Oracle, Support,
Short Answer
Third-party support is the cancellation of contracts with Oracle in favor of Rimini Street, Spinnaker Support, and others for break/fix, patching, and technical services.
In-Depth Answer
Third-party support providers help customers create an archive of upgrades and patches up to the point of cancelling with Oracle, after which, access to Oracle Support is prohibited. Best practices around security and version control are implemented with services provided by the third party’s technicians from the aforementioned archive and non-Oracle solutions.
Many customers do (and could readily) thrive under this model especially considering the 50% off or better pricing.
Oracle, of course, markets against this model by suggesting only it can protect you from risk and cyberthreats as well as provide an innovative and long-term IT roadmap, available only to those paying Oracle Support directly.
This market is so compelling and confusing that Remend offers a specific service called Third-party Support Readiness to help customers consider it via vendor-independent analysis.
Remend is here to help.