Oracle licensing on VMware, Cloud, Hyper V and other virtualised platforms

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Do’s and Don’ts ofOracle licensingin a virtualised

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This discusses more fully all the thought processes behind the topic and provides relevant sources for the information

Note : all the principles I discuss in these materials reflects the generic position.Everything in life is negotiable, including Oracle contracts, for those with enough influence.

The evolution of deployment architecture Keeping an eye on Oracle’s commercial interpretation

Physically-managed server

Bare metal + native O/S

Multiple cpus gradually evolved intohighly-scalable Symmetric Multi-Processor architectures

For many years cpus were single core.




HardwarePartitioning

Native O/S + rigidly ring-fenced set of cpu resources.Later developed migration features

Framework for managing resources. Oracle recognises specific technologiesas “hardware partitioning”. Debating themeaning is futile : these are Oracle’s rules. Later developed migration features.Oracle has not accepted these as compliant with their partitioning doctrine for licensing






VirtualisedClusters

Hypervisor with multiple, variedO/S instances and live migration

It would be unwise to make the general assumption that a virtual machine can be a hardware partition

for Oracle licensing






VirtualisedClusters


Cloud Abstraction rather than newtechnique, lots of variety

We’ll explore types of Cloud later






VirtualisedClusters


Cloud Abstraction rather than newtechnique, lots of variety

Don’t assume that the older models are now irrelevant, far from it !

Licensable Environment A term I created to clarify how Oracle’s licensing rules play out

in the real world, and how you should approach measuring compliance

The valid choices are simply these :-

o The whole of a physically-managed server in the good old-fashioned way

o An approved regime of hardware partitioning.(NB on x86 kit, the only candidates are OVM for x86 (without live migration)or Solaris x86 running natively with capped Containers

o The whole of a virtualised cluster**

Generally all the above are considered equal in licensing, and many rulesapply to all of them. This has some unforeseen outcomes.

** Oracle has started to expand licensing scope for VMWare post vCenter 5.1. If one instance of vCenter manages multiple clusters, Oracle will say they are all potential migration targets and must be licensed.

Licence Metrics

The vast majority of Oracle Technology products offer a choice of Processor or Named User Plus metrics

Virtualisation and Cloud have not generated new metrics, and bearing in mind the Licensable Environment concept, lets ensure the meaning of the available metrics is clear

Named User Plus (NUP) Metric

A user under this metric is a real individual (or an automated device)who interacts with the licensed system.

Hence schema ownership, authentication method and connection method are all irrelevant

It is NOT a measure of concurrency – prior to Sept 2002 there was a Concurrent Device (CD) metric for which some customers still retain valid contracts.

It also does not support the notion of job-sharing, ALL users must be licensed (assuming no special contract has been negotiated)

You are not obliged to keep a register of names, and it is accepted that staff leave & join – but if audited you must be compliant

Remember if using Oracle middleware as well as database, both tiers must reflect the user community (or else use the Processor metric)

Using a web-style architecture does not in itself invalidate use of NUPs (but if self-registration is possible then Processor metric is required)

Processor Metric

Beware, this means two entirely different things.

For products with “Standard Edition” in the name (including DB SE1),a processor is counted as an occupied cpu socket WITH NO REGARD TO CORES.

Otherwise, a processor in licensing terms is derived as follows:-o Add up the cores in all relevant socketso Apply Oracle’s designated multi-core factor ** for the chip-type

http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/contracts/processor-core-factor-table-070634.pdf

(tip : all Intel and AMD x86 chips are 0.5 factor).E.g. 2 x quad-core Xeons = 8 cores = 4 Processor licences

For NUPs, take this result and multiply by the mandated minimum e.g. in above case for DB Enterprise Edition 4 * 25 = 100 NUP minimum

** ignore the heading “Effective Date : March 16th 2009”. The latest changes are listed at the end.

http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/contracts/processor-core-factor-table-070634.pdf

The “Magic Combination”

The only situations where the Licensable Environment concept is not needed involve products purchased on the Named User Plus metric, and where the mandated minima are given as absolute numbers.

The obvious examples are Database SE and SE1, and the Business Intelligence Suites (SE1 and EE Plus).

NUPs are inherently multi-server rights, and for these products the number required is not linked to the infrastructure design, so simply license all the real individuals.

Hardware Partitioning Benefits The concept and valid regimes are defined in

http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/pricing/partitioning-070609.pdf

if only part of a server is used to run Oracle products, then licence costs can be reduced compared to licensing the entire physical server. Today’s extreme core-densities make this more critical than ever.

if multiple Oracle products are deployed on a physical server, partitions allow the licensing to reflect usage of each without overlap, e.g. you could license 2 cpus for Application Server and 2 cpus for Database, rather than covering 4 cpus for BOTH.

it becomes possible to adopt different Oracle licence metrics for individual partitions, typically this might be to use Named User Plus pricing for development environments whilst Processor pricing may be mandated for production.

Specific hardware partition regimes are documented via the White Paper, including the challenges where some can be invalidated through migration capabilities

http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/pricing/partitioning-070609.pdf

Virtualised Server Farms

Assume that each Intel server has 2 occupied cpu sockets, and that they are of quad-core design.

