Historically, Oracle was inconsistent in how long they supported various products and versions of its software programs. This changed in September 2005, when Oracle introduced “Lifetime Support”. With the introduction of Lifetime Support, Oracle started to provide access to technical support and future upgrades to major releases for all its software product lines for a pre-determined period of time.  The different service offerings are known as “Premier Support”, “Extended Support”, and “Sustaining Support” and are available for Oracle’s hardware, database, middleware and applications programs.

These different support services are provided under the terms and conditions of the so called Oracle Technical Support Policies (OTSP’s). This article provides an overview of the basic terms and specific clauses that you as an end-user should be aware of when obtaining support services from Oracle. The full Oracle Technical Support Policies can be found here.