VMware Cloud Community
devzero
Expert
Expert

New Oracle Licensing due to vCenter 5.1 changes?

There is a weird blog-entry at http://www.doag.org/home/aktuelle-news/article/oracle-aendert-lizenzierung-von-oracle-produkten-unte...

DOAG is the German Oracle User Group

Oracle ändert Lizenzierung von Oracle-Produkten unter VMware vSphere ab Version 5.1

Oracle hat es in seinen Lizenzbestimmungen nirgendwo festgehalten, trotzdem gelten für die Lizenzierung von Oracle-Produkten unter VMware vSphere neue Regelungen: Nach Informationen der Oracle-Partner ist ab der Version 5.1 der Virtualisierungssoftware nicht wie bisher das Cluster zu lizenzieren, sondern das gesamte vCenter, in dem Oracle-Software installiert sind bzw. laufen.

Als Grund für diese Änderung nennt Oracle die neuen Fähigkeiten der Virtualisierungslösung ab Version 5.1: Virtuelle Maschinen können zur Laufzeit über die Cluster-Grenzen hinweg innerhalb eines vCenter verschoben werden.

Diese Regelung wurde auf Nachfrage der DOAG seitens der Oracle-Ansprechpartner bestätigt. Deswegen empfiehlt die DOAG, ein vCenter für Oracle-Produkte vorzusehen und 1-n vCenter für weitere Produkte zu nutzen.

Michael Paege, stellv. Vorstandsvorsitzender der DOAG und Leiter des Competence Center Lizenzierung, kritisiert diese Änderung der Lizenzbestimmungen und fordert weiterhin einheitliche Lizenzierungsregeln für alle Virtualisierungstechnologien. 

Diese Frage der Oracle-Lizenzierung unter VMware wird der Lizenz-Spezialist in seinem Vortrag auf der DOAG 2014 Konferenz + Ausstellung behandeln.

Ill try to tanslate this (i`m no native english speaker - so no guarantee for proper translation):

Oracle is changing licensing from oracle products under vSphere 5.1+

Oracle does not have it in detail in their licence clauses, tough for the licensing of oracle products under vmware vsphere there are new rules:  based on informations from the oracle partners, since version vmware 5.1 oracle does not only need to be licensed within the cluster but within the whole vcenter, in which oracle software is being installed or running.

oracle tells, the reason for this are the new features of vSphere 5.1:  virtual machines can be moved at runtime across cluster boundaries.

This rule was was asked by DOAG and was aknowledged by the oracle contact persons.   DOAG now recommends, one vcenter for oracle products and 1-n vcenter for further products.

Michael Page, assistant chairman of DOAG and leader of competence center licensing is critizising this change in the license regulations and demands uniform licensing rules for all virtualization technologies.

This question regarding oracle licensing under vmware will be discussed by the license specialist in his talk at "DOAG 2014 conference + exhibition".

10 Replies
tbeumer
Contributor
Contributor

Und das ist die Aussage von VMWARE zu diesem Problem:

....

Vielen Dank für das freundliche Gespräch am heutigen Nachmittag.

Wie besprochen kontaktieren Sie bitte Oracle fuer dieses Problem.

Aus diesem Grund schliessen wir dieser Fall.

Kind Regards, Mit freundlichen Grüßen

------

Reply
0 Kudos
devzero
Expert
Expert

is this a joke and the way to handle customers ?

vmware has a whitepaper on licensing oracle on vmware.

if oracle now changes their rules, at least vmware needs to adjust their paper at:

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/vmw-understanding-oracle-certification-supportlicensing-en...

VMware has its own policy to support customers running Oracle applications on VMware, available at

https://www.vmware.com/support/policies/oracle-support.html

. If required, VMware will take ownership of

the support request and pursue rapid resolution, in collaboration with the Oracle support organization

through TSANet as needed. Because VMware customers virtualize all types of Tier 1 applications, we have

significant expertise in making this a seamless support experience.

VMware Oracle Support Policy | United States

Oracle Support Policy

Summary

VMware’s business mission is to reduce complexity, lower costs, and improve information technology service delivery for customers. This extended support policy delivers this, by driving resolution of customer technology issues that involve multiple product vendors. VMware is committed to its customers’ success and supports their choice to run Oracle software in modern, virtualized environments.

