Usually when you go up against Oracle it is a herculean effort, a David vs Goliath battle. By being prepared, even if you are the David, you can prevail. When it comes to Oracle licensing there is a lot of FUD as I have written about many times before. You need to read your contract very carefully and understand it and in most cases it is a good idea to get independent legal advice. The consequences of a configuration error or mistake can be very high. What is in the contract isn’t as interesting as what is not in the contract. There is no mention of virtualization, clustering (other than RAC), partitioning etc. There is actually nothing in the contract that prevents you from configuring a VM with just 2 vCPU’s and provided you can prove the software never used more than 2 vCPU’s, only licensing those 2 vCPU’s. But nobody has had the courage to configure just 2 vCPU’s for an Oracle system and pay only the license based on those 2 vCPU’s in a larger environment. They would have had the partitioning guide thrown at them (not contractural and not referred to in the contract, for education purposes only). That is until now!

Daniel Hesselink of License Consulting, a global licensing consulting business with HQ based in the Netherland, is putting his own money where his mouth is. He is taking on Oracle, or hassling Oracle as I put in the title. He recently wrote about an article where he has purchased a 2 vCPU VM in a VPS service and has installed a licensed version of Oracle on the system. As there is nothing against this in the contract, and he can prove he has only ever paid for 2 vCPU’s, there is no way Oracle can say that their software has run anywhere else. This could open up the flood gates of Oracle software in cloud environments. It would also allow for pay as you grow licensing across any hypervisor and any cloud.

So the question is, can you do the same thing? The answer depends on your contract and the wording you have signed up to. Each contract may be slightly different and contain custom wording. You should seek independent advice based on your individual circumstances. Maybe talk to Daniel as this is his business and he’s been doing it successfully for years. If you do decide to go down this road, and do it properly with proper documentation, operational process, audit controls etc,  I’d love to hear about your experience, I’m sure Daniel would too.

Final Word

It’s time to take the power and control back over your business and your use of Oracle software. By allowing a pay as you grow model across any cloud environment Oracle software usage would likely skyrocket. Few people have a problem with Oracle technology, most people have a problem with their licensing practices. Their use of their dominant market position to try and get customers on their platform by offering special privileges that are not allowed on other platforms. Only you as their customer can start to turn the tide. But you have to have the courage, the right advice, and the right processes in place to do it safely. You also have to be willing to stand up to Oracle during the inevitable audit when it arrives.

This post first appeared on the Long White Virtual Clouds blog at longwhiteclouds.com. By Michael Webster +. Copyright © 2012 – 2016 – IT Solutions 2000 Ltd and Michael Webster +. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced for commercial purposes without written permission.

Licensing databases in your datacenter is a complex task. Remaining compliant with the licensing agreement is also complex. You need to figure out what is fact (and legally binding), vs what is FUD or fiction (of no consequence to your contractual obligations). When it comes to Oracle this is a topic I have covered a lot in the past and you can find references to it on my Oracle Page here. I haven’t really covered other databases in the past as they are more clear cut and their licensing policies and vendor sales teams are usually much more honest and transparent. But Oracle is really the ISIS of your datacenter when it comes to software licensing and it’s time every customer and their vendors stood united. It’s time we all started to give them what they deserve, which is less of your money, or more specifically, only what you owe them and not a penny more. Nothing will change until customers demand change and vote with their wallet. So it’s good to see there are some new resources that you can use to help you in the fight against the licensing terrorists in your datacenter.

So what prompted this renewed angst against the global villain, axis of evil that is Oracle Licensing? My good friends Dave Welch (other articles by Dave are here) and House of Brick have recently published a white paper on licensing databases in a virtualized environment. Although the paper specifically targets VMware and EMC technology it is applicable to all environments. Nobody would argue that Oracle doesn’t have great technology, but universally their licensing practices make them more like mob bosses or terrorists (spreading licensing terror), than a technology company. How this happened and why it continues to persist is beyond comprehension.

Chad Sakac, President of VCE, has lamented this same problem in his article here. My experience is very similar to what Chad is describing. While we may not agree in some areas, where Oracle Licensing is concerned, we certainly do. Everyone that is running databases in their virtualized environment needs to read the House of Brick white paper. Let’s fight the FUD and eradicate the technology terrorist threat from our data centers.

This post first appeared on the Long White Virtual Clouds blog at longwhiteclouds.com. By Michael Webster +. Copyright © 2012 – 2016 – IT Solutions 2000 Ltd and Michael Webster +. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced for commercial purposes without written permission.

It appears those guys in Redwood City, California are up to their old tricks of trying to grab money from customers where no money is owed according to the contract. By now I thought we’d heard just about every strategy that Oracle has for expanding their pocket books at customers expense. But Oracle is a very innovative company, and not just with their software and other technology. This reminds me very much of the now infamous Oracle Parking Garage from my good friends at House of Brick, only on a much larger scale.

Firstly let me start by saying that customers must pay every dime that they owe Oracle in licensing for the software they use under the terms and conditions of the contract they have signed and agreed to. But not a penny more. This is time and again where the problem begins. Because a lot of people who deal with Oracle don’t know their contract.

Before we get into the new FUD, let us review some of the wording directly from the Oracle OLSA. This is the contract that you sign with Oracle that sets out all the various obligations and agreements, and it’s legally binding on you and Oracle. There are various versions that have changed over the years, and you may have some custom wording. Some called OLSA, some called TOMA. There is this public one from a customer you can read. There is also this one on the Oracle web site. You can find more on House of Bricks blog article MANAGING ORACLE LICENSING IN A SHARED STORAGE ENVIRONMENT. By and large they are similar (you should always check your actual version) and we will discuss two very important provisions that trip a lot of people up.

