Licensing Oracle on Amazon EC2, RDS and Microsoft Azure...

Licensing Oracle on Amazon EC2, RDS and Microsoft Azure – now twice as expensive! Authors: Adrian Cristache and Andra Tarata

This whitepaper provides an overview of the changes in Licensing Oracle Software in the Cloud Computing Environment. It explains how to count the required number of licenses in Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS and Microsoft

LICENSING ORACLE ON AMAZON EC2, RDS AND MICROSOFT AZURE

2

Contents

Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 3

Licensing Oracle Software in the Cloud Computing Environment Policy ....................................... 4

Previous Policy ................................................................................................................................. 5

How to count the required number of licenses under the previous policy? .................................... 6

New Policy ........................................................................................................................................ 7

Chronological changes (highlights) in “Authorized Cloud Environments” Licensing ...................... 9

How to count the required number of licenses under the current policy? ..................................... 10

Example: Oracle Database Enterprise Edition .............................................................................. 10

Different Instance Types and their related vCPUs ........................................................................ 11

What are “Virtual Cores” and why do they matter? ....................................................................... 17

Comparison for Amazon Web Services: Counting Virtual Cores vs. vCPUs ................................ 18

Comparison for Microsoft Azure: Counting Virtual Cores vs. vCPUs ........................................... 19

Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 20


3

Introduction

More and more end users are planning on or have already moved to a cloud computing environment. Each

cloud computing environment comes with its specific restrictions and/or different ways of counting the

required number of Oracle licenses. As of January 23rd, 2017 (followed by an update one year later, on

January 23rd, 2018), Oracle Corporation changed its licensing policies for the so called “Authorized Cloud

Environments”.

Initially, Oracle stated that for the “Authorized Cloud Environments” (including Amazon Web Services –

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) and Microsoft Azure

Platform) end users would need to consider each virtual core as a physical core (and multiply the amount of

virtual cores by the Processor Core Factor of 0.5) to determine the number of ‘Processors” that were required

to be licensed.

As of January 23rd, 2018, the new Oracle licensing policies, in which different counting methodologies are

applied for Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS and Microsoft Azure, are as follows:

Amazon EC2 and RDS

- End users are required to count two vCPUs (virtual Central Processing Unit) as equivalent to one Oracle

Processor license if hyper-threading is enabled;

- End users are required to count one vCPU as equivalent to one Oracle Processor license if hyper-

threading is not enabled.

Microsoft Azure

- End users are required to count two vCPUs (virtual Central Processing Unit) as equivalent to one Oracle

Processor license if hyper-threading is enabled;

- End users are required to count one vCPU as equivalent to one Oracle Processor license if hyper-

threading is not enabled.

Full details of Oracle’s licensing policy on the “Authorized Cloud Environments” can be found here. This

change in licensing policy does support Oracle’s Cloud Strategy by making its own IaaS and PaaS Cloud

Services more commercially attractive than the Cloud Services offered by its competitors.

This whitepaper provides an overview of the changes for licensing Oracle Software in the Cloud Computing

Environment. It explains how to count the required number of licenses in Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS and

Microsoft Azure, how to differentiate between virtual cores, vCPUs, physical cores and more.

http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/pricing/cloud-licensing-070579.pdf


4

Licensing Oracle Software in the Cloud Computing Environment Policy

Oracle’s Technology programs (mainly covering Database and Middleware programs) can be licensed by

different license metrics, including Named User (Plus) and Processor.

The Named User Plus metric is used in environments where users and/or devices can be easily identified

and counted. Named User Plus includes both human individuals and non-human operated devices. All

human individuals and non-human operated devices that are (directly or indirectly) accessing the program

must be licensed. A non-human operated device can be many things, such as a temperature-monitoring

device or other types of sensors. It is important to note that if the device is operated by a person, then this

person must be licensed and not the device. Under the Named User Plus license model, there is (almost

always) a minimum amount of Named User Plus licenses per Processor for the different Oracle programs

that needs to be met at all times. As such, the hardware on which the software is installed is relevant as well

to determine the required number of Named User Plus licenses.

