oracle licensing

[steven Burgess_2]

Hi everyone

Scenario:

1 * Production server, 2 * cpu
1 * UAT server, 1 * cpu
1 * Dev server, 1 * cpu

As the servers are going to be clustered with alternate nodes what considerations do i need with regard to oracle licensing.

TIA

Steven

[Neil Wilson_2 · Accepted solution]

Steve

we had this problem back at our old place. You can licence by CPU or by user with certain Oracle software products. If I remember rightly for base Oracle (non apps) it was cheaper by CPU.

You cannot, that I know of, license by server.

See:
http://www.oracle.com/corporate/pricing/index.html

hope this is what you are lookin for

Neil.

[steven Burgess_2]

Cheers Neil

Steve

[Steven E. Protter]

Don't need points for this.

Oracle quoted me the following for unlimited user licensing.

$40,000 per CPU for the database server and $20,000 per CPU for the application server.

Since I worked for a charity the discount offer was 35%, most were offerened between 25% and 28%.

Oracle has never cared about the type and power of the CPU in this mix. I was not given a quote but a less expensive 5 year license may be available.

This is something you usually have to work out with your Oracle rep.

SEP

[Yogeeraj_1]

hi steven,

also read the latest changes brought about by Oracle concerning pricing:

Oracle has changed its licensing policy about multi-core processors, so that is reflects more that of its competitors. Before, Oracle counted each core as a single cpu.

From now on, each multicore processor is considered as .75 times a single-core processor. So, where 2 dual-core processors required a 4 processor license until now, it will require a 4 x .75, i.e. 3 processor license. One little detail: the new pricing will round up to the nearest whole number when the total number of processors housed on multicore chips totals between integers.

Next to this, Oracle Standard Edition and Oracle Standard Edition one, on a server with one processor shall be licensed as one processor, even if that processor is a multicore.


Source Oracle
Date Jul 15, 2005


see also:
http://www.oracle.com/corporate/press/2005_jul/multi-coreprocessorpricingpolicy.html

hope this helps too!
regards
yogeeraj

[Jeffrey Killian]

How many users are involved? That can make a huge difference - and do you need to use the OEM tools on the machines? Are you clustering all the machines, or can you leave them separated?

EE MUST be used on machines that have (or could have) more than 4 CPUs installed. If your server only has 2, and can't be upgraded beyond 4, than you could use SE for A LOT LESS money.

To use OEM, the license says you need EE for $800 (list) per NAMED user (minimum of 25 user/cpu). If you don't need OEM, you could run SE for $300/NAMED user (min 5 user per CPU). The CPU license that was referred to is good if you have no idea how many users/devices may be attaching to the DB. A break even analysis would be in order to determine the best bang for the buck.

We have production, test, development, QA and demo systems that are running on several different servers. As we have less than 20 named users that work with the non-production machines, we purcahsed the SE for test/dev/qa/demo servers. There was 1-CPU in each of the servers so we purchased licensing for 20 named users and can now legally use databases on up to 4 machines, with up to 20 named users -

Licensing can be confusing, but it is time well spent if you can understand and take control of the DB licensing (your budget and the boss will smile).

Jeff

[steven Burgess_2]

thanks for the input guys

steven