Oracle support... Sev 1 has a one hour response time, you say?

It's 2AM as I write this, and I've been on a support call since around 10AM this morning for one of our systems which is being recalcitrant about quarter-end close.

I may not be very lucid. :) I'm also a bit grumpy as it's Halloween and my team and I had our personal plans significantly disrupted.

Anyone who has worked with Oracle support has experienced what "one hour" response time means. That first contact in less than an hour is to ask you to do some work for them to diagnose the problem.

Some things I've learned is that, for a true Sev 1, escalate it to the Duty Manager (aka Escalation Manager) as soon as you file it.

1. Escalations are not the same as increasing the severity of an issue.
2. Call the 800# and ask for the Duty Mgr. 
3. Specify your Service Request#, and that you would like to speak to and receive a callback from the Escalation Manager. They should call you back in less than 30 minutes. If they do not, call back and escalate again, preferably to a higher level manager (Sr Manager, Director, and so on)
4. At this point, you want to know the plan to success, who you spoke with, and any timelines. 
5. Always get timelines and commitments. "Soon" is not a timeline.
6. Always get the name of whomever you're speaking with
7. Always take notes and track the timeline of conversations. 
8. Be polite. Don't confuse nice with polite, though. My business is very serious about meeting our SLAs, and that sometimes means holding someone accountable, and holding their feet to the fire. Just do it politely, but with an iron will. 

This is a good read from an internal Oracle team member on the Oracle Support Escalation Process