The Processor metric is mostly used in environments where software users cannot easily be identified or

counted, such as with Internet-based applications or environments in which the number of users is high (e.g.

production and DR environments). Processor licenses are therefore typically used in environments for which

it is more cost-effective to license by Processor licenses instead of Named User Plus licenses. All processors

on which the Oracle programs are installed and/or running must be licensed. The required number of

Processor licenses is determined by the amount of physical cores of the physical servers (and its CPU type).

In case the Oracle software is running in a public cloud environment, the above listed licensing models do

immediately represent an issue, as your Oracle installation could be running on any of the thousands of

servers owned by your cloud provider. In public cloud environments it is therefore either impossible or

unrealistic to count the physical amount of cores of all the servers on which the Oracle software is installed

and/or running. For this reason, Oracle introduced the so called “Licensing Oracle Software in the Cloud

Computing Environment” policy in 2010 for Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS and Microsoft Azure.


5

Previous Policy

Until January 23rd, 2017, end users were required to count each virtual core as a physical core, in case the

Oracle programs were deployed on Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS and/or Microsoft Azure. This number of

cores would then need to be multiplied by the applicable core factor as per Oracle’s Processor Core Factor

Table, to determine the required number of licenses. This policy applied to all Oracle programs available on

a Processor metric.

In addition, the licensing policy further specified:

- When licensing Oracle programs with Standard Edition One, Standard Edition 2, or Standard Edition in

the product name, the pricing was based on the size of the instance.

- Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS and/or Microsoft Azure instances with 4 or fewer virtual cores were counted

as 1 socket, which was considered equivalent to a processor license.

- For Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS and/or Microsoft Azure instances with more than 4 virtual cores, every

4 virtual cores used (rounded up to the closest multiple of 4) equated to a licensing requirement of 1

socket.

- Oracle Database Standard Edition could only be licensed on Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS and/or

Microsoft Azure instances with up to 16 virtual cores.

- Oracle Standard Edition One, Standard Edition 2 could only be licensed on Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS

and/or Microsoft Azure instances with up to 8 virtual cores.

http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/contracts/processor-core-factor-table-070634.pdf

http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/contracts/processor-core-factor-table-070634.pdf


6

How to count the required number of licenses under the previous policy?

Under the old policy, the required number of licenses was counted differently than they are counted today.

Below you will find two examples of how the required number of Processor licenses were counted under the

old “Licensing Oracle Software in the Cloud Computing Environment” policy:

Example 1: For Database Enterprise Edition on Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS or Microsoft Azure:

Licensing Oracle Database Enterprise Edition on a single instance of 8 virtual cores (on Intel multicore chips)

would require 8 * 0.5 = 4 processor licenses (each virtual core is considered equivalent to a physical core).

Example 2: For Database Standard Edition on Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS or Microsoft Azure:

For an instance containing 1 to 4 virtual cores, the number of Oracle Database Standard Edition licenses

required will be 1 processor. On an instance with 5 to 8 virtual cores, two processor licenses would be

needed, considering the fact that each processor socket has 4 processor cores (quad core processor). On

the other hand, if one were to use one 4 virtual core instance and 4 single virtual core instances (total of 5

instances and 8 virtual cores), 5 processor licenses would be required, i.e., one processor license for each

of the Authorized Cloud Environment instances.


7

New Policy

On the 23rd of January 2017, Oracle changed its “Licensing Oracle Software in the Cloud Computing

Environment” policy. As of this date, the following counting methodologies are applicable for Amazon EC2,

Amazon RDS and Microsoft Azure.

Amazon EC2 and RDS:

- If hyper-threading is enabled, end users are required to count two vCPUs = one Oracle Processor

license

- If hyper-threading is NOT enabled, end users are required to count one vCPU = one Oracle

Processor license

Microsoft Azure:

- If hyper-threading is enabled, end users are required to count two vCPUs = one Oracle Processor

license

- If hyper-threading is NOT enabled, end users are required to count one vCPU = one Oracle

Processor license

Under the old policy, the methodology applied to all Oracle programs available on a Processor metric. Under

the new policy, the methodology is only applicable to a subset of Oracle’s programs which can be found

here.

Under the old policy, the number of virtual cores had to be multiplied with the applicable core factor as per

Oracle’s Processor Core Factor Table. Under Oracle’s new policy, this core factor is no longer applied.

