How Oracle Licensing Differs

The Oracle licensing model differs from most other commercial (not open source) software vendors in one main regard. There is no activation key or other instrument for making sure that a license has been purchased before the software can be put into use. Other software products require a product key, activation code, etc to make sure that the license has been purchased before the software functions. This key fact has led to many situations in which companies have over-deployed Oracle software. While I believe Oracle makes a technically excellent product, I have found their licensing mode frustrating to many customers. Installation of the software outside of a companies license agreement happens when DBA’s, developers, system administrators, etc happen most often when employees don’t understand what is allowed and what is not. I have heard of individuals assuming the company has a site license, think they don’t have to license non production servers, always install the enterprise edition of the database when they could get by with standard edition or lower, and many other situations to that evolve out of misunderstandings. Another common mistake is not understanding that certain features such as partitioning are not included in the base software license. When there are no activation codes required to install and deploy software, a company has to find other ways of controlling the software install base. Companies that are not used to this concept, do not have tight controls over development and deployment policies and personnel run the risk of being non-compliant with their Oracle software. Also, when database and system administrators are not knowledgeable about Oracle licensing terms and conditions, they can perform other tasks that take them out of compliance such as adding cpu’s to a system without purchasing additional licenses or allowing more users to connect to a system than are licensed. When this happens, at some point companies have to address their over-deployments – usually at the yearly maintenance renewal. When the yearly maintenance renewal come around management conducts an audit of their install base and finds more instances, cpu’s, or users than what they have licensing for. They are then obligated to purchase licenses to bridge the gap of what is installed and what is licensed. This discrepancy can lead to ugly situations in which budgets are blown, people are blamed, and restrictions are put into place that slows software development and deployments. Continue reading at: How Oracle Licensing Differs: Part 2.