Re: Oracle Licensing

Niall Litchfield wrote:

> "Hans Forbrich" <forbrich_at_telusplanet.net> wrote in message
> news:3ECD5328.69886BDA_at_telusplanet.net...
> > This is unfortunately a very complex topic and the final answer legally
> > must come from Oracle, not us. Also, talk to them to see whether you
> > can get additional discounts, etc.
>
> <snip>
>
> > - If you get the CPU license, all CPUs physically in the server need to
> > be licensed. If it's a 2 CPU chassis capable for 4 CPUs - license 2
> > now, add licenses if you upgrade the box to add CPUs.
>
> There is a caveat which is that if the chassis can take more than 4
> processors you are supposed to buy EE even if you only have two processors.

That is one of the 'features' of EE - the ability to be legal on a box that *can* contain more than 4 CPUs.

This is well described in the licensing support material, available at http://www.oracle.com > Licensing & Pricing link. Sadly, there are fewer people who know how to read licensing documents than there are who can read technical & support documents.

> > - CPU licenses allow any number of users concurrent access to all the
> > instances on the server. So there is a break-even point between Named
> > User Plus and CPU. Effectively start with Named User Plus and user the
> > CPU as an upper limit.
>
> Note that changing from one license type to another is charged at
> extortionate rates. For example we needed to change from 100 named users
> (across several machines including this one) to keep 20 named users (for the
> other boxes) and 2 processor licenses.
>
> Store cost for 2 processor licenses GBP 21k
> Store cost for 80 named users GBP 18k
>
> Upgrade cost to effectively ditch 80 users in favour of 2 processor licenses
> GBP 15k. This is *after* a large discount for govt customers and when
> negotiating at the appropriate time of the year.
>
> I draw two lessons from this.
>
> 1. license by processor if it is likely that named user usage of the system
> will increase and the costs are broadly comparable to start with.
> 2. Oracle have probably lost themselves over 100k of future business because
> of this daft licensing approach - if this is repeated elsewhere either the
> licensing model or the companies profits will have to give.

When converting from one license agreeement to another, you need to deal with the rep as this is a separate situation. The original OP and question was related to net new licneses, not upgrades.

Depending on the license type you have to which you need to add licenses, you may be able to extend it but the rep will always want to convert - if nothing else the rep will have fewer unique terms & conditions to remember. And force the rep to give you a document describing the credit for existing licenses (don't just do it verbally).

I have encountered a number of situations where the customer benefitted from the conversion of licenses - especially in longer term due to changes in support agreement costs. Similarily I have encountered a number of situations similar to the above, where there was no (or negative) benefit. Occasionally, the latter was due to poor negotiation and allowing rep to push customer in to a corner.

Too many organizations look at the licensing on a project-by-project basis rather than an organizational basis, and end up spending way too much money. Keeping existing licenses around (potentially unsupported) and buying net-new for expansion is an option and is frequently cost effective.

On the second lesson about lost future revenue - that's worthy of a chuckle. A rep for any public company is responsible utlimately to the shareholder who has absolutely no interest in future revenue; the shareholder is only interested in the announcement at the end of each quarter and the rep who doesn't provide positive support for that announcement is looking for new employer. Future business (more than 2 quarters away) doesn't even enter into the picture. Received on Mon May 26 2003 - 09:51:45 CDT