In addition, the new policy further specifies:

- When licensing Oracle programs with Standard Edition One, Standard Edition 2, or Standard Edition in

the product name, the pricing is based on the size of the instance.

o For Amazon EC2 and Amazon RDS instances with four or fewer Amazon vCPUs are counted

as 1 socket, which is considered equivalent to an Oracle processor license.

o For Amazon EC2 and Amazon RDS instances with more than four Amazon vCPUs, every four

Amazon vCPUs used (rounded up to the nearest multiple of four) equate to a licensing

requirement of one socket.

o For Microsoft Azure instances with four or fewer Azure CPU Cores are counted as 1 socket,

which is considered equivalent to an Oracle processor license.

o For Microsoft Azure instances with more than four Azure CPU Cores, every four Azure CPU

Cores used (rounded up to the nearest multiple of four) equate to a licensing requirement of

one socket.

http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/pricing/authorized-cloud-environments-3493562.pdf


8

- Oracle Database Standard Edition may only be licensed on Amazon or Azure instances up to 16

Amazon vCPUs.

- Oracle Standard Edition One and Standard Edition 2 may only be licensed on Amazon or Azure

instances up to 8 Amazon vCPUs.

- If licensing Database Standard Edition 2 by Named User Plus metric, the minimums are 10 NUP licenses

per 8 Amazon vCPUs or 8 Azure vCPUs.


9

Chronological changes (highlights) in “Authorized Cloud Environments” Licensing

> Amazon AWS Amazon Web Services- which includes

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Amazon Simple

Storage Service (S3), was the only approved Vendor for

deploying Oracle in the Cloud Computing Environments.

> Customers are required to count each virtual core as

equivalent to a physical core. This policy applies to all

programs available on a

processor metric.

> Licenses acquired under unlimited license agreements

(ULAs) can be used in the Amazon EC2 environment.

> For Database Enterprise Edition licensing, the number of

virtual cores needs to be multiplied by the Oracle core factor.

> For the purposes of licensing Oracle programs in an

Authorized Cloud Environment, customers are

required to count as follows:

• Amazon EC2 and RDS - count two vCPUs as

equivalent to one Oracle Processor license if

hyper-threading is enabled, and one vCPU

as equivalent to one Oracle Processor

license if hyper-threading is not enabled.

• Microsoft Azure – count one Azure CPU

Core as equivalent to one Oracle Processor

license.

> When counting Oracle Processor license

requirements in Authorized Cloud Environments, the

Oracle Processor Core Factor Table is not applicable.

September

20th, 2010

June

24th, 2013

January

23rd, 2017

January

23rd, 2018

> Besides AWS, Microsoft Windows Azure Platform has

been included as an approved Cloud Vendor.

> Still, licenses acquired under unlimited license agreements

(ULAs) can be used in the Amazon EC2 environment.

> For Database Enterprise Edition licensing, the number of

virtual cores needs to be multiplied by the Oracle core factor.

> For the purposes of licensing Oracle programs in an

Authorized Cloud Environment, customers are

required to count as follows:

• Amazon EC2 and RDS - count two vCPUs as





• Microsoft Azure – count two vCPUs as





> When counting Oracle Processor license

requirements in Authorized Cloud Environments, the

Oracle Processor Core Factor Table is not applicable.


10

How to count the required number of licenses under the current policy?

Under the new policy, the required number of licenses is counted differently than before. Below you will find

an example of how to count the required number of Processor licenses under the new (current) “Licensing

Oracle Software in the Cloud Computing Environment” policy:

Example: Oracle Database Enterprise Edition

Licensing Oracle Database Enterprise Edition on a single instance of four Amazon vCPUs, where Hyper-

Threading is enabled, will require two processor licenses (two Amazon vCPUs are considered equivalent to

an Oracle Processor license). Hyper-threading (officially called Hyper-Threading Technology or HT

Technology, and abbreviated as HTT or HT) is Intel's proprietary simultaneous multithreading (SMT)

implementation used to improve parallelization of computations (doing multiple tasks at once) performed on

x86 microprocessors. In other words, Hyper-Threading is the capacity of Intel’s processors to execute 2 sets

of instructions at the same time. Intel’s website provides information on which particular server processors

are capable of Hyper-Threading, (available here).

