RE: Oracle Licensing

I just went through this with Oracle and they want $$$ for all servers you are using; Production, QA, Test and development.

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2001 2:40 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

My understanding of oracle licensing is that you pay (and pay and pay) for production, and sometimes test (kind of depends on if you are also using test as a backup of production), but not for development. So you buy support, licenses, etc. for the production boxes.

Hence, the availability of free downloads of all the software. They want you to develop on it...

My $0.02,

Diana

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2001 2:55 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

> NOT happy making for the DBA (me)

Yeah, what if you needed a "temporary install" on a new machine to test something? Am I really expected to get a license for a temporary install? Suppose you want to test some UNIX parameters and you can't use the "Development" or "QA" servers? (Not to mention production:-) Software locks just complicate things. Can't we still keep "the spirit of the law" without being subjected to draconian measures to enforce licensing?

How do you "setup shop" for licensing and support? Say you have 3 fairly equal servers for Development, Test, and Production. Each server is basically the same: same manufacturer; same hardware; same O/S version and patches, same Oracle version, etc. OK, maybe your production machine has four times the CPU and memory and a 1000 times more connections. How do you license and support these machines? An ORA-00600 or ORA-07445 on one machine "should" occur on the other machines for the same reasons with the same causes and producing the same effects/symptoms. Do you buy support for all three machines or do you just buy support for a smaller machine and apply patches across the board? What are the fine print legally correct answers versus the ethically correct practices in the real world? Is there a distinction? I can imagine what the answers would be if Oracle included these questions on the OCP tests. ;-) What do you say?

Comments and confessions anyone? Feel free to email me privately.

Steve Orr
sorr_at_arzoo.com
www.arzoo.com

-----Original Message-----
Carmichael
Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2001 9:46 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

Ingres used to do that for expiration date... you had to enter an authorization string when you installed the database. It would check and refuse to come up if the software expired.

Except they

1. never warned you you were close to expiration
2. usually shut you down around 10AM EST so people who had logged in earlier could work
3. were a pita about sending a new string

you had to shut down production in order to apply the new string.

NOT happy making for the DBA (me)

Rachel

>From: Dennis Taylor <ismgr_at_pctc.com>
>Reply-To: ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com
>To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>
>Subject: Re: Oracle Licensing
>Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2001 07:40:43 -0800
>
>At 03:35 AM 3/6/01 -0800, you wrote:
> >my .02 is the whole power unit thing is a good concept but the $$ per
> >unit is way outta whack. the only reason i say that is its been hard
> >for oracle to denote when people were using more than the licenses they
> >bought were being used. I had always setup the databases with the
> >v$license parms setup in the database. But sometimes damagement
> >"required" me to "uplift" the limits. We'll leave it at that.
> >
>
>I've always been very surprised that Oracle didn't put some kind of
>licensing enforcement in their software. They're the perfect situation for
>it -- High ticket, relatively low volume. They could afford to "brand" the
>software before sending it to the customer. I bet they'd more than make up
>enough revenue to be able to drop their prices to something non-lunatic.
>
>
>Dennis Taylor
>--------------------------------
>In any human endeavor, once you have exhausted all
>possibilities and have failed, there will be one solution,
>simple and obvious, highly visible to everyone else.
>
>--
>Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
>--
>Author: Dennis Taylor
> INET: ismgr_at_pctc.com

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