Since Oracle launched the Oracle Database Appliance it is clear that only the Enterprise Edition is allowed on the machine. But for me it was still a little bit fuzzy if and what kind of licensing requirements is needed. More direct : may the ODA be licensed on NUP´s ? Some statements while investigating:
Customers are only required to license processor cores.
Licensing on processor cores, but not processor metric! Diving deeper….
A while ago I made a promise to take a look at the product Dbvisit, found out this is not the product, but just the firm Dbvisit. The product I’m about to install is called officially ‘Dbvisit Standby‘. There’s also a product called ‘Dbvisit replicate’.
I didn’t really know about the product, not related to it, but it was buzzing around that it’s a cheap and a well working alternative for a high available environment with Oracle Standard Edition in stead of the Enterprise Edition with Data Guard.
So my first project (this post) is just to install a lab environment and get it working. The second project should be the real thing, testing the availability and the easiness of administration and monitoring.
What will I do for this part of the project (working from scratch with the latest versions – at the time of writing – of Oracle Linux and VirtualBox…):
1. Create two VM’s (VirtualBox with Oracle Linux 6)
2. Install Dbvisit Standby
3. Configure Dbvisit Standby
4. Get it going!
And not surprisingly, the preparation took most of the time:
Received a pdf from Oracle with the new features of the Oracle Database Appliance (when you are using the OracleVM-option).
Among other things, the two last sheets about the licensing had my attention too. I’m just showing the slides, haven’t worked with it, so I can’t tell you in detail the experiences. But the slides may give you an idea how the Virtualized Platform will look like in the new ODA, and how it will be licensed.
“A good DBA may relax and put his legs on the table”. These words a senior (in age as well as in experience) DBA used to say while he was trying to teach me the basics of administrating databases. He was trying to say that organizing your work and preparing yourself for future catastrophes is the most important part of the job. Only then you are confident to face the surprises Oracle software and the organisation where you work for comes up with.
But as time passes by I disagree with this attitude. In my opinion a good DBA has always work to do. But it’s not always easy to convince your manager you are busy as hell. What ARE you doing all day long, or moreover, what meaningful pro-active contributions you possibly can do for your company to keep the business online? And how can you make it visible to your manager. I´m convinced that in most organisations the attitude towards DBA´s is quite respectfull, but that was and is not always the case and this writing is for those who continuously struggle with the aspects a DBA is doing or is supposed to do.
In this post I’ll try to summarize the deliverables for a DBA as a kind of checklist. Thought about it what base to choose for this kind of list. Had the choice for methods as ITIL, ASL (Application Services Library) ISM (Integrated Service Management), COBIT ( Control Objectives for Information and related Technology) and more. Decided to keep it simple, using a lot of ITIL (v2, cause I’m lost with v3):
Something about licensing. Boring for the most of us, but this may save you a lot of money…. The next is not completely new, but I never had it on writing, so found it worthfull to blog. The following has by the way no legal status and I’m not held responsible for any claims Oracle might want to put on your company (that is, can’t afford a lawyer..)
Maybe you know the rule: When using Oracle Enterprise Edition database, and want to license by NUP’s – Named User Plus Licenses – you are bound to a minimum of 25 users per Oracle-defined processor. So using a server with one Intel-based quad-core processor (with a factor of 0,5), you have to pay for (4 * 0,5 =) 2 Oracle processors, which is equal to a minimum of 50 users.
This has been defined in the Software Investment Guide (page 14):
Minimums for this metric may be discrete quantities, or they may be based on the number of processors in the machine on which the software will be installed and/or run. For example, the minimum for the Database Enterprise Edition, the iAS Standard Edition and the iAS Enterprise Edition is 25, 10 and 10 Named Users Plus per Processor, respectively
Let’s stick for a moment on the Enterprise Edition of the database, and the example above. When a second server (1 quad core) is added, also with an Enterprise Edition database on it you’ll have to pay for a total of 100 NUP’s.
But what if I only have got 60 users (non human operating device included) who are directly or indirectly authorized to use those two databases / nodes. Will I pay for 60 users or 100 ? To be sure […]
