Disclaimer #1. While we are experts in Oracle licensing, the ultimate authority on all Oracle licensing issues is the contract you have signed with Oracle. Our advice, positions, and opinions below should not be taken as-is in assessing Oracle licensing. Situations vary, and even minor changes in technical configurations can lead to very different licensing outcomes. If you have have specific questions, it’s crucial to discuss the details on a case-by-case basis. Feel free to schedule a consultation if you want to discuss specific scenarios around Oracle licensing in Nutanix.
Disclaimer #2. We love Nutanix. It’s an excellent technology that promises to enhance, simplify, and optimize Oracle deployments and management. Our comments below should not be considered a dig at Nutanix. We simply feel that getting clear and unbiased advice on Oracle licensing is key to a trouble-free Oracle-in-Nutanix journey.
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Anyone searching online for resources on Oracle licensing in Nutanix will come across several resources, including the following from Nutanix:
https://next.nutanix.com/t5/Nutanix-Connect-Blog/Reducing-Oracle-Licensing-Cost-on-Nutanix/ba-p/13656
http://go.nutanix.com/rs/nutanix/images/BP-2000_Oracle_on_Nutanix_Best_Practices.pdf
While we recognize the advantages and benefits of deploying Oracle in Nutanix, it’s important to understand the Oracle licensing fundamentals and implications. We also understand that the authors of these resources are not Oracle licensing experts, so minor oversights are understandable. It is, however, important to point out some of the pitfalls in those resources regarding Oracle licensing in Nutanix that any reader should be careful and mindful of.
First, let’s look at the the blog post: https://next.nutanix.com/t5/Nutanix-Connect-Blog/Reducing-Oracle-Licensing-Cost-on-Nutanix/ba-p/13656
The post does an excellent job of highlighting the advantages, ease and feasibility of deploying Oracle in Nutanix. We have concerns about the licensing claims, though. The example provided about partitioning a 10-node environment into several clusters, including a 2-node VMware cluster for Oracle, is potentially misleading. Oracle does not recognize any “fencing” capabilities. Period. The post claims: “This layout is no different, from a licensing standpoint, than using a shared storage platform serving different ESXi clusters” – correct… and per Oracle’s LMS team, all such ESXi clusters would require full licensing. Furthermore, per Oracle LMS, all clusters in the VCenter require full licensing.
You have to be an ex-Oracle license auditor or the survivor of an Oracle license audit to know this. In short, it’s a pretty safe bet that the Oracle license auditors would look at this example and conclude that all 10 nodes require full licensing. (On another note, Nutanix requires at least 3 nodes for their full failover capability to be leveraged. So if you are considering Oracle licensing in Nutanix, and want to benefit from seamless DR, you must at least license 3 nodes).
Another issue is storage segregation. Remember – Oracle requires licensing anywhere Oracle software is present. For databases, this includes binaries, data files, etc. This leads to the simple question – is the “storage-only” node free from Oracle licensing requirement? We would be hesitant to conclude as such. Based on our experience, putting anything related to the Database, even data files, on any system triggers full licensing requirement.
Finally, with regards to this post, it’s a bit unfair that the example presented compares a traditional architecture with processors with core factor of 1.0 against Nutanix that has a core factor of 0.5. Seems a bit unfair and misleading. Why not compare a traditional x86 system with Linux (core factor of 0.5) with Nutanix (core factor of 0.5)? On the whole, the article does a great job of identifying the benefits of simplifying your Oracle deployment with Nutanix. We don’t doubt those benefits at all.
Now turning to the best practices document (http://go.nutanix.com/rs/nutanix/images/BP-2000_Oracle_on_Nutanix_Best_Practices.pdf). As with the post, the document demonstrates the advantages and feasibility of Oracle in Nutanix. Unlike the blog post, it goes into some very useful details too. As with the post, however, we do have reservations about the Oracle licensing aspect. Firstly, remember that any guidance on Oracle licensing should only come from Oracle. Secondly, your Oracle contract (only) is king. So it’s wise to treat this document (and others like it from VMware) as a useful resource rather than being authoritative on Oracle licensing.
Of particular interest (and concern) is this section on page 28:
“You are not required to license an entire Nutanix block, or cluster, if all nodes will not run Oracle software. You can use hypervisor clusters, or cluster rules to restrict where Oracle software can run, and therefore restrict how many nodes of a large cluster must be licensed. You must however ensure you are appropriately licensed for each Nutanix node where Oracle software will run.”
This section makes us nervous because we have dealt with countless Oracle audits as auditors as well as independent third party experts assisting Oracle users. The litmus test Oracle auditors use is “where can the Oracle software potentially run?” As long as the underlying technology facilitates migration, the nodes must be counted. The auditors typically ignore fencing features. This approach may seem strange, but it works rather conveniently to Oracle’s benefit. Fortunately, the above paragraph is followed by a paragraph advising the reader to obtain expert advice on this topic.
