Oracle ULA and how they can help you

Oracle ULA - Strategies for IT professionals

Oracles unlimited license agreement has a mixed reputation in the market, and I will try to explain why
but also the benefits, drawbacks of the agreement. Then a suggested plan for how to manage the ULA
renewal or when you want to exit the agreement.

What is Oracle ULA?

Oracle ULA is a enterprise software agreement from Oracle that gives the customer unlimited deployment rights
for a specific time period, usually 3 years. The customer negotiates a one-time license fee paid to Oracle
upfront as well as 12 months of technical support.

Benefits of Oracle ULA

- You can disregard Oracle licensing rules on virtualization, as you do not need to count while in the ULA.
Many companies buy ULA so that they can freely deploy Oracle in VMware.
- ULA is good if you see growth in Oracle software, if you need to purchase new Oracle licenses for more than
2m USD - ULA should always be an option for you.
- Fixed costs for Oracle, you wont pay any additional licensing fees for the ULA software during the term.
- Oracle audits - Oracle will never audit your company during the first 2,5 years of the agreement.

Drawbacks of Oracle ULA

- You give up many of your rights to terminate unused software and licenses when you enter into an ULA.
- Oracle ULA has many limitations in the contract that you need to pay attention to.
- Oracle ULA has an license audit at the end of the agreement.

ULA limitations

The limitations of the Oracle ULA can be but are not limited to

- Which legal entities may access and use the Oracle ULA software.
- The Oracle ULA is only limited to the products that you include, a mistake many companies make
is that they deploy non ULA software.
- Territorial limitations where you can deploy servers running Oracle software.
- Oracle ULA to cloud - Oracle has put restrictions on how you can get licenses when the ULA ends
if you have deployed in AWS, Azure and even Oracle Cloud.

What happens when the Oracle ULA ends?

- You will need to report your deployment quantities to Oracle, this is essentially a joint audit
together with Oracle.
- You have to undergo the Oracle ULA Certification
- The licenses you have deployed, are calculated into fixed quantities and you recieve those licenses.
- It is important to remember that the technical support fees does not change based upon your deployment numbers.

Recommendations for ULA customers

1. Review your Oracle licensing with an independent Oracle licensing expert.
2. You have deployed non ULA software by mistake, you may want to make a decision
on how to deal with that, without informing Oracle.
3. Review your ULA contract, make sure you are following the licensing terms.
4. Before the Oracle ULA ends, try to deploy as much Oracle software as possible
but you need to make sure you deploy only ULA software.
5. The Oracle ULA certification process (exit process) may take up to 3-6 months.

I hope this guide was helpful, if you want more information you can read details

Thanks and good luck with your Oracle ULA

Fredrik