In Oracle’s traditional licensing model, the minimum required number of Named User Plus licenses (e.g. 25

Named User Plus per Processor for Oracle Database Enterprise Edition) remains applicable for Amazon

EC2, Amazon RDS and/or Microsoft Azure. In addition, for Oracle Linux programs each instance within an

Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS and/or Microsoft Azure is counted as a “System”. The so called “Basic Limited”

and “Premier Limited” support is not available for instances greater than eight Amazon vCPus or four Azure

CPU Cores.

To conclude, Oracle licenses acquired under Unlimited License Agreement (ULA) may still be used in

Authorized Cloud Environments, but Oracle states that end users are NOT allowed to include such

deployment in the certification at the end of the ULA term.

Tip

End users with an Unlimited License Agreement should at all times make sure that, before entering into a

ULA and/or before they move to a public cloud provider, they have the appropriate non-standard language

with Oracle agreed and included in their license agreement(s). This will allow them to still certify such cloud

deployment and helps to avoid the possibility to become non-compliant the day they certify their deployment.

https://ark.intel.com/


11

Different Instance Types and their related vCPUs

In case an end user launches an instance in a public cloud environment, the specific selected “Instance

Type” determines the specific hardware of the host used to run the instance. Each instance type offers

different compute, memory, and storage capabilities and is grouped in instance families based on these

capabilities.

The below table provides an overview of the “instance types” as offered by Amazon EC2, categorized by

“Current Generation Instances” (best recommended for better performance) and “Previous Generation

Instances” (recommended for users that optimized their applications around these instances and have yet

to upgrade).

Current Generation Instances:

Instance Family

Instance Types

General purpose

t2.nano | t2.micro | t2.small | t2.medium | t2.large | t2.xlarge | t2.2xlarge | m4.large | m4.xlarge | m4.2xlarge | m4.4xlarge | m4.10xlarge | m4.16xlarge | m3.medium | m3.large | m3.xlarge | m3.2xlarge

Compute optimized

c4.large | c4.xlarge | c4.2xlarge | c4.4xlarge | c4.8xlarge | c3.large | c3.xlarge | c3.2xlarge | c3.4xlarge | c3.8xlarge

Memory optimized

r3.large | r3.xlarge | r3.2xlarge | r3.4xlarge | r3.8xlarge | r4.large | r4.xlarge | r4.2xlarge | r4.4xlarge | r4.8xlarge | r4.16xlarge | x1.16xlarge | x1.32xlarge

Storage optimized

i2.xlarge | i2.2xlarge | i2.4xlarge | i2.8xlarge | d2.xlarge | d2.2xlarge | d2.4xlarge | d2.8xlarge

Accelerated computing

p2.xlarge | p2.8xlarge | p2.16xlarge | g2.2xlarge | g2.8xlarge


12

Previous Generation Instances:

Instance Family

Previous Generation Instance Types

General purpose

m1.small | m1.medium | m1.large | m1.xlarge

Compute optimized

c1.medium | c1.xlarge | cc2.8xlarge

Memory optimized

m2.xlarge | m2.2xlarge | m2.4xlarge | cr1.8xlarge

Storage optimized

hi1.4xlarge | hs1.8xlarge

Accelerated computing

cg1.4xlarge

Micro instances

t1.micro

Each “Instance Type” is in essence a Virtual Machine (VM) which has one or more vCPUs assigned. The

Operating System of the Virtual Machine sees each vCPU as a single physical CPU core. Depending on the

“Instance Type” selected, you will automatically receive a certain amount of vCPUs assigned in a specific

hour. The instances accrue CPU Credits when they are idle, and use CPU credits when they are active.

Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) provides persistent block storage volumes for use with Amazon

EC2 instances in the AWS Cloud. Each Amazon EBS volume is automatically replicated within its Availability

Zone to protect users from component failure, offering high availability and durability. EBS–optimized

instances deliver dedicated bandwidth to Amazon EBS, with options between 500 Mbps and 10,000 Mbps,

depending on the used instance type.


