Media Management Vendor Partners
Under the BSP, vendors are committed to integrating Recovery Manager (RMAN) with their media management software packages and provide first line technical support for the integrated backup and recovery solutions for Oracle RDBMS.
Following is the list of media management software vendors that have joined the Oracle Backup Solutions Program (BSP).
Our environment has both physical and virtual servers running on Linux OS and AIX. VMware ESXi used as virtualization OS.
I initiated the communication with the oracle account manager, who sent me 2 scripts which collects all the details of the system. Depends on the installation edition they will send you the prices and support cost. If possible, negotiate for the discount, in our case we got a good discount then send PO, approval etc.
The following sections I will plain the way of oracle licensing calculations.
Oracle has 5 different editions,
It is an affordable database version; Oracle Database Standard Edition One includes all the facilities necessary to build business-critical applications. It is basically for smaller environments and not supports high availability and can be used up to two sockets.
Same as standard one, but it can support real application cluster and can be used up to four sockets.
Oracle Database Enterprise Edition contains all of the components of Oracle Database; this edition is the correct choice for high volume databases. This can be further enhanced with the purchase of optional packs such as partitioning, compression.
This is an entry-level and free of cost. As like others it comes with certain restrictions, can store up to 4GB of user data, use up to 1GB of memory, and use one CPU on the host machine. The support will be provided through the forum.
This edition of an Oracle Database is designed for developers; this comes with all the option which has an enterprise edition except real application cluster. Personal Edition is available on Windows platforms only.
For further differences between various database editions, refer oracle official document.
Oracle database can be license using two metrics
The Named User Plus metric counts number of users. The user includes servers, clients, application users, devices etc.
The processor metrics calculated from physical core.
We will see this in details.
You can choose any one of these metrics for licensing your database, in some scenario NUP licensing will be expensive than processor licensing in this case you can choose processor licensing.
I have used both NUP and processor metrics (to reduce cost) to calculate the licensing for a single project.
Before we begun, let’s have a look about processor hardware terminology.
CPU slot or socket accommodates CPU packs in a main board. Refer the image, it has 4 sockets.
The core is a program execution and capable of doing the processing. Multi-core CPUs have multiple execution cores on the single piece CPU.
These days most of the processors are of multi-core capability. This means a single physical processor can do multi execution.
In our case we have dual sockets and 6 cores for Intel machines, dual sockets and four cores for power machines.
Oracle’s processor based licensing is based on number of CPU cores. Oracle has a predefined core processor licensing factor which you can use for your platform. For more information click here
Let’s see some examples.
We had 2 socket and 6 core machines, so the licensing calculation as follows
2 (socket) X core (6) = 12
12 X 0.5 (core processor licensing factor for Intel) = 6 unit to be licensed.
We had 2 sockets and 4 core machines, so the licensing calculation as follows
2 (socket) X core (4) = 8
8 X 1 (core processor licensing factor for Power) = 8 unit to be licensed.
There are two types of virtualization environment, soft partitioning and hard partitioning.
In soft-partitioning, CPU capacity can be changed at run time if additional CPU is needed.
This is a flexible way of managing resources.
In hard-partitioning, a physical server is separated into distinct smaller systems, each with its own CPU’s.
Oracle licensing for soft partitioning should be licensed for entire CPU, for soft partitioning should be licensed for allocating CPU.
VMware is under soft partitioning, let’s have an example.
A physical server has 24 cores with VMware Esxi installed and only 6 cores allocated for database server, but it should be licensed for 24 cores.
Oracle Virtual box is under hard partitioning category.
Brief discussion about various Oracle database editions. Oracle database comes in five flavors or edition, each suitable for different scenario.
For further differences between various database editions, refer MOS Doc ID 465455.1
Now let’s take a step further, and discuss hardware terminologies:
These days most of the processors are of multicore capability (dual and quad core, also called 2-way and 4-way respectively).
This means that a single physical package has more than one execution core.
Thus a server can have multiple physical sockets and a single physical socket in turn can accommodate a package with more than one execution core.
This means a machine with 2 physical sockets, can accommodate 4 CPUs; and if each package is dual core, we have 8 cores of execution.
License Metrics: Oracle database can be licensed using two metrics,
1) Named User Plus or
2) Processor with the exception of the Personal Edition which can only be licensed using the Named User Plus metric.
3) The Named User Plus metric is used in environments where users (or non-human devices accessing the database, for eg temperature monitoring device) can be easily identified and counted.
4) The Processor metric is used where users cannot be easily identified and counted, such as internet-based applications. The Processor metric is also used when it is more cost effective than Named User Plus licenses.
Let’s start with Named User Plus licensing for different database editions:
Example: A customer who wants to license the Database Enterprise Edition on a 4-way box will be required to license a minimum of 4 processors * 25 Named User Plus, which is equal to 100 Named User Plus.
Oracle’s processor based licensing are based on number of CPU cores but number of total CPU cores should be converted to number of processor.
Oracle has a predefined core processor licensing factor which you can use for your platform. So all cores on all multi-core chips are to be aggregated before multiplying by the appropriate core processor licensing factor and all fractions of a number are to be rounded up to the next whole number.
