Re: Could Mark Townsend please comment on this question re: Standard Edition

hpuxrac wrote:
> Mark Townsend wrote:

>> hpuxrac wrote:
>>> Charles Hooper wrote:
>>>> hpuxrac wrote:
>>>>> I just did an install of Oracle Standard Edition 10.2 on a linux centos
>>>>> 4.3 machine and created a database.
>>>>>
>>>>> I did acknowledge thru OEM that I was aware of the license requirements
>>>>> for the oracle packs ( configuration/diagnostic/tuning ).
>>>>>
>>>>> The database control comes up and yes indeed you can use the
>>>>> Performance tab, ADDM, etc on the standard edition database.
>>>>>
>> <Snip>
>>
>>>> I had the same experience with Oracle 10.2.0.2 Standard Edition on
>>>> Windows 2003 x64.  The first time you log in as SYSMAN, you are given
>>>> the chance to disable the performance tuning pack and other features
>>>> that should not be an option for Standard Edition licenses.
>> <Snip>
>>
>>> Thanks I wasn't aware of that wrinkle.
>>>
>>> At the present time it seems like the first thing you "are supposed to
>>> do" with Standard Edition and the database control is to "rely on
>>> someone" to turn off these features before they are used.
>>>
>>> If you turn them off from the database control I wonder if the grid
>>> control somewhere else can still access those features.  That would
>>> also probably be something that there's no way to be properly licensed.
>>>
>> Is there still an outstanding question here ?

here's my take. Given that asking Oracle to comment definitively in usenet seems a little bit ambitious.
>
> 1) Why does oracle ship the product with the options packs installed
> configured and ready to use when in fact one can never license those
> packs?
>
> a) is that a bug and should it be reported as such to oracle support?
>
> b) if it is not a bug then why is it done like that?

No it isn't a bug. It's a design feature. This isn't intended to be flippant, if you think about how AWR works it isn't the sort of thing that can be removed easily from one code base (EE) in order to fit the others.

>
> 2) Is the product properly designed so that it is fully functional
> without using any of the packs?

Yes, the option packs certainly make the use of Oracle more straightforward but you can manage Oracle perfectly well without them - though database control/grid control becomes an almost complete waste of time given the fact that it is built assuming all packs will be licensed.

> 3) What are the implications for any people who use grid control and
> have a set of enterprise edition and standard edition databases that
> they need to manage/monitor/support?

Great question as far as SE goes - EE clients can be monitored by either Grid or database control, but then given that Mark has suggested that the thinking is that companies running SE don't need to monitor or manage their databases (quite an extraordinary suggestion in my opinion)   then presumably they haven't paid much thought to this subject and/or are happy that money that could/should have gone to them goes to people who sell monitoring tools.

>
> 4) Are there any potential legal implications for both oracle and
> oracle customers because oracle is shipping a product that has features
> enabled and ready to use that one cannot license?

Great question, especially for AWR that is adding additional useless processing overhead (admittedly not much) to SE databases, that is there is processing going on/storage being used and so on, that SE customers cannot use. it would be interesting actually to see how AWR in particular compares with various legislations definitions of computer misuse.

>
> That's probably a good set of items to start with.
>

I still, though to be honest I don't have much hope, stay with my original suggestion way back when that Oracle just take our money (http://www.petitiononline.com/oraman/petition.html) namely

"We request that Oracle Corporation make all of its Enterprise Manager management packs available to all of its customers at the same price, regardless of the edition of the Oracle product that they have purchased."

At the time Mark suggested that Oracle preferred to talk directly to customers, presumably they have a much larger sample that suggests that standard edition customers don't want to manage their databases responsibly.

-- 

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