Firstly I’d like to draw your attention to Section L. Entire Agreement. The section reads as follows: “You agree that this agreement and the information which is incorporated into this agreement by written reference (including reference to information contained in a URL or referenced policy), together with the applicable order, are the complete agreement for the programs and/or services ordered by you, and that this agreement supersedes all prior or contemporaneous agreements or representations, written or oral, regarding such programs and/or services. If any term of this agreement is found to be invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions will remain effective. It is expressly agreed that the terms of this agreement and any Oracle ordering document shall supersede the terms in any purchase order or other non-Oracle ordering document and no terms included in any such purchase order or other non-Oracle ordering document shall apply to the programs and/or services ordered. This agreement and ordering documents may not be modified and the rights and restrictions may not be altered or waived except in a writing signed or accepted online through the Oracle Store by authorized representatives of you and of Oracle. Any notice required under this agreement shall be provided to the other party in writing.”

This is fairly straight forward. You are agreeing that this document is the only document that matters. Well this document and only those other documents that are explicitly referenced or referred to. It supersedes any prior agreement both verbal and written. Furthermore nothing else can vary the terms or conditions except another document agreed to and signed by both you and Oracle. These are all very important points.  If something isn’t in this contract or the documents it refers to, it has not force or consequence at all. Somebody from Oracle simply telling you something is a certain way holds no weight whatsoever, unless it is contained in your contract. So whenever you are informed of an Oracle Policy, you should simply ask where is that included in your contract.

Next lets look at the definition of Processor from the OLSA. This is usually how most environments are licensed, or at least the ones that matter when it comes to the FUD I will get to in a moment. A Processor, as set out in the OLSA is defined as “all processors where the Oracle programs are installed and/or running. Programs licensed on a Processor basis may be accessed by your internal users (including agents and contractors) and by third party users…” It does go on a bit more, but this is the main point. There is a core factor table that you need to refer to in order to calculate the number of processors on multi-core chips. So you must license all processors where Oracle software IS installed and/or running. Not where it might be at some point in the future. Only where it is installed and/or running. So this covers any system in the past where it may have already been running, because at that point it was installed and/or running there. But this does not include any processor where Oracle software does not or will not be installed and/or running.

So what is the new FUD? Well it’s kind of similar to the Oracle Parking Garage referred to in my introduction. This is where the driver of the car in this case, is asked to pay for every parking space in the building, because they could have parked anywhere. However now Oracle would want that same driver to pay for every parking space in the city, in the state, in the country, in the world, or even in the galaxy. Because the driver could have parked their car anywhere, or migrated their car anywhere.

Now you probably think this sounds completely preposterous and absurd, which it is. Oracle is using this tactic to say to customers that they must license every processor of every server, in every datacenter, that is connected to a network, and running VMware vSphere 6 software. Because Oracle software could be running on it, or that Oracle software could be live migrated to it. This is because with VMware vSphere 6 you can now live migrate with vMotion across different vCenters. This is an expansion of the old FUD they used to try, which is customers should license every host in a vCenter. This is of course nonsense as the contract quite clearly says that a processor is defined as where the Oracle software is installed and/or running, not where it might be or could be.

But wait, there’s more, like all good late night infomercials. Because this new functionality opens the door so wide, you can technically live migrate a workload with vMotion to a cloud provider, across states, or across continents with the right network configuration. So this now means Oracle might try and tell you to license every processor of every host in every datacenter connected to the Internet.  At least every cloud provider that runs vSphere 6.0. If you’re a cloud provider all your customers might have to license all processors in your cloud and you would have to license all of them as well. This is completely ridiculous and I am at a loss to understand how any Oracle customer could believe this to be the case. But that doesn’t stop them trying it on.

So what do you do? You fight back. Maybe with some Jedi mind control tricks, in this case, questions, answered by Oracle in writing preferably.

“Is the contract that we have signed for Oracle Software Legally Binding on both of us?“
“Does the contract supersede all prior agreements both verbal and written?“
“Can the contract be modified or altered in any way, other than in writing, and being agreed to and signed by both of our authorized representatives?“
“Does the contract form the complete agreement?“
“Where in the contract does it state we must license processors that are not running Oracle software?“
“Where in the contract does it state anything with regards to Hypervisor, VMware, vCenter, Cluster, Live Migration or vMotion?“

After you get your answers to these questions in writing and Oracle admits that you don’t owe them a dime more in licensing for any servers that do not and have not run Oracle software, go on about your daily business. You are now assured that there is no way Oracle can charge you for anything more than what you’re actually using. They can’t charge you a penny more for licenses other than where Oracle software is installed and/or running. There is no mention of Hypervisor, VMware, vCenter, Cluster (except referring to Oracle RAC), Live Migration or vMotion anywhere in your OLSA contract. So that simply can’t be applicable to you, as clearly, the contract and it’s explicitly referred to documents, are all that matter.

Final Word

I’ve been helping customers now for more than a decade ensure they pay for what they use and aren’t over charged.  The amount of money involved (between customers and their software vendors) if we added up all the deals over this time, goes well into the billions with a B. The amount of savings achieved by doing simple things, like asking the right questions, having proper procedures (configuration, management, auditing) documented, designing with licensing requirements in mind etc, has saved in the billions in total as well. So if this article, or any of the other ones has helped you, please post a comment and let me know. I’d like it if everyone just paid for what they owed and didn’t get extorted in the process of licensing and using their software.

The fight is between you and your software vendor, in this case, you and Oracle. Nobody else is a party to the contract or legally bound by it. But by doing some simple things, like reading your contract from cover to cover, and applying some common sense, you can avoid license compliance issues, and avoid paying more than you need. Get your own legal advice, get it early. Check out my Oracle Page for many more entertaining stories about Oracle FUD, Design Tips, Performance Best Practices and more.

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This post first appeared on the Long White Virtual Clouds blog at longwhiteclouds.com. By Michael Webster +. Copyright © 2012 – 2015 – IT Solutions 2000 Ltd and Michael Webster +. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced for commercial purposes without written permission.

I have written about the Oracle FUD when it comes to virtualized environments quite a bit before. Now it appears there is some new FUD circulating that might catch out unsuspecting customers. There is a new Phantom Menace from Oracle. This time it is to do with their interpretation of some new capabilities in VMware vSphere 5.1 and above. As with all the previous FUD it is very easy to combat. You simply and calmly ask your Oracle representative to show you the page in your contact, which is the legally binding and enforceable document that replaces all prior verbal and written agreement, where this new policy exists. It simply does not exist (unless you’ve been suckered into accepting some non-standard wording to your disadvantage). So what is this new FUD? Let’s take a look.

