Re: Oracle's Licensing Question

You don't need to name your users, however if your named user limit is e.g. 100,
you'll never be legally allowed more that 100 separate usernames (where a user can create a session i.e. logon under a different user name). You can have generic names if you want. E.g. Accounts_clerk, Accounts_manager, Personell_Clerk etc. Maybe give the managers their own username though.

N.B. all licence restrictions are done on an honour basis - you could startup your database ( if you wanted to break the law) with it accepting unlimited users.

Think your a bit off with your power limit calcs. Could be aroung 50$ per power unit IF YOU WANT UNLIMITED USERS. But if you want a NAMED USERS LIMIT then the only thing you have to worry about is the licence price floor. This is e.g. 150$ / 50 Mhz. So say you only wanted 3 users but you have 4 * 600 MHz CPUs. The cost per named user would be e.g. 3 * 100$ = 300$ but you'll still have to pay (4*600Mhz)/50Mhz) * 150$ i.e. 7200$ so this is how Oracle still makes some money from you.

So the name of the game (if you got complete control of the rule-book!) is :--

1. use lots of RAM and less CPU,
2. have lots of generic usernames and few individual ones
3. remeber the importance that's going to be placed on your CPU count. i.e. unlimited users - e.g. $50 per Mhz * your total Mhz or named users but minimum cost is ( your total Mhz / 50 Mhz )* $cost / 50 Mhz.

P.S. Tell all your application developer friends / companies to start creating generic usernames, not specific ones.

Hope this clarifies,

David P.

JK wrote:
>
> I'd really appreciate it if someone can clarify some of Oracle's licensing
> to me.
>
> Does named user license mean that I have to specify the actual name of the
> person accessing the database to Oracle? While purchasing? People working
> at our company change very frequently and I'm not sure I want to get into
> this type of agreement if that's the case.
>
> Also, most of the connections to the database at my company are from
> software that are automated (getting data from one place, inserting it into
> database, moving it, querying to create reports etc.). How do I figure out
> licenses for these? And please don't say "power unit". We'll have to
> migrate to a different database from Oracle If that's the only way! Can't
> afford it. I can buy a Sun Enterprise 4500 with 6 400 MHz CPUs for a little
> over $100K but I'll have to pay Oracle $360K for the database! Not counting
> any options!
>
> Thanks much
> JK
Received on Wed Mar 08 2000 - 00:00:00 CST