Yes. Spinnaker Support will assist in resolving problems that may be caused by custom code. We understand that most customers have created custom functionality to support unique business needs that the software was not designed to handle.
If there are problems related to existing customizations, Spinnaker Support will work with our customer’s resources to analyze the issues. If the root cause is the core software code, Spinnaker Support will develop a fix for it. If the root cause is with the custom code, we will provide guidance to the changes needed within the custom code.
When a customer ends their support agreement with their software vendor, they no longer have access to that vendor’s password–protected websites, thus no access to downloads or patches. While code patches do block vulnerabilities, the reality of the software patching process often does not meet its promise.
Our security philosophy:
- We deliver a layered, Defense in Depth approach to security. This means targeting the weakness category (CWE) rather than chasing individual historic threats or CVEs or trying to predict future CVEs. Addressing individual vulnerabilities is counterproductive. Many are active but not yet discovered, and others are still exposed because the patches did not work.
- Our proactive approach future proofs the security of your environments. We use hardening techniques and compensating controls to ensure your systems can pass penetration testing and audits. This comes standard with our third-party support. Using CIS & STIG Benchmarks, we guarantee you a more secure environment.
Read more about our standard security services and Seven-Point Security Solution
Yes, GTRC updates are a standard offering with our third-party support model. Our support team has extensive experience in delivering superior quality tax and regulatory updates to keep its customers compliant in their legislative requirements; in fact, we have a flawless track record in this regard.
Additionally, our customers only receive the regulatory changes they require –this allows our support team to make these changes quickly and with little impact to your environment, even when customizations are involved.
SPCs (Software Protection Codes) are part of your perpetual application license agreement with the software vendor and are not tied to annual maintenance support contracts. These codes are always available from the vendor through the License Code website (Oracle) and via the SAP Support Portal.
Spinnaker Support has a major advantage over other delivery methods to address fixes. The most common method to deliver fixes is to remotely connect to your environment and begin analyzing, troubleshooting, and debugging your issues.
You may think of the Spinnaker Support team as an extended component of your internal support team. Once the issue is isolated, a fix is prepared and tested within your environment, affecting only the required changes. This minimizes the impact to other programs and objects.
The Spinnaker Support method differs from the typical vendor method, which requires the installation of a packaged update that, in turn, may contain changes that are undesired in other parts of the application, including your customizations. The latter method increases the risk of “breaking” other parts of the application, which can result in lost time, frustration, and greater expense to the customer. Undesired changes within the application may also require time spent relearning and/or retraining users.
Q.How can Spinnaker Support provide better Oracle support than the publisher who wrote the software?
Great Question! Find out all you need to know in this video.
Excellent question! All you need to know is in the video below.
View the Direct Comparison of Support Models for more information.
As any long-time Oracle customer knows, the cost of annual support steadily grows, while the number of the support features and updates shrinks. Sustaining Support, the final and most expensive support stage has little real value to offer to end-users.
Read our blog post on Sustaining Support, where we explore what it is and isn’t and compare it to Spinnaker Support.
We see the difference in three areas: Reputation, Relationships, and Risk.
Reputation – Our character and standing in the market are unmatched.
- Best independent customer reviews on Gartner Peer Insights.
- The happiest employees in the industry deliver better services!
- We have the most satisfied customers, with nearly 100% satisfaction based on our annual customer survey that measures the relationship, not merely ticket resolution. >97% of customers are willing to recommend us and our Net Promoter Score is 79, an exceptional rating.
Relationship – “We treat every customer like the only customer.”
- You’re assigned an entire team. We personalize our service to you, and we’re the only support provider that gives each customer a hand-picked assigned team. Every customer, large and small, is our top priority. That means quicker time to resolution.
- You only work with the experts. Our software engineers average the most years of industry experience (19+). They’ve seen it all and fixed it all.
- We accommodate your unique technical and commercial needs. Our fees are always aligned with your use case to maximize your savings, even if you experience changes in your business.
Risk – You’re Safe with Spinnaker Support
- No financial risk. We maintain a healthy financial status, and every dollar you spend with us is allocated to delivering service to you. We have financial superiority and do not expose our customers to any risk of financial uncertainty, service disruptions or inconsistency.
- No legal risk. Unlike many other providers, who have been crippled by litigation with Oracle, our service delivery model has been proven to be proper and is uninhibited by Oracle. You will be working with a partner whose processes have been reviewed and approved by Oracle, and you will not be compromised by limits on our ability to deliver or distracted by ongoing legal battles.
In summary, with Spinnaker Support, you get:
- The highest-rated, happiest engineering team
- Personalized attention and services
- Long-term stability
- Commercial flexibility
- A safe third-party support choice
Easily—we don’t have a need to violate IP terms and conditions! World-class support is about customer-focused processes and a commitment to customer satisfaction. Our solution expertise, both functional and technical, comes from our team of highly experienced and skilled support engineers that average 19 years of experience supporting Oracle and SAP enterprise applications.
Our support is performed entirely through remote connections to our customers’ systems and environments. Spinnaker Support staff does not possess any Oracle or SAP environments on its computers and performs all work just as a consultant would do sitting in a customer’s office. Almost 100% of the fixes we provide are authored by our support team and are customer-specific—we don’t share code between customers, nor do we access any password-protected websites from third-party software vendors like Oracle or SAP to provide these fixes.
Yes. Spinnaker Support has a strict policy to protect the IP of Spinnaker Support, our customers, and all third-party software vendors used by our customers. Our IP Policy is communicated to each of our support team members, and each is required to read and understand the policy on a regular basis. This IP Policy is strict and undergoes a comprehensive legal review.
The highlights of this policy are communicated to our customers to ensure that their staff, their vendors, and Spinnaker Support’s legal interests are protected. We review the IP Policy internally on a regular basis and provide updates as necessary. All updates are communicated to our customers.
Documented within our comprehensive Support IP Policy is a list of items from software vendors which Spinnaker Support WILL NOT download, store, or receive from our customers. Spinnaker Support WILL NOT download to any Spinnaker Support systems, any material from a vendor on a customer’s behalf – no tools, no documentation, no patches, etc.
The following list defines what Spinnaker Support considers third-party property:
- Vendor objects and source code
- Vendor created solutions
- Vendor created documentation and training materials
- Vendor user interfaces and screen captures of those interfaces
- System logs, application logs, traces, or diagnostic reports
- Vendor created design documents
- Vendor data including metadata, demo data, training data
- Vendor formatted output and reports
No. Spinnaker Support’s customers acknowledge and agree that Spinnaker Support will not make or store copies of customer data or any supported products on Spinnaker Support systems. Our customers are solely responsible for making and storing emergency back-ups of their supported products.
Great Question! Devan Brua, Vice President of Compliance and Risk, addresses this question in the video below.
We would be happy to discuss our IP Policy with you. Please contact us at +1 877 476 0576 to speak with a Spinnaker Support representative or you may email your request to [email protected].