This only applies to per processor based licensing, if you are not using per processor based licensing this isn’t relevant for you, although named user plus in some contracts has a minimum number of users that must be licensed per processor. It is best to check the actual wording of your contact as it may differ from others including the publicly available Oracle contact here. Tobias reported the FUD in my articles titled Fight the FUD – Oracle Licensing and Support on VMware vSphere and Return of the FUD – Oracle Licensing on VMware vSphere. It refers to an post on the VMware Communities site here. But let me summarise this for you.

Oracle is trying to suggest that because in vSphere 5.1 and above you can migrate VM’s across hosts without a requirement for shared storage that you must license all hosts visible to a vCenter, where any host(s) are running Oracle software. So they’re trying to say you have to license hosts in the same vCenter, even if they don’t have Oracle software running on them, and regardless if they share storage or not. This is just as ridiculous as Oracle trying to say that you have to license every host that is connected to the same shared storage platform if one of the hosts connected to said platform has Oracle running on it (this has been tried before). Both are a pure fiction and do not appear as a requirement of a customer contract, unless there is some custom wording in the contract that has managed to get past the legal and procurement department of a customers organisation without them noticing.

Standard Oracle contracts require that customers license all processors where Oracle is installed and/or running. Not where it might at some time in the future be installed and/or running. This is also spelled out in the Oracle Software Investment Guide. You must license every host that runs Oracle software, it’s that simple. If you migrate Oracle software to a new host, you must have a license for that host. But if Oracle software will never run on a particular host, you do not have to license it. The actual wording from the contract linked above says the following: “Processor: shall be defined as all processors where the Oracle programs are installed and/or running.”  You do not have to license any processors or hosts where Oracle software is not running. It’s that simple. End of story.

The SIG also includes wording that may be similar to the following: This document is for educational purposes only and provides guidelines regarding policies in effect as of <some date>. It may not be incorporated into any contract and does not constitute a contract or a commitment to any specific terms. Policies and this document are subject to change without notice. Therefore it is not part of your contract. The only documents that form part of your contract are those documents included in and referred to as part of your contract. Such as those referred to from the various links on the Oracle Contracts Page.

The wording in a customers contract also includes a statement to the effect that the contract, once duly signed by both parties, replaces all prior agreements both verbal and written. Therefore it is the sole source of truth as to what a customer is required to do, and is legally binding and enforceable. So if an Oracle Rep says something such as you must license every host in your environment or that is connected to the same storage, even if Oracle software isn’t running and will never run on said host, then simply calmly ask them where it says that in your contract. Ask them to point out the page and paragraph where it says that.  If there is no such page or paragraph in your contract then you have you answer. The requirement does not exist. The actual wording in the contract from section L is as follows:

“L. Entire Agreement

If you don’t have ready access to an Oracle OLSA agreement here are two publicly available versions you can refer to and become familiar with, note your individual contract wording may differ. November 2011 – City of Oceanside, December 2012 and this standard version from the Oracle web site (also linked to above).

Final Word

It is up to you to understand the contracts and legal obligations that you have. You should check all license agreements with your legal teams. You should not accept at face value any arbitrary statement from an Oracle Rep unless it is backed up by your signed contract. You should ask Oracle where in your contract you have agreed and are bound by what they are saying. It is the only document that matters, it is the source of truth, it replaces all prior agreements both verbal and written, and is legally binding and enforceable (once signed by both parties). Fight the FUD!

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This post first appeared on the Long White Virtual Clouds blog at longwhiteclouds.com. By Michael Webster +. Copyright © 2012 – 2014 – IT Solutions 2000 Ltd and Michael Webster +. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced for commercial purposes without written permission.

I’ve written quite a bit about Oracle virtualization in the past, as you can find on my Oracle Page. Now that I’m working with Nutanix I thought it was time to write about the topic of Oracle Licensing and Support on the Nutanix Virtual Computing Platform. This article will take you through the highlights that you need to know. Keep an eye out on the Nutanix Product Information page for the Tech Notes and Best Practice Guides for Oracle, SAP and other applications.

The licensing and support position for Oracle running on the Nutanix platform with VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V is the same as any other platform running these supported hypervisors and Oracle supported guest operating systems. Both hypervisors are supported from their respective vendors, and both are also supported by Oracle (MOS Note 249212.1 – VMware vSphere, 1563794.1 – Microsoft Hyper-V). However with the Nutanix Virtual Computing platform you have the option of calling Nutanix support for both the hypervisor and the underlying hardware platform, and as a member of TSA Net (http://www.tsanet.org/) Nutanix can also work with Oracle and your chosen hypervisor vendor on support cases.

From a licensing perspective, information on Oracle licensing policy can be found in Oracle’s Software Investment Guide and many details are included on my Oracle Page. Ultimately the source of truth is your executed and binding legal contract, referred to commonly as the OLSA or TOMA (see http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/contracts/index.html).  There are a number of different licensing models, including Named User Plus, per Processor, OEM and various enterprise license agreements. When it comes to the Nutanix Virtual Computing Platform it is important to know that when using per Processor based licensing, the smallest unit that can be licensed is a single Nutanix node. You are not able to partition a single Nutanix node into smaller units for licensing purposes, as both Hyper-V and vSphere are considered soft-partitioned platforms (see http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/pricing/partitioning-070609.pdf and Fight the FUD – Oracle Licensing and Support on VMware vSphere). You are not required to license an entire Nutanix block, or cluster (Nutanix cluster or hypervisor cluster), if not all nodes will run Oracle software. Don’t get sub-cluster containment (keeping VM’s restricted to a small number of hosts in a big cluster) confused with partitioning, as they are completely different. You can use hypervisor clusters, or cluster rules to restrict where Oracle software can run, and therefore restrict how many nodes of a large cluster must be licensed. You must however ensure you are appropriately licensed for every and all Nutanix nodes where Oracle software is run. You should also put measures in place to reduce the risk of configuration error that could result in license compliance issues.