Therefore, 24 cores in the cluster (until you extend it…)

A typical virtualised server farm



You plan to run a single 4-core virtual machine for Oracle DB EE

Q.1: With VMWare, how many Processor licences are required?

A.1: 24.

No hardware partitioning is recognised. No node affinity (DRS) is recognised.

Each server has 8 cores i.e. 4 licences.Oracle assert the whole cluster must be covered.



You plan to run a single 4-core virtual machine for Oracle DB EE

Q.2: With Oracle VM for x86, how many Processor licences are required?

A.2: 24, or 2

Assuming Live Migration can occur, ALL servers must becovered, and no hardware partitioning allowed.

Without Live Migration one could partition the 4 cores i.e. 2 Processor licences.



You plan to run a 4-core virtual machine for Oracle DB SE (servers must have a maximum potential spec of 4 sockets)

Q.3: With VMWare, how many Named User Plus licences are required? (Assume a user community of 17 users).

A.3: 17. The NUP metric covers ANY NUMBER of servers.There are no per-server or per-cpu minima mandated for DB SE.

I call this the “Magic Combination”.

Consolidation and/or Customisation?

You may own ISV business applications that include Oracle Technology.

These technology rights are acquired through ASFU licences – Application Specific Full Use. The licences are limited to being used solely with the intellectual property of the specific business solution.

Similarly you may own Oracle eBusiness Suite licences, which provide Restricted Use rights on products such as DB EE and OAS EE.

Be aware that customising beyond the permitted scope of either of the above will require Full Use licences

Be aware that consolidation or refresh projects could lead to illegal mixes of the above being placed together with other instances in a single licensed environment. This is only possible when Full Use licences are obtained.

HOW IS ORACLE LICENCED ON THE CLOUD?

…… WHICH CLOUD?

Reviewing the different types of Cloud

• Subscription based;

• No conventional licences needed.

Oracle Cloud Services

Authorised Cloud

Environments

Hosting Providers

Managed Service

Providers

On Premise (Private Cloud)

Hybrid Cloud

• Published rules for AWS & Azure;

• Note: Amazon off subscription as well.

• Oracle licences are owned by the hoster, not the client;

• Proprietary Hosting = multiple client orgs;

• LASEU = one client org.

• Note: The hoster has to provide some Intellectual Property in the service.

• Beware!, MSP needs to provide each client with a unique Licensed Environment that mathches the licence entitlement

• H/W Partitioning and / or virtualisation principles will apply;

• Architect carefully!.

• No special considerations;

• Evaulate each deployment separately

Database 12C: Multitenant OptionDoes this help with cloud deployments?

Let’s start by thinking about the name “Multitenant”.

It can imply two different concepts:-

In a hosted cloud, it could mean truly multi-tenant in the sense of multiple client organisations

In all cases, it means a single installed database system providing the framework in which to run multiple, completely isolated database instances

Multitenant Option Benefits

Sweats the infrastructure assets to deliver more performance than a collection of multiple instances

Enables High Availability, Disaster Recovery and Backups to be managed at the Container Database level

Greatly facilitates moving or cloning of the Pluggable databases between Containers.

This really helps Oracle in running their Applications in the Cloud.But will it help you with your needs?

Multitenant Option Issues

Multitenant Option is no solution for the demise of the Generic Hosting model of licensing

Multitenant is an Option, and as we’d expect therefore applies only to DB EE. So no one should be planning to consolidate all their tiny SE/SE1 databases, it’s not going to happen.

What may confuse is that SE and SE1 do allow the choice of the Multitenant architecture, but only with ONE pluggable database present (no Option needed). So not very “multi” then.However this would help when switching to a new patch level or version, you can prepare the new Container DB (CDB) with the new software level, then quickly move or clone the Pluggable database (PDB).

The CDB is the thing associated with the software binaries, so the whole system will always be at a single version level (right down to the Patch level).

Do all your apps work on the same patch level of Oracle? If not their databases can’t co-reside under a single CDB.

Licensing is applied to the CDB level and so any Options used by any PDBswill be licensable for the whole infrastructure

Summary Oracle’s licensing principles take a less than intuitive position regarding

virtualised and “migrate-able” environments.

Today’s hardware is over-burdened with core-density that was unthinkable only a few years ago.

The key tool available to customers and managed service providers to retain control of licensed capacity is Oracle’s concept of hardware partitioning

On commodity x86 hardware, only Oracle VM for x86 and Solaris x86 are contenders for implementing hardware partitions, no matter how much customers tend to gravitate towards VMWare or Hyper-V

Always adopt my principle of Licensable Environment as your guiding light

Cloud requirements need to be scrutinised to establish the underlying context. In some cases special principles apply, but often the matter will be resolved into the virtualisation or partitioning arenas, and rules for those must be applied

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Oracle licensing on VMware, Cloud, Hyper V and other virtualised platforms

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Transcript of Oracle licensing on VMware, Cloud, Hyper V and other virtualised platforms