13

The below table provides an overview of the number of vCPUs assigned to the different Amazon EC2

Instance Types listed above:

T2 Model vCPU CPU Credits / hour Mem (GiB)

Storage

t2.nano 1 3 0.5 EBS-Only

t2.micro 1 6 1 EBS-Only

t2.small 1 12 2 EBS-Only

t2.medium 2 24 4 EBS-Only

t2.large 2 36 8 EBS-Only

t2.xlarge 4 54 16 EBS-Only

t2.2xlarge 8 81 32 EBS-Only

M4 Model vCPU Mem (GiB)

SSD Storage

(GB)

Dedicated EBS Bandwidth (Mbps)

m4.large 2 8 EBS-only

450

m4.xlarge 4 16 EBS-only

750

m4.2xlarge 8 32 EBS-only

1,000


2,000


4,000


10,000


14

M3 Model vCPU Mem (GiB) SSD Storage (GB)

m3.medium 1 3.75 1 x 4

m3.large 2 7.5 1 x 32

m3.xlarge 4 15 2 x 40

m3.2xlarge 8 30 2 x 80

C4 Model vCPU Mem (GiB)

Storage Dedicated EBS Bandwidth (Mbps)

c4.large 2 3.75 EBS-Only

500

c4.xlarge 4 7.5 EBS-Only

750

c4.2xlarge 8 15 EBS-Only

1,000


2,000


4,000

C3 Model vCPU Mem (GiB) SSD Storage (GB)

c3.large 2 3.75 2 x 16

c3.xlarge 4 7.5 2 x 40

c3.2xlarge 8 15 2 x 80

c3.4xlarge 16 30 2 x 160

c3.8xlarge 32 60 2 x 320

X1 Model vCPU Mem (GiB) SSD

Storage (GB)

Dedicated EBS Bandwidth

(Mbps)

x1.32xlarge 128 1,952 2 x 1,920 10,000

x1.16xlarge 64 976 1 x 1,920 5,000


15

R4 Model vCPU Mem (GiB) Networking Performance

SSD Storage

(GB)

r4.large 2 15.25 Up to 10 Gigabit EBS-Only

r4.xlarge 4 30.5 Up to 10 Gigabit EBS-Only

r4.2xlarge 8 61 Up to 10 Gigabit EBS-Only

r4.4xlarge 16 122 Up to 10 Gigabit EBS-Only

r4.8xlarge 32 244 10 Gigabit EBS-Only

r4.16xlarge 64 488 20 Gigabit EBS-Only

R3 Model vCPU Mem (GiB) SSD Storage (GB)

r3.large 2 15.25 1 x 32

r3.xlarge 4 30.5 1 x 80

r3.2xlarge 8 61 1 x 160

r3.4xlarge 16 122 1 x 320

r3.8xlarge 32 244 2 x 320

P2 Model GPUs vCPU Mem (GiB)

GPU Memory (GiB)

p2.xlarge 1 4 61 12

p2.8xlarge 8 32 488 96

p2.16xlarge 16 64 732 192

G2 Model GPUs vCPU Mem (GiB)

SSD Storage

(GB)

g2.2xlarge 1 8 15 1 x 60

g2.8xlarge 4 32 60 2 x 120


16

F1 Model FPGAs vCPU Mem (GiB) SSD

Storage (GB)

f1.2xlarge 1 8 122 480

f1.16xlarge 8 64 976 4 x 960

I2 Model vCPU Mem (GiB) Storage (GB)

i2.xlarge 4 30.5 1 x 800 SSD

i2.2xlarge 8 61 2 x 800 SSD

i2.4xlarge 16 122 4 x 800 SSD

i2.8xlarge 32 244 8 x 800 SSD

D2 Model vCPU Mem (GiB)

Storage (GB)

d2.xlarge 4 30.5 3 x 2000 HDD

d2.2xlarge 8 61 6 x 2000 HDD

d2.4xlarge 16 122 12 x 2000 HDD

d2.8xlarge 36 244 24 2000 HDD

How the physical cores are presented in a public cloud environment depends on the specific cloud provider.

For Amazon WebServices:

- Each vCPU is associated with a single thread presented from Intel hyper-threading, so 2 vCPUs equal

1 physical core.