Note: Given the complexity of software licensing and the potential impact of becoming out of compliance, I recommend that you obtain appropriate independent legal advice on your license agreements when considering any platform change.

Additional Oracle Support and Licensing Resources:

o   Understanding Oracle Certification, Support and Licensing on VMware Environments

• https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/whitepaper/solutions/oracle/understanding_oracle_certification_support_licensing_vmware_environments-white-paper.pdf

o   VMware Expanded Oracle Support Policy

• https://www.vmware.com/support/policies/oracle-support

o   Oracle and Microsoft Support

• https://blogs.oracle.com/cloud/entry/oracle_and_microsoft_join_forces

Final Word

Make sure you know your license compliance position prior to virtualizing your Oracle Databases and put measures in place to ensure that you stay in compliance without any nasty surprises. You can successfully virtualize Oracle and optimize your return on investment by getting higher utilization and avoiding unnecessary additional license purchases. But as with virtualizing any business critical applications it needs to be done with care and due attention paid to the important details, which includes licensing, not just the technology.

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This post appeared on the Long White Virtual Clouds blog at longwhiteclouds.com, by Michael Webster +. Copyright © 2014 – IT Solutions 2000 Ltd and Michael Webster +. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced for commercial purposes without written permission.

In my original article on the FUD around Oracle Licensing and Support titled Fight the FUD – Oracle Licensing and Support on VMware vSphere I discussed the Oracle Partitioning Guide and it’s relevance to VMware environments. I provided a link directly to the document on the Oracle web site so that you could all read directly from the source. What I didn’t highlight in my article at the time was that Oracle constantly updates that document without notice and without changing file name or version numbers. My records indicate that it’s been changed three times in the past 3 years. Why is this important? Read on to find out.

FUD #6 – Oracle Partitioning Guide Now Covers VMware Clusters

The Partitioning Guide has been updated on the following dates as far as I’ve been tracking – January 2011, December 2011 and September 2012. Each time subtle changes have been made and unless you were paying attention they would be hard to catch. Is this a big deal? Well no it’s not, and I’ll explain why, but first a word on how Oracle Sales Reps are using this new revision.

Your Oracle Account Manager may try and use the latest version to try and convince you that you need to license an entire VMware cluster, even if you are not installing or running Oracle on all the hosts of said cluster . Why? Because the document now contains the word ‘cluster’. However the word ‘cluster’ is not defined. This document is still completely irrelevant. Why is it irrelevant? Because this document is for educational purposes only and does not appear in your OLSA, which is the legally binding contract that you’ve signed with Oracle. Only the documents referenced at The Oracle License and Service Agreement Page are included in your OLSA, the Partitioning Guide is not one of the documents listed or referenced. Provided you following the terms of your contract, which is also outlined in the Oracle Software Investment Guide (another educational only document), then you will be licensed for all hosts where Oracle is installed and/or running.That is all you are required to do.

The OLSA does not say you must license every host where Oracle might possibly at some point in the future be installed and/or run, else you would have to license every host in your datacenter. Do you need to license all hosts connected into every SAN where Oracle is installed and/or run? NO! You must license the hosts were Oracle IS installed and/or run. As soon as a VM comes onto an unlicensed host, or Oracle is installed and/or run on an unlicensed host, then you must license that host, end of story.

Remember that your OLSA contract, which is legally binding and is executed by you and Oracle, is the only document that matters. It replaces all prior agreements both verbal and written. It is the only authoritative source that you need to reference when architecting your environments. Provided you license complete hosts then you have nothing to fear (baring configuration errors) and can proceed with confidence. Once a complete host or hosts is/are licensed you can run an unlimited number of Oracle VM’s on them provided you have sufficient physical capacity.

The only scenario where you can have an unlicensed host in the cluster and make use of it for Oracle is where you are using a dedicated host for failure, and you only use this host for failure events, which will leverage the 10 day rule. If you want to use a dedicated host for failure you must select this in the VMware HA Admission Control settings specifically. This is instead of using a number of hosts for failure or a percentage for admission control. The tradeoff is that this dedicated failure host can’t be used to run VM’s during normal operations. This is a small tradeoff in some environments when you consider the cost of software licenses, but you should also consider how many databases you can run per server and the license efficiency gains of that alone when you are choosing your admission control and cluster designs. For example instead of having a dedicated failover host have one less host but use all resources all of the time and take a potential performance hit during maintenance and failure, while benefitting from using all the capacity during normal operations (most of the time). The right decision will depend on your environment.

Making License Compliance Easier and More Visible in VMware Environments

The same company I wrote about in my article DBA’s Don’t Lose Sight Of Your Databases When You Virtualize Oracle, i.e. Blue Medora is not just providing great insights into Virtual Infrastructure Performance in Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c but is now also looking to provide ongoing License Compliance in VMware vSphere environments when running virtualized Oracle databases by way of an Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c Licensing Compliance Plug-in also. This aim of this plug-in is to greatly simplify running Oracle on VMware when it comes to license compliance and remaining compliant. It aims to provide both proactive and reactive mechanisms to prevent Oracle license compliance issues and will include support for sub-cluster configurations, as per FUD #1, #5 and #6 (above).

The main capabilities of the plug-in, which is in beta now, are as follows:

• Reduces the risk of overdeploying Oracle licenses within VMware Clusters via real-time metric, pro-active alerting, and a historical audit trail of Oracle workload placement within VMware
• Mapping of virtualized Oracle workloads to the physical VMware ESXi hosts that have been licensed for Oracle use
• Detection, alerting, and remediation recommendations for vMotion and DRS Host Affinity related configuration issues that could allow a Oracle workload to move to a non-Oracle licensed ESXi host
• Provide suggestions for improved license optimization of VMware virtualized Oracle workloads

If you are interested in getting onto the beta then you can sign up at the plugin page. If you want to compare this to other tools you can also check out iQuate IQSonar. iQuate doesn’t integrate with Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c like the Blue Medora plug-in does, but it is an Oracle LMS Validated Tool for license compliance. I’m sure that the Blue Medora tool will also go through Oracle LMS validation at the appropriate time and it would be worth while checking it out and providing feedback.

