Oracle Metalink: User experience (Error #1095 ;-)

Today i logged into metalink - ups - into support.oracle.com. The new interface with Adobe flash is really nice. Three months ago i had problems in viewing service requests, so i decided to stay with the old metalink interface (take a look at my posting).
Now i have to work with the new interface. This worked but more then 20 times i got the following error message:

I queried metalink itself for this error - nothing.
I queried google: and there i found a very nice page:
(Before following the link, read to the end!!!)

http://blogs.oracle.com/Support/2009/11/top_issues_for_my_oracle_suppo.html

The posting at this link is nice but you should read the COMMENTS!!
Here a best of:

Here's my saga:
- Did everything as requested and on time (well before time) by tying my MetaLink account with Oracle SSO
- It stopped working promptly with the cutover with 'Account setup in progres ...' error.
- Had a colleage open an SR (strike 1) which was promptly closed by support without resolving the issue.
- Had my colleage open yet another SR (strike 2) which was promptly closed by support without resolving the issue
- My colleage called in the problem (strike 3) and of course support didn't resolve the problem.
- Many days pass by and yesterday I called it in (strike 4) and I was told to re-register. Didn't work as expected.
- Sent email to our customer rep in disgust
- Finally able to login this morning and what do you know they lost all my CSIs associated with the account.
- Call support again to have the CSI issue resolved again.
- I've many CSIs associated with my account (some of which I'm the admin) and was flooded with email (add/approve/... requests).
- A total of 9 days without access to the Support site; not that I needed to create any SRs.
- I was surprised to discover how much I depend on the Support site on a routine basis.

or

So, Oracle Support has
1.) intentionally decided to choose a competitors product to build their new front end (thereby declaring their own software products are inferior for the task),
2.) made themselves completely dependant upon a competitors ability (and/or desire) to quickly fix security and/or compatibility problems,
3.) wound up ignoring the largest installed base of browser on the web
4.) created a HTML version of the support site (to replace a version that was working fine, built with an Oracle product) that isn't supported!!!!!

or

My Oracle Support Services Error:
A server connection error occurred.
You cannot continue.
Please try again later.

or

Collection of exotic fly-by error messages we are receiving

"Unable to perform "" operation due to the following error: "BusinessException thrown from ReOpen First Step : updateSR() at 2009-12-02 14:59:12.488 CST"."

"Service Error: sr/home: javax.xml.rpc.soap.SOAPFaultException: Cannot perform client request"

"Error #1095"

"Error #1088"

And last but not the least - the neat and deadly
"Exception raised"

or

It would be nice to have an official admission by Support that says:

"Yes. We screwed up in a big way. We realize that out support system is in complete disarray. Here are the things that we know are completely and unacceptably messed up and here are the current statuses and what is being done."

or ....
Enjoy ;-) and remember Things can only get better!

Oracle Configuration Support Manager: "next generation MetaLink expirience"

In a posting two months ago i wrote about a new tab in Oracle's MetaLink. Now Oracle changed the login behaviour of https://metalink.oracle.com.

Now you get a new login page where the default is now the "My Oracle Support".

The login is a little bit slow (>10s) but it shows this nice animated picture ;-)


But you can step back to the "Classic MetaLink" if something is not working. For viewing one Service Request i had to step back to the classic metalink, because of some encoding problems:



In addition cut & paste with firefox 3.0 and Linux does not work with this web based application, so i will use the classic one. But hopefully Oracle can fix all these errors in the next weeks...

Oracle Forums: New Feature(s)

The new forums.oracle.com site is now online and running. Since the first preview (see this entry) they changed some functionality:

Now there is not only the discrimination between member and active member. Now you can achieve 5 levels from Newbie to Guru. As you can see, you have to answer 20 questions correct to get to the second level called Journeyman.
At the thread overview a new column was added which shows, if you can get points for answering the thread and if this thread was already answered correct. The green star indicates a right answered thread:

Inside the thread there is the green star at the beginning:

and the correct answer is marked, too:

Last but not least the person, who gave the answer, gets the points:

Here the official statement from Oracle about this points:

What are "rewards points"? It is possible for you to reward an answerer 5 points for a "helpful" answer or 10 points for a "correct" one (or none at all). Users who accumulate certain amounts of points reach different levels of recognition (see legend). In this manner, users who offer consistently helpful or correct answers raise their standing in the community. (Note: in order to award points, you must identify your post as a "question" first - which is set as default.)

One feature was removed from the forum:
The first column of the thread overview indicated "New content since your last visit" or "updated content since your last visit". I think this feature broke the forum the last time, because you have to save for each visitor all states of the threads he visited...

This "correctly answered" feature is very helpful for all forum users. And the race for the top users in the forums is now open again and we all have to start from zero again ;-(

Oracle Metalink: Software Configuration Manager

Have you recently made a login to metalink?
There is a knew tab called "Software Configuration Manager". Take a look at this screenshot:

Here some statements from Oracle about this new feature:

Software Configuration Manager gives you a complete, dynamic view of your current configurations—including application, middleware, and database versions, plus operating system and hardware platform details—in a new, customizable, easy-to-use dashboard. You define the filters and views to track the configuration information that matters most to your business.

and

Software Configuration Manager customers have reported 40% faster issue resolution, a 30% reduction in the time it takes to log a Service Request, and 25% problem avoidance with Alerts and HealthChecks.

Provided with this numbers you will never fail again on a SR ;-)

Oracle Lifetimes

On the web it is very difficult to find the lifetimes or end of life dates for Oracle products. So here the attempt make this easier:
The lifetimes for all Oracle product can be found in this PDF including Siebel, Peoplesoft, etc.
Here a screenshot of this PDF for the most important software pieces:


If you do not know what is meant with premier support, extended support or sustaining support, take a look here.

Oracle Support...

A few days ago i spent an evening to become an Oracle Technology Support Champion. Why does Oracle offer such certificates? I think there are many people, who have no glue where to start for getting support and informations about the lifecycle of Oracle products.

For this certificate i had to answer many questions about end of life, premier support, extended support, etc...
Here a short summary:

A very important thing is a metalink account (metalink.oracle.com). It is not for free, you have to purchase support for your Oracle databases, application servers, ...

Oracle provides five years support for their main product from their general availability date (Database, Fusion Middleware, Oracle Applications). This is calles Premier support.
You can extend this support for another three years. (Extended Support)
After that you can buy Sustaining Support (For the details look at the tabular below)

For the details of the Premier Support follow this link.
Oracle says about its support:

more than 14,000 application and technology developers and 7,500 support professionals worldwide
24x7 real-time support with MetaLink—over 1.3 million registered users
Global Support Center Hubs offer proactive support anytime, anywhere, from 18 major hubs on 5 continents
Extensive global reach with support in any of 27 languages
Faster problem resolution with our integrated case-resolution and escalation processes
Knowledgebase of over 400,000 solutions on over 650 products

End-of-Life for Oracle Products...

Hi,

if you are searching for the official timelines for Oracle products including Peoplesoft and others, then take a look at
http://www.oracle.com/us/support/lifetime-support/index.html

This leads to http://www.oracle.com/us/support/lifetime-support/lifetime-support-software-342730.html

There you can download pdf with all the details for the different Oracle product.
Here the link for the database pdf.