fix support |
Yes |
Yes |
No New Fixes |
Operational and configuration support |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Installation and upgrade support |
Yes |
Yes |
No New Upgrade Scripts |
Global tax, legal and regulatory updates |
Yes |
Yes |
No New Updates |
Named, regional Primary Support Engineer from a team averaging 20 years’ experience |
Yes |
||
Vendor-agnostic account management services |
Yes |
||
10-Minute guaranteed response SLA for critical cases with 2-hour update communications |
Yes |
||
4-hour target resolution* time SLA for critical cases, including cases involving custom code |
Yes |
||
Full support with no required upgrades |
Yes |
||
Full support for customizations for all case priority levels, regardless of development tools used |
Yes |
||
Personalized performance tuning support |
Yes |
||
Compatibility and integration support for diversified vendor products and tech stack components in client-tested environments |
Yes |
||
Full support of existing release for up to 15 years or more from contract date |
Yes |
||
Advisory Services |
|||
Technical, functional and application roadmap advisory services |
Yes |
||
Vendor-agnostic cloud advisory services |
Yes |
||
License advisory services |
Yes |
||
Security advisory services |
Yes |
||
Interoperability advisory services |
Yes |
||
Impact on Operations |
|||
Significant reduction in operating costs (budget, people, time) |
Yes |
||
Independence from vendor-dictated roadmap |
Yes |
||
*Resolution can be a solution, workaround or action plan
Key takeaways
- When response times slow and issues linger, it’s time to reassess whether Oracle support is still serving the business.
- The limited scope and quality of Oracle Sustaining Support can leave you paying full maintenance fees while assuming more risk.
If your Oracle Database still meets your business needs, rethink your support model — not the platform.
Learn more about how our support and services for Oracle Database enable you to reduce support costs and reinvest savings into new initiatives — all while ensuring top-notch security.