Final Word

Oracle presents a constant stream FUD that is great inspiration for articles on the topic of licensing and support. A lot of the Oracle Account Managers believe what they’re telling you. Like in my previous article Fight the FUD: Virtualization of Oracle Evolves to Best Practice for Production Systems by David Floyer, where the Oracle Account Manger told me Oracle would enforce their policies at any cost even if they’re not in the contract. It is up to all of us to keep them honest and to fight the FUD. Keep up the good fight!

[Updated 16/07/2015] If you want to listen a highly authoritative webinar from leading industry authorities on this topic I would recommend you check out Straight Talk On Oracle On VMware Licensing.

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This post first appeared on the Long White Virtual Clouds blog at longwhiteclouds.com, by Michael Webster +. Copyright © 2013 – IT Solutions 2000 Ltd and Michael Webster +. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced for commercial purposes without written permission.

I keep hearing stories from Customers and Prospects where Oracle appears to be trying to deceive them for the purposes of extorting more license money from them than they are legally required to pay. I also keep hearing stories of Oracle telling them they would not be supported if they virtualized their Oracle systems on VMware vSphere. This has gone on now for far too long and it’s time to fight back and stop the FUD!

In my opinion the best way for you to prevent this situation for your company is by knowing the right questions to ask, and by knowing what your obligations are. The aim for this article is to give you the tools to pay only what you legally owe, while making the most efficient and economic use of your licenses, and get the world class support that you are used to, even in a virtualized environment on VMware vSphere. All without sacrificing availability or performance.

I’m going to start this article by quoting Dave Welch, CTO, House of Brick – “I believe in paying every penny I owe. However, beyond that, it is my discretion to who or what I donate and in what amount. I have no patience with individuals or entities that premeditate the creation of OLSA compliance issues.  I similarly have no patience with the knowing spreading of FUD by some professionals in what could be construed as extortion of funds beyond customers’ executed contractual obligations. I will continue to vigorously promote and defend the legal rights of both software vendors and their customers even if that means I induce accelerated hair loss through rapid, frequent hat swapping.” Source Jeff Browning‘s EMC Communities article – Comments by Dave Welch of House of Brick on Oracle on VMware Licensing.

I agree with Dave on this. So I am going to show you how you can pay what you owe, while using what you pay for as efficiently and cost effectively as possible, and show you how you can still enjoy the full support you are entitled to. Without the scaremongering that sometimes accompanies discussions with Oracle Sales Reps.

For those that aren’t familiar with the term FUD, it is an acronym which stands for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. Something some companies and professionals seem to go to great lengths to create in the minds of customers.

FUD #1 – Oracle Licensing and Soft Partitioning

Oracle’s Server/Hardware Partitioning document outlines the different types of partitioning and how they impact licensing. Oracle may try and tell you that licensing a VMware environment will be more expensive as they don’t consider VMware Hard Partitioning. This is complete rubbish. This assertion is completely irrelevant unless you were only planning on deploying a single small database on a very small subset of a very large server. In this case you probably wouldn’t be using Enterprise Edition and may not be paying per CPU Core (Named User Plus instead). Why would you deploy such a system when you could easily purchase a server that is the right size for the job and licensed appropriately for the job? There is absolutely no requirement to run Oracle Enterprise Edition just because you are virtualizing your databases.

There is absolutely no increase in licensing costs over and above what you would have to pay for the same physical infrastructure to run your Oracle Database if you were running it in the OS without virtualization. You still have to pay what you owe, for what you use. The truth is that your costs could actually be significantly less when virtualizing on VMware vSphere as you can get more productive work done for the same amount of physical hardware, and therefore the license requirements and your costs will be significantly less. This is because you can run multiple Oracle databases on the same server and effectively share the resources, including memory, provided you take care during your design to ensure any undesirable performance impacts are avoided.  Take this image for example showing consolidating two dissimilar workloads on the same hardware (Source: VMware).

Even if you only want to deploy a single database server you are significantly better off if you right size the host server and VM and deploy it isolated out of a cluster, but still virtualized, even if it is the only VM on the host. This will allow you to still take advantage of many of the benefits of virtualization, such as significantly easier disaster recovery due to the complete hardware independence, better monitoring via your existing virtualization monitoring tools, the ability to run unlimited number of database VM’s on the fully licensed host server. If you want high availability and non-disruptive maintenance and upgrades then you just need to add a second fully licensed host server. You can still make use of all the resources of both servers.

I discussed in my article Oracle RAC 11g R2 Standard Edition on vSphere how you could deploy up to 4 VMware vSphere hosts with a single CPU socket each to run an unlimited number of Oracle Standard Edition Databases, including Oracle RAC. This is an incredibly cost effective solution, especially as Oracle Standard Edition is not memory limited, and is licensed by processor up to a maximum of 4 sockets per host, but unlimited cores. You still pay per core, but significantly less. You should make yourself familiar with the different Oracle Database Editions and their limitations.  When you virtualize on vSphere because you get HA you may be able to downgrade some Oracle Enterprise Edition licenses to Standard Edition and potentially make a significant saving, at least in maintenance costs. You also gain effective resource isolation capabilities without having to use Oracle Database Enterprise Edition. Remember what I said before, there is no requirement to run Enterprise Edition when you virtualize your databases, you can run any of the editions provided you deploy them within the license and technical restrictions. In all cases you must ensure that all processors are licensed for Standard Edition in compliance with the OLSA and Software Investment Guide.

