Re: Silly license qn

Hi Ram

That doesn't seem like a silly question to me. It is unclear to me, and probably others outside of your organisation, as to whether "landing" is a storage location where new data "lands" before being loaded into production, or if it is an intermediate system consisting of licensable software. I'm going to assume the latter because in the former case it isn't clear what you would be licensing.

The short answer is that you are correct and your user is incorrect. The rule of thumb is that any system used for your business purposes (dev/test/qa/prod etc etc etc) is licensable. This absolutely *will *be the approach Oracle take during an audit. If you are used to licensing per processor this rule is expressed in the famous processor definition in the Oracle License and Services Agreement (OLSA) which forms part of your contract and states " all processors where the Oracle programs are installed and/or running". If you are using an alternative measure such as named user licenses, then you need to include the nonproduction processors in the processor minimum calculations. Similar, but possibly not identical rules apply to other Oracle software offerings.

It *is* sort of true that MS allow non-production systems to run "unlicensed" in that many, but not all, non-production systems can be cost-effectively covered by ensuring that *all *developers and testers who access them are covered by an appropriate Visual Studio Subscription. (See the licensing guide at
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/sql-server-2017-pricing ). In other words, you don't need a SQL or Windows license because all the users have a Visual Studio License.

In your particular case, I'd want to double-check that the landing system qualified as a non-production system in the MS world as well. From the licensing guide emphasis mine.

"Note: A production environment is defined as an environment that is accessed by end-users of an application (such as an internet website) and* that is used for more than gathering feedback or acceptance testing* of that application. Other scenarios that constitute production environments include:
•* Environments that connect to a production database*"

Organisations definitely need to understand these rules, so as to avoid surprises. Usually, this should be something that asset management would lead on, with IT teams being briefed as to how to comply. I know that often this isn't the case in reality.

On Fri, Dec 6, 2019 at 4:58 PM Ram Raman <veeeraman_at_gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi
>
> I have a question on licenses for the database used in landing. A user of
> mine says that we dont need to get 'production' licenses for the landing
> area because it is not production and that only the warehouse needs to be
> licensed as production. He says that is how they do in the Microsoft world.
> I feel that the landing area should be licensed as production as well.
> Thoughts?
>
> Thanks
>
> --
>
>
>

-- 
Niall Litchfield
Oracle DBA
http://www.orawin.info

--
http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l