Oracle Licensing Tutorial

New to Oracle software licensing? Here’s our guide with some of the basics on Oracle Licensing Rules and Definitions.

We have also a video tutorial available.

Or view on YouTube.

License Metric

You can choose between a license based on a ‘User’ or based on server-specifications which is ’Processor’. A user-based license is called Named User Plus. So, two common license metrics are Named User Plus and Processor. We will explain a little more about the definitions.

Named User Plus
When licensing on the basis of Named User Plus you have to count people that are able to use the software at any time. Don’t count pc’s, count people. Don’t count concurrent, count people. Don’t count connections to a database, count people at the frontend.

Processor
A Processor license is a processor unit in the server. Oracle used to have a license based on processor speed but not anymore. You have to count processors. You have to make a distinction here between Oracle product that have ‘Standard (One)’ in the product name or not (i.e. Enterprise). When you want to license a ‘Standard’ product with a Processor license a processor is counted as an ‘occupied socket’ (socket= is a cpu slot). In conclusion. When you want to buy a Processor license(s) for a product you check the product name: does it carry ‘Standard (One)’ in it’s product name count occupied socket. The occupied (in use) sockets are the number of Processor license you have to buy. Does the product name carry ‘Enterprise’ you must count processors which are the required Processor licenses you have to buy. Additionally, the Processor license for Enterprise Edition products requires that you take into account the number of cores. This topic of multi-core processor licensing we will describe little later.

In conclusion, when licensing Oracle, first thing you can do is choose a license metric. Processor license is used for internet applications where the number of users cannot be counted, but you can use a Processor license as well for any internal use. Just look at what metric is most cost effective. After choosing a correct license metric it is important to know exactly what you need to count to determine the number of licenses you want to buy.

Multi-core Processor licensing

You want to buy i.e. Enterprise Edition database (or any other Enterprise product) based on a Processor license metric. To comply with Oracle’s definitions you have to take into account the number of cores. Is it a dual-core or quad-core? We will explain it here.

The multi-core formula is:
Processor license = number of processors * number of cores (total number of cores) * multi-core factor.

The multi-core factor depends on the type of machine and processor. In this table you can find the most important.

Vendor/ Processor	Factor
Intel	0.5
Sun	0.25/ 0.5/ 0.75
HP RISC	0.75
IBM Power 5	0.75
All single core chips	1

From: Oracle Processor Core Factor Table

Example
Server with 3 IBM Power 5 dual-core processors. Factor = 0.75.
Calculation: 3*2*0.75 = 4.5 processor (to be rounded up to next whole number).
Result: 5 Processor licenses to be acquired.

Restrictions

Another thing you should know is the existence of restrictions. Those restriction are part of the software use policy of Oracle. These restriction can be a minimum restriction that apply to any first Oracle purchase or a restriction whether you can or cannot use a product. We list (some of) them here:

Minimum 5 Named User Plus / Standard Edition (One)
When licensing Standard Edition or Standard Edition One, the minimum purchase on your first order is 5 Named User Plus licenses.

Minimum 25 Named User Plus per Processor / Enterprise Edition
When licensing Enterprise Edition, the minimum number of Named User Plus (at all times) is 25 Named User Plus per Processor-license. The 25 per Processor is the Processor-license as calculated is Oracle’s multi-core formula!

Maximum of 2 sockets / Standard Edition One
Standard Edition One can only be licensed on servers that have a maximum capacity of 2 sockets. This is rather a license restriction then a technical restriction.

Maximum of 4 sockets / Standard Edition
Standard Edition can only be licensed on servers that have a maximum capacity of 2 sockets. Enterprise Edition has no restrictions in this way.


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