If you are using Oracle Database Enterprise Edition there is an opportunity to save significant amounts of money if you are migrating from traditional Unix platforms to Linux or Windows running on VMware vSphere. This is due to the way that Oracle calculates the CPU Core License Factor. The Intel CPU’s have a Core License Factor of 0.5 compared with some of the higher end traditional Unix platforms Core License Factor of 1.0. This means you need half as many licenses to cover the same number of of Intel CPU Cores as you have in your traditional Unix platform. Oracle may say that’s because the Intel systems are inferior and don’t perform. However based on my experience modern x86-64 hardware will outperform most of their Unix counterparts. In some cases you can achieve up to 5x the performance compared to a traditional Unix system when utilizing the same amount of licensed hardware (One of my customers did). Not that the new SPARC T4 Processor now has a 0.5 core factor, the same as an Intel Xeon CPU. I take this to mean Oracle recognises the power of the Xeon chips, but one key thing to note is that the SPARC T4 is over twice the price per core as the Intel Xeon counter parts.

The real hard dollar licensing savings here will come into play when re-negotiating maintenance if you already own all the perpetual licenses you need. It will also come into play if you expand the environment as you will be able to avoid purchasing any additional licenses, seeing as you have spare licenses after the switch to the x86-64 platform.  If you are in a position where you need to expand the environment and you’re on a traditional Unix, now might be the perfect time to make the switch and put the additional license money into the cost of the migration project instead. I have outlined in a previous article what I think are the Top 10 Reasons to Migrate Oracle Databases from Traditional Unix to Linux on vSphere. License Maintenance costs are not the only cost savings by switching to x86-64 from traditional Unix, you may also save significant amounts of power, cooling, data center floor space and hardware maintenance costs. In one of my recent projects the 15 months of the cost of the traditional Unix platform hardware maintenance paid for the entire project costs to switch, services, software and hardware.

If you have an uncapped ELA (ULA in Oracle Terms – Unlimited License Agreement) you can deploy the database software wherever you like the whole discussion about soft or hard partitioning, or the number of cores, is completely irrelevant. You should deploy as many databases as possible and make the best use of your software entitlement. This will come into play quite strongly with my next FUD item below. Be careful to only use the features you are licensed for however, so you don’t get any nasty surprises come audit or ELA/ULA renewal time (provided your use is within your OLSA agreement).

FUD #2 – Oracle Sub Cluster Licensing is Not Possible

Still on the licensing topic, but this area of FUD comes into play when you want to only license a subset of hosts that make up part of a large cluster for use by Oracle. Contrary to what many might believe or try and tell you it is fairly easy to deploy and license a subset of a larger VMware vSphere Cluster. It is also perfectly acceptable under the Oracle Software License Agreement, provided you can prove that the Oracle binaries have only been executed/run on the systems that make up the subset of the cluster. Now just because you can do this doesn’t necessarily mean I would recommend it and after I explain how you can do it I’ll tell you why in many cases this might not be a good idea, and it has largely nothing to do with licensing.

If you don’t have a copy of your signed and executed Oracle License and Services Agreement (OLSA) you should get one and read it thoroughly. You should also become familiar with the Oracle Software Investment Guide and the Oracle Licensing Data Recovery Environments Guide, which is an extract from the Software Investment Guide. I would advise that you get a copy of the Software License Investment Guide and Licensing Data Recovery Environments Guide that was valid at the date you signed your Oracle Software License Agreement. This will ensure you know what the policy that applied to you at the date you signed the agreement.

Before we even get into the mechanics of this you won’t have to even worry about this if you have an uncapped ELA or ULA. If you have an uncapped ELA or ULA you can run your databases anywhere and everywhere, and it’s in your best interests to do so as it will mean come true-up or renewal time all your clusters will be covered and fully licensed (dependant on the wording of your specific OLSA). The following will only be a concern if you are licensed with a capped or limited license agreement, or you do not have an ULA. If Oracle tries to use this as an objection for virtualizing on VMware vSphere just ask them this: “Why is sub cluster licensing even a relevant reason not to virtualize given we have an uncapped ELA or ULA?”  One of my customers asked Oracle this and Oracle agreed it wasn’t relevant. The same applies if you are licensed under Named User Plus.

The following is an extract from Dave Welch’s comments with regard to the Oracle Software License Agreement and Oracle Software License Investment Guide with regard to processor based licensing:

• “Customers must license all physical cores or sockets on a host where Oracle executables are “installed and/or running” (with physical cores factored per Oracle’s published Core Factor Table, and potentially subject to the so-called 10-day rule [whose terms became more restrictive sometime during 2007]). Notice the tense. Oracle customers are contractually obligated for licensing the physical servers where the Oracle executables are and have been, not where they might go. To imply otherwise without explicit contractual inducement would not be unlike concluding that I am legally obligated to purchase transportation to or obtain a visa for destinations that I clearly have the capability of visiting but where I have neither ever been nor yet made a determination to even visit.”
• “Furthermore, customers must pay a license to cover the use of remote mirroring at the storage unit or shared disk array layer to transmit Oracle executables to a SAN whether or not that set of Oracle executables is “installed and/or running” on any physical host connected to the SAN.”

So you can tell from the above you must be able to prove where the binaries are installed and/or running or where they have been installed and/or running. Regardless if the mechanism is manual or automatic. I strongly recommend that you read the Certification of an Oracle ULA Agreement (or: Need to defuse a time bomb) article posted on the License Consulting blog. It will give you some insight into the Oracle Audit and Certification process and some really big traps you need to try and avoid.

I will discuss both manual and automated ways of ensuring license compliance, but first lets contemplate for a moment a situation in an unvirtualized environment where you’ve taken a snapshot of a production systems LUN’s and presented them to another system. Both the production system and the new system must be fully licensed. This is fine, and you would know which systems the binaries are installed and/or running on as you have had to go to a lot of effort to snapshot the LUN’s and present them. This changes a bit when you are running in a large cluster.

