Oracle Database Licensing: First Step!

Oracle licensing is always a complex question, right?
I made some search about it today and decided to share, on quick mode. As I usually do. I focused on Database, by the way. 🙂

The first step is to understand Features vs Options vs Packs relation. Oracle documentation is always good for that. I recommend you to spend some time on Database Licensing Information User Manual.

Ok, now the best way to undestand how evaluate my environment is searching on Oracle Support, right?
And it do not disappoint: Database Options/Management Packs Usage Reporting for Oracle Databases 11gR2 and 12c (Doc ID 1317265.1)
In this note you can get a complete and actual script used to evaluate features/options/packs utilization (options_packs_usage_statistics.sql). This is a good way if you are preparing for an auditing…

I made some simple queries to validate/understand results from Oracle Script. So, if you don’t have access to Oracle Support, it might help you:

Get Features usage:

SELECT u1.name,
u1.detected_usages,
u1.currently_used,
u1.version,
u1.description
FROM   dba_feature_usage_statistics u1
WHERE  u1.version = (SELECT MAX(u2.version)
FROM   dba_feature_usage_statistics u2
WHERE  u2.name = u1.name)
AND    u1.dbid = (SELECT dbid FROM v$database)
--WHERE DETECTED_USAGES>0 -- To get used features only
ORDER BY name
/

Get Options usage:

col parameter for a50
select parameter,value from v$option
--where value='TRUE' -- To get used options only
/

Information about Session license limits:

SELECT sessions_max s_max,sessions_warning s_warning,
sessions_current s_current,sessions_highwater s_high,users_max
FROM v$license;

Information about CPU license limits:

select cpu_count_current, cpu_core_count_current,CPU_SOCKET_COUNT_CURRENT,
CPU_COUNT_HIGHWATER,CPU_CORE_COUNT_HIGHWATER,CPU_SOCKET_COUNT_HIGHWATER
FROM v$license;

An interesting point is that you can disable and enable options through the command chopt. But, you must to get database down first. Example to disable partitioning option:

chopt disable partitioning

The complete explanation and examples (including right values to activate/deactivate options) can be found on Oracle Database Postinstallation Tasks – Enabling and Disabling Database Options.

Some time ago I wrote a post about evaluating Database license in all database park through OEM. It remains valid, I recommend you take a look in this post too.

KB and other interesting stuffs:
Database Options/Management Packs Usage Reporting for Oracle Databases 11gR2 and 12c (Doc ID 1317265.1)
12c Release 1 Database Licensing Information User Manual
11g Release 1 Database Licensing Information User Manual
Enabling and Disabling Database Options
Excellent and actual presentation by Martin Berger
Article about top license pitfalls. Good to reflection. Written by OMTCO Consulting

Matheus.