Oracle ULA Certification

Ask any Oracle ULA customer, and they will tell you how much Oracle wants them to renew their ULAs. Letting a ULA expire and certifying is not in Oracle’s best interests – whether or not the customer wants to. Oracle will often apply negotiation tactics and leverages to get a customer to simply renew the ULA at a higher price. If a customer insists on letting the ULA expire, and go down the certification route, Oracle may, and often does, make things difficult.

One key approach for Oracle is challenging and questioning the certification numbers. Oracle may inquire about how the data was collected and attempt to poke holes in the approach and methodology. Additionally, Oracle may offer “assistance” with a ULA assessment – even if the customer does not want this assistance. This can include the completion of spreadsheets, running of Oracle’s scripts, and the collection and submission of large amounts of deployment data. Aside from not being contractually required to submit such details, customers may expose instances where Oracle is not convinced that the software is truly “installed AND running” and/or expose other compliance risks.

Even if a customer does manage to get through the certification phase and manages to close out the ULA process, if Oracle is not satisfied, then Oracle’s License Management Services (LMS) may decide to invoke their audit rights and initiate a formal license audit of the customer’s entire environment. Not a fun outcome.

If you need assistance at any stage of a ULA from our team of ex-Oracle LMS personnel, reach out to us for a consultation.