For Microsoft Azure Services:

- Each vCPU is associated with a single thread presented from Intel hyper-threading, so 2 vCPUs equal

1 physical core.


17

What are “Virtual Cores” and why do they matter?

For each processor core that is physically present in a physical server, the operating system addresses two

or more virtual (logical) cores. As such there is no physical separation in the server hardware. For example,

in case you have a quad core Intel Xeon processor capable of Hyper-Threading, there are in total 4 physical

cores and 8 virtual cores (or 8 threads).

The below table provides an overview of the amount of virtual cores applicable for Amazon EC2 Instances

and Amazon RDS Instances:

EC2 Instance

Type

Virtual Core

Count

EC2 Instance

Type

Virtual Core

Count

EC2 Instance

Type

Virtual Core

Count

t1.micro 1 m4.10xlarge 20

r4.large 1

t2.micro 1 m4.16xlarge 32

r4.xlarge 2

t2.small 1 c1.medium 2

r4.2xlarge 4

t2.medium 2 c1.xlarge 8

r4.4xlarge 8

t2.large 2 cc2.8xlarge 16

r4.8xlarge 16

t2.xlarge 4 cg1.4xlarge 8

r4.16xlarge 32

t2.2xlarge 8 cr1.8xlarge 16

r3.large 1

m1.small 1 c3.large 1

r3.xlarge 2

m1.medium 1 c3.xlarge 2

r3.2xlarge 4

m1.large 2 c3.2xlarge 4

r3.4xlarge 8

m1.xlarge 4 c3.4xlarge 8

r3.8xlarge 16


p2.xlarge 2

m2.2xlarge 4 c4.large 1

p2.8xlarge 16

m2.4xlarge 8 c4.xlarge 2

p2.16xlarge 32

m3.medium 1 c4.2xlarge 4

i2.xlarge 2

m3.large 1 c4.4xlarge 8

i2.2xlarge 4


i2.4xlarge 8

m3.2xlarge 4 hi1.4xlarge 8

i2.8xlarge 16

m4.large 1 hs1.8xlarge 8

d2.xlarge 2

m4.xlarge 2 g2.2xlarge 16

d2.2xlarge 4

m4.2xlarge 4 x1.16xlarge 32

d2.4xlarge 8

m4.4xlarge 8 x1.32xlarge 64

d2.8xlarge 18


18

Comparison for Amazon Web Services: Counting Virtual Cores vs. vCPUs

In order to illustrate the licensing impact of Oracle’s change in the “Licensing Oracle Software in Cloud

Computing Environments” policy, the below table provides an overview of the required number of licenses

for an Amazon EC2 of instance type “t2.xlarge” (having a capacity of 2 virtual cores and 4 vCPUs) as per

the old policy as well as per the new policy:

Authorized Cloud

Environments

Oracle Database Programs

Virtual Cores

vCPUs

Licensing Oracle Software in the Cloud Computing Environment

Conclusion

Old Policy (until January 23rd, 2017)

New Policy (after January 23rd, 2018)

Hyper-Threading enabled

Hyper-Threading disabled



Amazon Web Services (AWS) - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Amazon

Relational Database Service

(RDS)

Oracle Database Standard Edition

One

2 (4 if Hyper-Threading is

disabled) 4

1 socket = 1 Processor

license


license


license


license No price change


Two


disabled) 4


license


license


license





disabled) 4


license


license


license



Oracle Database Enterprise Edition


disabled) 4

2 virtual cores = 2 physical

cores x 0.5 (core factor)

= 1 Processor

license

2 virtual cores = 2 physical cores x

0.5 (core factor) = 1 Processor

license

4 virtual CPUs = 2 Processor

license

4 virtual CPUs =

4 Processor licenses

Price increased with

100% - 200%

As a result of the above comparison, it is clear that from a licensing and pricing perspective, the change in

Oracle’s licensing policy has a huge impact (100% to 200% increase) on Oracle Database Enterprise Edition

programs deployed on Amazon Web Services. The policy change does not have an impact on the

deployment of the Oracle Database Standard Edition programs.