As explained Oracle Standard One and Standard editions are licensed based on the sockets with restriction of 2 and 4 sockets respectively, for such editions a processor is counted equivalent to a socket; however, in the case of multicore-chip modules, each core in the multi-chip module is counted as one occupied socket.
It means 2-socket server each having one dual-core CPU, will be considered as 4 sockets server and is not eligible for Standard One edition installation.
Let’s take another example of a multi-core chip based server with total 6 cores and an Oracle Processor Core Factor of 0.25, which would require 2 processor licenses (6 multiplied by 0.25 equals 1.50, which is then rounded up to the next whole number, which is 2).
Also a multicore hardware platform not specified in the Oracle Processor Core Factor Table, will have a core processor licensing factor of 1.0, means all the cores will be equivalent to a processor.
Now, let’s discuss licensing for virtualized environments.
There can be two types of virtualized environments:
1) soft-partitioning and
2) hard-partitioning.
In soft-partitioning, CPU capacity can be changed on runtime as additional resource is needed.
This is a flexible way of managing resources.
In hard-partitioning, a physical server is separated into distinct smaller systems, each with its own CPUs.
Oracle licensing is straightforward. One has to license for all the CPUs configured on the system in case of soft partitioning and only for number of CPUs configured to that partition in case of hard partitioning. Here are few illustrations:
On cloud computing environment, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the only cloud service vendor licensed to run Oracle database.
AWS offering is termed as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). In the cloud environment, licensing is based on the number of virtual cores and each virtual core should be considered equivalent to a physical core.
It means for Oracle Standard Edition One or Standard Edition, EC2 instances with 4 or less virtual cores are counted as 1 socket, which is considered equivalent to a processor license. For EC2 instances with more than 4 virtual cores, every 4 virtual cores used (rounded up to the closest multiple of 4) equate to a licensing requirement of 1 socket. It means, under cloud computing, Standard Edition can only be licensed on EC2 instances up to 16 virtual cores and Standard Edition One can only be licensed on EC2 instances up to 8 virtual cores.
For Enterprise editions, virtual cores should be converted to number of processors using standard core processor licensing factor. For example, licensing Enterprise Edition on a single EC2 instance of 8 virtual cores (platform with core processor licensing factor of 0.5) would require 8 * 0.5 = 4 processor licenses.
Standard named user plus licensing policies are also applicable in cloud environment.
When it comes to licensing your Oracle database environment, there are two different metrics that you can choose from, NUP or CPU.
The metric that you use to license your environment will be defined by how the system is deployed in terms of hardware specification of that environment, and how the users access that system and often the number of users that they will be accessing.
The first and most simple metric is the named user plus (NUP), and this is based on a human user or a non-human operated device that has the ability to connect and manipulate data in the Oracle database.
It’s based on a total user count whereby you can quantify the user population; you don't need to physically keep a register of the username so the title ‘named user’ is a little bit of a misnomer and there is flexibility should user accounts change.
There is no concept of license sharing or concurrent license usage – that was a model Oracle had around 20 years ago now.
NUP is based on the total number of users.
A lot of Oracle products have minimum user purchases, in terms of the values of licenses that you must buy, and these are often based on the hardware that the system is to be deployed on.
The named user plus license allows the same user to access multiple database instances, so if you've got multiple databases on the same piece of hardware then that one user is covered for those, and once you have licensed that user on that specific piece of hardware you don't need to buy any further licenses (unless your user account increases).
For example, if you have a production system and a training environment, you would calculate the minimums over that total piece of hardware, and that initial user who has that license is then covered for both environments.
The other license type is the processor or CPU metric.
This license type is for where you have a web-based application, or where you have a large number of users that you can't quantify, or there's a user population that you just can't pin down for the purposes of calculating a license count.
It's based on an unlimited user license and it's calculated based on the specification of the hardware it is to be deployed on.
In a very simplified example, you can see that the server above has four CPUs so that would equate to a four CPU license. In practise it's a little more complicated as many of the Oracle products are licensed at the core level, but that gives you an overview of the license model.
Standard Edition database licensing is simply based on the physical CPU’s in the server.
You buy 1 CPU license for every CPU, however, be aware SE2 can only be deployed on servers with a maximum capacity of 2 CPU sockets.
Enterprise Edition database is different in that you license at the core level.
You have to aggregate the total number of cores in the hardware, then apply what is known as “core factor” to calculate the number of licensable cores!
A general rule of thumb with the CPU metric is that the more CPUs and cores that you add, the more Oracle licenses you require and consequently the cost increases in overall license and support costs.
What we tend to find is that environments are architected by the technical team, and at the point of qualification for Oracle licensing we tend to find that hardware specs are amended or scaled back because of the of the high exposure to those license costs by adding more CPUs and cores! Particularly as many multi core CPU’s now how 10 or 12 cores as standard!
It’s important to note that various database editions have their own restrictions and specific licensing policies that you need to be aware of when you architect an Oracle environment or buying a piece of hardware to deploy Oracle on. Speak to Oracle Licensing specialist to understand those restrictions.
When comparing the cost options of an NUP license against a CPU license there's roughly a breakeven point where one CPU is equivalent to 50 named user licenses, so again depending on the number of named users and the spec of the hardware you’re deploying on, there will be a point where one license metric is more cost effective than the other.
