Our organization just started looking into upgrading all older versions of database including 9i. Definitely one of many business justifications for upgrade is to avoid de-supporting from vendor. I recently looked into Oracle’s support policy and did not realize that it offers the lifetime support policy on its entire technology stack, from database to middleware to applications.
Three levels of supports are
- Premier Support covers the first five years after general availability date
- Extended Support provides an extra three years of support for specific releases for an additional fee.
- Sustaining Support provides lifetime support with only limited features.
The sustaining support lacks our major needed components such as critical patch, new updates/fixes, etc, but it seems to be a good option for those who really could not upgrade with whatever their business reason is.
These are the support dates for Oracle database releases –
Well, it is time to start planning. The July 2010 date for 9i R2 is approaching. 🙂