License Isolation Method #1 – Storage Zoning / Masking to a Subset of Cluster Hosts

VMware Best Practices recommend that you present all LUNs to every host within a cluster. Under normal circumstances this makes perfect sense and is definitely the best option. However if you wanted to license a subset of the cluster for Oracle you might choose to zone and mask the Oracle LUN’s/Datastores to only the hosts within the cluster that will run Oracle. This will prevent the virtual machines without some further manual actions to run on any other hosts within the cluster. You can still have DRS enabled in fully automated mode and it can happily migrate the Oracle VM’s around the hosts that are licensed and zoned/masked to the storage. This has an advantage of being fairly easy to administer and manage. This still allows the use of Maintenance Mode and VMware HA. One of the major downsides here is you could easily reach the maximum number of LUNs per Host if your databases consume multiple LUNs and the rest of the non-Oracle VM LUNs are also zoned/masked to the Oracle Hosts. If those non-Oracle LUNs are not zoned or masked to the Oracle hosts then I’d question why you aren’t choosing method 4 below.

License Isolation Method #2 – DRS Set to Manual or Disabled for Oracle VM’s

This method will allow you to run all the hosts in a DRS cluster fully automated while restricting the movement of the Oracle VM’s. Administrators would have to manually move the VM’s, which would add administrative and management overheads. License compliance would be maintained provided the administrators only moved the VM’s to licensed hosts. You would need vMotion logs or an audit trail to prove which systems the Oracle software were/are installed and/or running. You may need to disable these VM’s from VMware HA to ensure there was no possibility of the Oracle software being installed and/or running on an unlicensed host. Given the chances of error and the difficulty introduced in managing the cluster this method is not recommended, even though it will meet the license conditions provided it is configured and administered correctly. Suffers from the same limitation as method 1 with regard to likelihood of reaching max number of LUNs per host.

License Isolation Method #3 – DRS Host Groups

This method allows you to ensure the Oracle VM’s are only installed and/or running on a subset of the hosts within a cluster without any special storage configuration and also with the DRS cluster remaining fully automatic when used in combination with DRS Must Rules. This is fairly easy to administer and allows for the use of maintenance mode and VMware HA. You can use the advanced option ForceAffinePoweron to ensure the VM’s will only be restarted by HA on a fully licensed host when there is a host failure. You will need vMotion Logs, or an audit trial of some sort to be able to prove where the Oracle software was/is installed and/or running. Suffers from the same limitation as method 1 with regard to likelihood of reaching max number of LUNs per host. There was a video recorded with Richard Garsthagen of Oracle on VMworld TV during VMworld US 2012. The video can be viewed in this article on the License Consulting Blog – VMworld – Richard Garsthagen (Oracle) on licensing VMware / virtualized environments.

License Isolation Method #4 – Dedicated Oracle Cluster

While not technically a way of deploying a sub cluster of hosts for Oracle inside of a larger cluster this is often my preferred method of deployment. The main reason this is generally my preferred deployment method is because of it’s simplicity. Other reasons include:

• You know the VM’s will only be running within this cluster, so you can license the whole cluster and be done with it.
• You can ensure you make optimal use of your licensed hardware without any non-Oracle VM’s consuming valuable infrastructure that is licensed for use by Oracle.
• This allows an easier isolation of resources, as you will not have any non-Oracle VM’s consuming resources as would be the case with method 1, 2 and 3.
• You can run a different consolidation or overcommitment ratio for the Oracle Cluster, which you might want to do for availability and performance reasons.
• You can right size the infrastructure for your exact Oracle requirements (smaller or larger hosts and NUMA node sizes).
• No complicated settings for VMware HA and no risk of a VM restarting on an unlicensed host in the case of a host failure.
• Much easier from an audit and compliance perspective.
• Less likely to reach the limit of the maximum number of LUNs per Host compared to method 1, 2 or 3.
• Much lower likelihood of human error causing a licensing compliance issue.

With a properly designed dedicated cluster for Oracle you can make efficient and optimal use of your physical licensed hardware while still allowing maintenance and failure capacity. I disagree that this is significantly harder to manage than having a subset of hosts in a larger cluster. I actually argue that this is far more efficient to manage, especially given the need to ensure license compliance and the financial consequences of getting it wrong and the much lower likelihood of human error. Even if your dedicated cluster has only 2 or 3 hosts it still has a number of benefits. Probably one of the most significant benefits is the reduced likelihood of reaching the maximum number of LUNs per host. If you are running a big Oracle environment this is a very real possibility especially if your databases demand maximum performance and are therefore configured with multiple LUNs each.

Audit and Compliance Made Easy

Although vMotion Logs may be an acceptable way to provide proof of where Oracle software was/is installed and/or running my preferred method would be to use vCenter Configuration Manager (vCM). vCM is a tool that is purpose built to ensure audit and compliance and configuration management. It will track every modification to configuration items including vMotion Migrations. It is also used to ensure regulatory compliance with standards such as HIPPA, SOX, PCI DSS, DISA STIG and others. vCM is accredited as a SCAP 1.0 tool. It is relatively easy to get up and running and produces all the necessary reports once it has been configured. It can be purchased in isolation or as part of the vCenter Operations Enterprise or Enterprise Plus Edition Suites. vCM is not limited to compliance of virtual machines and VMware environments, it also supports physical systems, including workstations and traditional Unix systems. I would strongly recommend you consider this given the direct integration with the VMware vSphere environment and the tremendous value it can add to your entire virtual and physical infrastructures.

If you didn’t want to use vCM you may want to consider another tool such as SPLUNK, which allows for secure storage of log records and easy visualization of those logs.

FUD #3 – Oracle is NOT Certified to Run on VMware vSphere

This isn’t FUD, it’s true. Oracle isn’t certified to run on VMware vSphere. This is because Oracle does not certify below the Operating Systems. So your system isn’t certified to run on Dell, HP, or IBM hardware either. Oracle instead certifies the operating systems that run their software. So provided you are running a fully certified and supported version of the OS then you are covered. This is because VMware does not modify the OS. This topic is covered in the Understanding Oracle Certification, Support and Licensing for VMware Environments white paper published by VMware.

FUD #4 – Oracle Does NOT Support Running on VMware vSphere

Is Oracle trying to tell you that if you virtualize on VMware vSphere that you won’t get support? Are they saying that they will fail to meet their contractual obligations and support the software that you’ve potentially paid millions of dollars for? That although your running on a certified and supported OS, that because you’ve changed the underlying hardware that they won’t support you any longer? Or are they just saying you will have to move your databases back to physical if there is a support problem?

