Re: question about product license and support

MJ Wood <maryjanewood_at_nospam_hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<51k6h0lf74n0evqr7hu7uhbqjprbqobdh4_at_4ax.com>...
> Hi all,
> I read up and down of Oracle store and still can't figure out their
> license and support model. I was asked to find out how much is cost
> for us to purchase an Oracle 9i development (then production if
> everything goes smooth) license and support.

The licensing model changes over time, and often there are several models depending on what your needs are. I don't even know what it is any more. There once was something about named users and another one for web access and another one for number of cpus...

>
> First, I don't see the license is related to version, i.e. no matter
> it's oracle 8i,9i or 10g they all seem to have the same license;
> Moreover I don't see anything is called "development license", except
> the "Oracle Database Personal Edition", as described from the page,
> "....is designed to provide software developers a cost effective, yet
> full featured Oracle Database environment on which to develop, test
> and run custom or packaged applications...". Is it the one I should
> get first?

Free register on otn.oracle.com, then you can download a number of things, including 3 versions of the database. You see the license when you download. You can get it for free for development. If dollars are an issue, google this group for linux installation issues, there are postings about low-cost server OS's.

>
> I was told that "support" is the access privilege of metalink and I
> can get all kinds of support from there. Is this similar to Microsoft
> MSDN or IBM PartnerWorld that it has access control on the level of
> support? What I mean is I don't see it has something like
> "bronze/silver/gold" type of support level; and if I have the license
> of 9i, is it true that I can only access the patch / support doc. for
> 9i only?

http://www.oracle.com/support/catalog.html

I believe (although I may be out of date) that what you pay for is hours of service, although severity one problems can be 24. But you can get support for anything supported - the distinction is by product (and sometimes platform), not version. There is also a distinction of whether you can submit bugs to be fixed, but that only applies to near-obsolete versions. Most places need support (patches!), and there is a lot of info on metalink. Sometimes the support is better here, though. (no smiley)

>
> Yes I know I can call their sales to know these but before that I want
> to have a clear mind of what I should get first and what I expect to
> ask. Any help is appreciated, TIA!

Download the development stuff and get the cheapest license you can find, but tell the salespeople what you want to wind up with in production. Don't buy a license for the maximum number of users until you need it.

jg

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