Comment

Please note that for Amazon Web Services each vCPU is a hyperthread of an Intel Xeon core, except for

the Instance Types “T2” and “m3.medium”

Source: https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/

https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/


19


Comparison for Microsoft Azure: Counting Virtual Cores vs. vCPUs

In order to illustrate the licensing impact of Oracle’s change in the “Licensing Oracle Software in Cloud

Computing Environments” policy, the below table provides an overview of the required number of licenses

for a Microsoft Azure instance with 4 Azure vCPUs Cores as per the old policy and the required number of

licenses for a Microsoft Azure instance with 2 virtual cores and 4 Azure CPU cores as per the new policy.

Authorized Cloud

Environments

Oracle Database Programs

Virtual Cores

vCPUs

Licensing Oracle Software in the Cloud Computing Environment

Conclusion

Old Policy (until January 23rd, 2017)

New Policy (after January 23rd, 2018)





Microsoft Azure Platform


One


disabled) 4


license


license


license




Two


disabled) 4


license


license


license





disabled) 4


license


license


license



Oracle Database Enterprise Edition


disabled) 4

2 virtual cores = 2 physical

cores x 0.5 (core factor)

= 1 Processor

license

2 virtual cores = 2 physical cores x

0.5 (core factor) = 1 Processor

license

4 virtual CPUs = 2 Processor

license

4 virtual CPUs =

4 Processor licenses

Price increased with

100% - 200%

As a result of the above comparison, it is clear that from a licensing and pricing perspective, the change in

Oracle’s licensing policy has a huge impact (100% to 200% increase) with regards to the deployment of the

Oracle Database Enterprise Edition programs in case they are deployed on Microsoft Azure. The policy

change does not have an impact on the deployment of the Oracle Database Standard Edition programs.


20

Conclusion

As a result of Oracle’s latest change in its “Licensing Oracle Software in the Cloud Computing Environment”

policy, end users do require two to four times more licenses in case they deploy the Oracle Database

Enterprise Edition on Amazon AWS, Amazon RDS or Microsoft Azure.

End users no longer need to count the number of virtual cores to determine the required number of Processor

licenses, instead they need to count as per the below explanation:

Amazon EC2 and Amazon RDS:

- two vCPUs are equivalent to one Oracle Processor license if hyper-threading is enabled

- one vCPU is equivalent to one Oracle Processor license if hyper-threading is not enabled

Microsoft Azure:

- two vCPUs are equivalent to one Oracle Processor license if hyper-threading is enabled

- one vCPU is equivalent to one Oracle Processor license if hyper-threading is not enabled

Before you make the decision to put your Oracle Database and/or Middleware programs on a public cloud

provider, make sure that you check your contractual terms and conditions, check your virtual cores, vCPUs

and physical core counts to avoid unexpected licensing surprises.

End users will, in the near future, need to make a decision if they want to migrate their on-premises Database

installations to 12cR1 (for which the extended support will elapse in July 2021) or move to the Oracle

Database Cloud Services to benefit from the newest release (2) of 12c.

©2017 B-lay BV. All rights reserved.


About the author - Adrian Cristache, Technical Specialist Adrian is one of B-lay's Senior Technical Analysts. In his previous role as Senior Technical Analyst in Oracle's License Management Services department, Adrian was involved in more than 1000 customer engagements. He is now using his Software Asset and License Management experience and knowledge to provide valuable licensing advice, helping end users to maximize the efficiency of their software entitlements. Adrian holds a master degree in IT - Database development for business support - from the Academy of Economic Studies of Bucharest.

Contact Adrian: [email protected]

We share our knowledge, so you can focus on the facts! Do you want to know more about different related license management topics, we have a selection of white papers available through www.b-lay.com. If you are in need of extra expertise and a structured approach, feel free to contact B-lay. We will help you make software compliance an exciting opportunity to improve your business!

About B-lay B-lay is a specialist in software license management and provides services around software compliance, software audits, software asset management tools and insight in software spend. Our services offer organizations worldwide insight into the risks associated with software licenses, help prevent license compliance issues and help create considerable cost savings by optimizing their licensing position. B-lay was founded in 2008 and has offices in the Netherlands, Romania and the US.

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Date post:	23-Jul-2020
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Licensing Oracle on Amazon EC2, RDS and Microsoft Azure...

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