Rimini Street, Inc. , a global provider of end-to-end enterprise software support, managed services and Agentic AI ERP innovation solutions, and the leading third-party support provider for Oracle, SAP and VMware software,  announced the findings of the 2025 Database Strategies and Support Survey – The Diversification and Decentralization Revolution, a global study conducted by Unisphere Research of more than 200 Oracle Database managers and practitioners.

“Rimini Street’s wide range of tailored solutions, expertise and services for Oracle, open-source and many other databases help clients maximize the full potential of their investments and accelerate AI innovation with greater freedom, agility & control.”

Oracle Database Customers Face Support Cost, Quality and Responsiveness Challenges

A majority of Oracle Database customers surveyed report ongoing frustrations with the speed and quality of Oracle-provided support and 63% say the support costs are too high. 87% say a slow resolution is somewhat problematic or worse for their organization; only 16% state their initial Oracle support engineer is very skilled when they request help, further delaying time to resolution. Some even say they “always need to escalate to a more skilled engineer” to receive the level of support or attention needed.

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Growing Adoption of Third-Party Support to Resolve Vendor Support and Cost Challenges

In response, the latest survey findings reveal that more organizations are actively turning to third-party support to immediately reduce their support fees and address critical and persistent issues. 25% say they are currently using a third-party support partner while 30% are considering it, with the biggest opportunity areas in cloud database management (37%), data migration (36%), performance tuning (34%) and backup and recovery (32%).

“Organizations 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,” said Rodney Kenyon, senior vice president and general manager of support solutions at Rimini Street. “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, optimizes performance and redirects team focus on innovation and growth.”

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Majority of Oracle Database Customers are Expanding Database Strategies Beyond Oracle

Many Oracle Database customers have been seeking alternative database options for new or refactored applications due to high costs (58%) as well as support and innovation gaps (31%) seen in Oracle platforms. As a result, 77% of survey respondents say that they have deployed new applications or datasets on databases other than Oracle over the past 36 months. Along with Oracle, 59% use SQL Server, 45% use MYSQL, 40% use PostgreSQL and 28% use Amazon RDS.

Interestingly, while 47% of survey respondents would like to see native support for large language models (LLMs), many are not aware that Oracle has already incorporated integration and native support for LMMs in versions 19c and 23ai. This can eliminate the need for continuous upgrades or adding of another database provider in order to obtain new features.

“Organizations are racing to realize 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. “Rimini Street’s wide range of tailored solutions, expertise and services for Oracle, open-source and many other databases help clients maximize the full potential of their investments and accelerate AI innovation with greater freedom, agility and control.”