Re: Can someone please answer this question about oracle licensing

Eviloneus <gshepin_at_webspan.net> wrote in message news:s14cgng485962_at_corp.supernews.com...
> We use Oracle 7.3 (soon to be upgraded to 8) on NT4 as a backend to access
> 97 and pretty soon our intranet.
>
> Typically 8-12 people are running the application at once.
> Since they are just launching the access application they are all
> connecting using the same Oracle User account.
>
> What got me concerned is that when I looked at the session manager,
> I noticed that every user creates 2 and sometimes 3 oracle sessions at
> once. First of all, I was wondering if this is normal.
> The other this is, Am I using 1 license for each session??
>
> We only have 44 licenses and the number of users is expected to increase
> shortly so this can be potentially be a big problem.
>
> Thanks in advance....
>

Oracle licensing is a difficult area, and may vary according to your own licence agreement with Oracle.However, Oracle normally licences database usage according to 'named users' rather than concurrent licences or usernames. This, in theory, means that any user needs a single licences, regardless of how many times they are logged on (0 to infinity) and regardless of how many usernames they each have.

So, if you only have 44 users, it doesn't matter how many times they are logged on or how many sessions they are using: you still need 44 licences.

In theory, this means that if you have 1000 users, each of whom logs on only once a year, you still need 1000 licences. Licensing models do vary, so in order to answer the question fully, you really need to talk to Oracle.

You haven't said where you are from, but I'm assuming you are American (from your spelling of the word licences/licenses) - the answer that I have given is based on UK experience. I am told that Oracle now has a single worldwide licensing policy, but it's worth checking.

Simon Hedges
Gloucester
UK Received on Sun Oct 24 1999 - 18:26:00 CDT