Re: Configuration of number of CPU's to comply with license agreement

> do NOT change the value of CPU_COUNT in INIT.ORA. the value of
> this parameter does NOT limit the number of processors that Oracle

From the Oracle docs:

CPU_COUNT
Parameter type: Integer
Parameter class: Static
Default value: Set automatically by Oracle Range of values: 0 to unlimited  

WARNING: On most platforms, Oracle automatically sets the value of CPU_COUNT to the number of CPUs available to your Oracle instance. Do not change the value of CPU_COUNT.  

CPU_COUNT specifies the number of CPUs available to Oracle. Oracle uses it to set the default value of the LOG_SIMULTANEOUS_COPIES parameter. On single-CPU computers, the value of CPU_COUNT is 1.

If your system experiences heavy contention for latches, change the value of LOG_SIMULTANEOUS_COPIES to twice the number of CPUs you have. Do not change the value of CPU_COUNT.

While the docs say not to change the value of CPU_COUNT, it does say that this is the "number of CPUs available to your Oracle instance." Is the documentation wrong?  

> will use. there are a couple of other INIT.ORA parameters that can be
> changed in order to tune for one, two or more processors. e.g. on a
> single processor machine, set SPIN_COUNT=0.

How does SPIN_COUNT change the number of processors in use? This is for spinning for a process willing to wait on a latch, which has nothing to do with CPU usage.  

> you can run this by your legal department, but i think that restricting
> Oracle processes to only two of the processors on a four processor
> machine does *NOT* comply with the terms of the license agreement.

Agreed. But at the same time, this is something that has been done with Oracle in the past. We wanted to purchase an Oracle product to run on a 8-cpu machine. But we did not want to use all 8 cpus thereby cutting our costs. This was Oracle's solution. But I'd run this past your legal dept *AND* Oracle before continuing.

Cheers,
Brian

-- 
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Brian Peasland
Raytheons Systems at
  USGS EROS Data Center
These opinions are my own and do not
necessarily reflect the opinions of my 
company!
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