How to deal with the giant Oracle

There have been several experiences that it is very difficult to have the giant Oracle corporation pay attention to the small company's DBAs.

Oracle case 1:
Recently, Oracle has changed the Technical support service policy to let only non-technical personnel pick up the phones. After I chose the system is down option, someone picked up the phone shortly. She asked
"Is your production down?" I said " No, but my standby is down." She said
" I am technical. What is standby?" Oracle is claiming that this change
is for improving services purpose. The manager told me that the customers could not require the severity of the case. I ask "How can a person saying I am not technical, what is standby be able to decide my case's severity?" He did answer.

Your Suggestions?

Oracle case 2:
The owner of my tar did not really read my questions. He put " We understand that you have had some difficulty in understanding this area of DBA activity, and this has been escalated within Oracle Support Management. I suggest some introductory training for you from Oracle University http://education.oracle.com/" and other copy paste junks in the tar. Then, the tar was hard closed. I have complained to his duty manager, customer services, the license representative. I got no help and no response from the sales.

My solutions:
Create another tar using different words in the subject field. Then, I got another analyst. This one was solved within 2 hours.

Your suggestions?

Thirty party tool case 1:
They not only have the non technical personnel picked up the phone. They also use non-Oracle personnel to be the first level support Oracle related tool. It usually takes days to get to someone who knows Oracle. They did not care my complain.

My solution:
When a manager in another company asked for his DBA's opinion for that tool. I send e-mail of my terrible experiences with that tool with the comments from people in this group. The 100+ hospitals which the company serviced were actually persuaded to buy to another tool.

The giant Oracle is probably not care to lose little revenue here and there.

Your suggestions ? Received on Thu Nov 16 2000 - 14:33:36 CST