So, where do we go from here? Our summary for Oracle licensing in Nutanix is as follows:
- Running Oracle in Nutanix will likely lead to scrutiny from Oracle license auditors. Furthermore, it’s likely they will require all nodes in a Nutanix cluster to be licensed. They have aggressively maintained this position with VMware for many years. We feel your chances of being audited by Oracle will only go up because, after all, from Oracle’s perspective, this is a good indicator for license non-compliance.
- As experienced licensing veterans, we are confident that a customer can defend her position on the issue of licensing Oracle in Nutanix environments. It comes down to smart planning, negotiation, and having a thorough understanding of your Oracle contracts and licensing fundamentals.
- In the event of an Oracle license audit, even if a customer is able to prevail on the number of nodes that need to be licensed, it does not change the fact that Oracle will likely find all sorts of other non-compliance issues like use of unlicensed features, deployment of unlicensed editions, incorrect counting of Named Users, violations of Limited Use stipulations, etc. In short, be ready for an Oracle license audit.
Oracle recognition of fencing or otherwise is completely irrelevant when you are only required to license where the Oracle software IS INSTALLED AND/OR RUNNING. If it is not installed or running on a particular system you have no requirement to license it, regardless of how you achieve that. For legal evidence of this please see Mars vs Oracle. There are no specific limits or restrictions on how you maintain compliance and there is no mention of any group of servers in any licensing document that is legally binding.
Hello Michael, thanks for the input. I should clarify that the point here was to highlight Oracle’s position and view of things. Given how messy an audit can be, Oracle’s non-recognition of fencing technologies is not an irrelevant issue. Perhaps at the DBA level it may appear irrelevant, but at the VP of IT and C-level, it’s not. Folks higher up are keenly interested in Oracle’s own position on partitioning because they want a complete picture of the different aspects of Oracle licensing – even if you and I disagree with Oracle’s position and find it unreasonable.
On a minor note – the Mars vs Oracle case is generally not considered useful legal precedence by many customers primarily because it got settled out of court. There was no judgment. Now, this case (and the fact that Oracle settled outside and dropped all further VMware claims) may be comforting to a CIO in the midst of a contentious Oracle audit. But if there’s a CIO considering Oracle and different virtualization platforms and considering architecture decisions, she will not find much solace in this case due to the fact that it got settled out of court and was not closed with a slam dunk court ruling. I deal with such VPs and CIOs all the time. No CIO will base her IT strategy around suing Oracle. Period. Even with the Mars vs Oracle case being recited to them by the likes of you and I (which I try to do routinely).
Another thing to keep in mind is that Oracle compliance is about more than just counting machines and cores – there’s a lot more to it. For DB, it’s tracking Options/Packs, front end application user populations, and more. For middleware and BI, versions, editions, modifications, etc., play a significant role. For EBS, Agile, and other Apps, we are talking about user roles, privileges, transactions sessions, electronic orders, 3rd party integrations, schema modifications, and more. All of these are aspects that customers can end up in trouble with even outside of the virtualization aspect. If Oracle thinks you are non-compliant due to VMware or Nutanix or KVM, your chances of being audited go up significantly. Even if you are eventually successful in defending your “fencing” and cluster configs, this does not change the fact that Oracle likely will find all sorts of other compliance issues. I would know – I’ve been through hundreds of audits across both sides of the fence. Put simply, customers should not hesitate to use VMware or Nutanix or any technology that fits their needs best, and license only the machines where Oracle software is truly installed and/or running. But they should make sure they are compliant with all aspects of Oracle licensing, not just in terms of counting cores.
Thanks for your comment. I hope you find this useful. Please feel free to share further insights.
You don’t have to sue Oracle, you just have to be in compliance with your contract. If your contract says you only have to pay for where Oracle software is installed and/or running (including the various option packs etc) anyone’s opinion other than what is in the contract is completely irrelevant. Especially when the contract replaces all other understandings both verbal and written. If it is not in the contract it doesn’t exist. Period.
To put it another way, just because I CAN go to into space on Virgin Galactic doesn’t mean Virgin Galactic can send me a bill for going if I have not done so or not agreed to do so. The CIO and VP of IT should be basing their decisions on the contract they have signed up, and by which they are legally bound. They should also only supply relevant information. It is not relevant where software is not or has not been installed and/or running. It is relevant where it has been or is installed and/or running. You are spreading misinformation without any contractural basis whatsoever. I have been on the other side of many audits over the last 20 years and they have all been settled with regard to the contract that was signed or a variation to it based on mutual agreement.