I’ve heard all of the above, and still do sometimes. It’s very surprising given that Oracle has been supported on VMware since 2007 and Oracle RAC 11g R2 (11.2.0.2) has been supported on VMware vSphere 4 and above since November 2010. Oracle has a very explicit support statement when it comes to operating in a VMware environment. The support statement is covered in Metalink 249212.1 and an extract is below:

“Support Status for VMware Virtualized Environments
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Oracle has not certified any of its products on VMware virtualized environments. Oracle Support will assist customers running Oracle products on VMware in the following manner: Oracle will only provide support for issues that either are known to occur on the native OS, or an be demonstrated not to be as a result of running on VMware.
 
If a problem is a known Oracle issue, Oracle support will recommend the appropriate solution on the native OS.  If that solution does not work in the VMware virtualized environment, the customer will be referred to VMware for support.   When the customer can demonstrate that the Oracle solution does not work when running on the native OS, Oracle will resume support, including logging a bug with Oracle Development for investigation if required.
 
If the problem is determined not to be a known Oracle issue, we will refer the customer to VMware for support.   When the customer can demonstrate that the issue occurs when running on the native OS, Oracle will resume support, including logging a bug with Oracle Development for investigation if required.
 
NOTE:  Oracle has not certified any of its products on VMware.  For Oracle RAC, Oracle will only accept Service Requests as described in this note on Oracle RAC 11.2.0.2 and later releases.”

So we’ve had that ‘Not Certified” statement come up in this, so refer to FUD #3. Let’s break this down.

1. The above is very clear. Oracle support will recommend an appropriate solution on the native OS for any known issues. This makes perfect sense and as VMware does not modify the native OS this is absolutely fine.
2. If the solution does not work in a VMware virtualized environment the customer will be referred to VMware for support. This is perfectly understandable and acceptable. If there is a problem with the VMware software then VMware will need to support it, I’ll discuss the VMware extended support policy below.
3. If the problem is an unknown issue then the customer will be referred to VMware Support and when it’s demonstrated to be an issue on the native OS Oracle will resume support. Again this is perfectly understandable. If the problem is with VMware software that VMware should fix it. However VMware does not modify the OS therefore the problem if it’s not directly related to the VMware vSphere software will is being experienced and would be experienced by the native OS.

So the above means for any Oracle problems with the Oracle software Oracle will support you. End of story. You potentially have to prove it’s an Oracle software problem, but that is no different to the system being run on a native OS. If it’s an unknown problem to Oracle they may ask you to reproduce on a different hardware platform.

If the above isn’t enough to satisfy you that you are supported when running on a VMware vSphere platform and on a supported and certified OS then the VMware Extended Support Policy should. Under the VMware Extended Support Policy for Oracle Databases VMware Technical Support will take total ownership of any Oracle Database problems reported to them, as well as providing access to a team of Oracle DBA resources, and working with Oracle support until resolution.

I have to say that the Oracle Support team is world class and I’ve always had a good experience dealing with them. I have had the same world class experience when dealing with VMware Global Support Services, and especially the Oracle Technical Support Engineers.

In addition to the above it wouldn’t do any harm to get Oracle to confirm in writing that your environment will be supported.  Oracle backed down after they knew a customer of mine was serious and put in writing that they would fully support the environment in accordance with the terms of the contractual obligations and their support policy.  So now there is absolutely no ambiguity about the situation. It is supported, end of story.

Key Questions to Ask Oracle to Fight the FUD

• Where does it say in my OLSA, which is our legally binding contract, that I must purchase licenses over and above the licenses I require for all of the CPU cores or Sockets where the Oracle Software is running and/or installed?
• Where does it say in the OLSA, which is our legally binding contract, that I am not able to run on a subset of cluster hosts provided I can prove where the Oracle Software is installed and/or running in accordance with the contracted terms and conditions?
• How is licensing a complete cluster with the required number of hosts any different from licensing the required number of standalone native physical servers?
• Does Oracle Certify the underlying hardware platforms below the OS that run Oracle software such as IBM, HP or Dell servers?
• Given that you don’t certify below the OS why would running a fully certified and supported OS on top of VMware vSphere be unsupported or be any different from a support perspective than running on native given that VMware does not modify the OS?

Final Word

I have added two more items to this list of FUD in another article called Return of the FUD – Oracle Licensing on VMware vSphere.

I hope this article has been some help and has empowered you to stand up for your rights under your legally binding contracts. You can find more commentary from Jeff Browning and Dave Welch at the following locations: Oracle Storage Guy – Dave Welch of House of Brick on Oracle on VMware Licensing, Comments by Dave Welch of House of Brick on Oracle on VMware Licensing and Oracle Licensing on VMware – Reprise.

Read Certification of an Oracle ULA Agreement (or: Need to defuse a time bomb). It will help you understand where you might end up during an Oracle audit / certification process and how to use the process to your best advantage and avoid some traps. Follow this up with this article by the same authors – The impartial objective of Oracle’s compliance auditors: A 5 Million Dollar target.

A great reference for Oracle Licensing and Support has been written and published by VMware titled Understanding Oracle Certification, Support and Licensing for VMware Environments.   Some of what I’m about to describe is covered in this document and I would definitely recommend you read it.

Maybe a reason Oracle appears to be trying to perpetuate these myths around licensing and support is because the traditional Unix hardware business and Solaris is on a major downward trend. See IT Candor’s Server Market Report for the details.

For guidance and ides for design and architecture for your Oracle Databases on vSphere here are two great articles. Deploying Enterprise Oracle Databases on vSphere, Blueprint for Successful Large Scale Oracle Virtualization on vSphere.

For additional information on virtualizing Oracle visit my Oracle Page.

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This post first appeared on the Long White Virtual Clouds blog at longwhiteclouds.com, by Michael Webster +. Copyright © 2012 – IT Solutions 2000 Ltd and Michael Webster +. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced for commercial purposes without written permission.