Re: Licensing clarification

On Apr 3, 7:47 am, Chuck <skilover_nos..._at_bluebottle.com> wrote:
> I've always found Oracle's licensing very confusing. Can someone please
> clarify this for me? I have enterprise edition and want to partition
> tables and indexes. Is it included or a separately licensed option?
> Several documents on oracle.com mention partitioning as a separately
> licensed option but they don't clarify if they are talking about
> processor partitioning or table partitioning.
>
> Thanks.

Well, you could ask your salesperson, if he isn't a doofus.

I recently asked a customers' salesperson a licensing question (basically just asking about how really solid the rules are that have been asked about here and elsewhere, given the possibility that they are stupid for particular configurations, and that it is supposed to be a motivating time of year for salespeople) - he had called out of the blue. I asked him some questions and asked him to respond via email. He responded with a Software Investment Guide attachment and some pleasantries. So I responded with some links to threads here and some blogs. His response was this:

You point to a couple of questions that merit further explanation.

I think a better way to understand this is for me to get you on the phone with one of our DBA's/Engineers, who can give you a more indepth

and technical explanation of these questions. Because frankly, there are
variations of answers to your questions, and I don't want to mislead you
or tell you the wrong thing.
[pleasantries clipped]

I responded with:

My head is an empty vessel, with leaks. I would prefer email. If it's
too complex for email, it's too complex for not-email...

He responded with these goodies:

I'll try and answer your questions here, but it really is more complicated than I can functionally write out here. [a bunch of things I already knew clipped] I took my DBA to lunch here at Oracle today to get a technical explanation for you on these questions. He urged me, as I did you, to get on the phone with him for 5-10 minutes so he could explain it more thoroughly to you. Some of the things he was telling me were over my head. I'm just in sales, and not a technical person. Hence we have DBA's/Engineers who work closely with us. [more stuff I already knew clipped]
I hope this clarifies things for you. I would still like to offer the benefit of talking to our DBA here today. As I said, we discussed your questions over lunch so he could walk you through this in 5-10 minutes no problem.

I responded that I didn't see the point, including the specific reasons it would make no sense technically (thinking he might still be talking to the DBA). He responded that he had identified two issues, licenses and customer satisfaction, and would follow up with the person who is the actual decision maker.

Now, that person happens to be upset with Oracle for good reason, and let him know in no uncertain terms when he called (as he often does when a salesperson from Oracle calls). So the salesperson gave what sounded like a veiled threat of a license audit, which of course elicited a reminder of the previous near-lawsuit.

And so it goes.

But it does go to show, if you are confused by licensing issues, you can get to an internal Oracle dba through your salesperson. My problem is, I'm not confused _enough_.

jg

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