Expanded Support

VMware is committed to the success of its customers in deploying simplified, cost-effective, and better information technology services. To further this, we recently announced expanded support for Oracle Database technical issues with the VMware vSphere platform. This expanded technical support is driven by our VMware customers’ choice to deploy increasing amounts of their Oracle Database software with VMware products.

This expanded support is targeted at Oracle Database usage “above and below” vSphere, where the Oracle database is:

  • used as a data store for VMware products
  • run within a virtual machine on vSphere/ESX

VMware Oracle Support provides customers the following new advantages as part of the existing Support and Subscription contract at no additional charge:

  • Total ownership of Oracle Database technical issues reported to VMware Support
  • Access to a team of Oracle DBA resources within VMware Support to troubleshoot related to Oracle Databases used as a data store or run within a VM
  • Performance tuning and best practices related to Oracle Database used as a data store or run within a VM
  • Faster resolution of technical issues in VMware environments via a TSANet collaborative support arrangement between VMware Support and Oracle Support

Total Ownership

VMware Support will accept accountability for any Oracle-related issue reported by a customer. By being accountable, VMware Support will drive the issue to resolution regardless of which vendor (VMware, Oracle, or others) is responsible for the resolution. In most cases, reported issues can be resolved via configuration changes, bug fixes, or feature enhancements by one of the involved vendors.

In the rare situation that another vendor is unable or unwilling to provide a satisfactory technical resolution, VMware Support will immediately notify the customer, assist in escalation and explore other potential technical workarounds with the customer.

VMware will also assist its customers with technical issues for other Oracle software products, besides the Oracle Database and provide similar escalation assistance if needed.

Besides technical assistance, VMware Support will advocate on the customer’s behalf to:

  • Provide any relevant evidence that virtualization does not play a part in the Oracle product technical problem
  • Engage Oracle Support in resolving the customer’s technical issue, escalating management attention as appropriate

- See more at: https://www.vmware.com/support/policies/oracle-support.html#sthash.udGZeScA.dpuf
Reply
0 Kudos
tbeumer
Contributor
Contributor

Leider ist das kein Scherz. Das war die Antwort auf ein Support Ticket vom 23.09.2014

das sich auf den DOAG Aktikel (Aktuelle News - DOAG) bezog.

Reply
0 Kudos
devzero
Expert
Expert

three things:

1. did you give up asking because of that? if you getting fobbed of give it another try ! be a nagger! Smiley Wink

2. the paper at http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/vmw-understanding-oracle-certification-supportlicensing-en...  has wrong statements. i have spoken to an german oracle licensing expert today (not from oracle company itself). so apparently it needs correction.

3. while speaking to that person, i got asked about the role of the "datacenter" object within vcenter. i never gave much awareness on that, but apparently at least in vsphere 5.1+ it seems you can`t vmotion virtual machines across datacenter boundaries. so maybe moving oracle clusters to separate "datacenters" could be a workaround for the licensing problem. i did not yet test it

vsphere6 is another issue, though.

so - better let`s make noise so there are enough people to tell oracle that their latest licensing fud is nothing but idiotic.

and i don`t see the point why vmware should lean back here and tell "ask oracle".

just some weeks ago there was some vmware sales person at our site who strongly recommended running oracle on vmware and promised all help from vmware to do that. so if vmware persons go out on a limb i don`t see the point why a customer shouldn`t ask a multi million dollar company for help solving such an issue. especially with regard to VMware Oracle Support Policy | VMware Deutschland

Reply
0 Kudos
tbeumer
Contributor
Contributor

Thank you for for hint. I tryed this Option and you can not move vms across "Datacenter" with VMOTION.

I think this is a good workaround.

Reply
0 Kudos
MKguy
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Caution, rant incoming.

Oracle once again arbitrarily deciding to joke with their customers through some new obscure licensing BS? Business as usual, news at 8.

If "not being able to vMotion a VM" is their measuring gauge, then among other things it could be as simple as attaching the oracle VMs to custom vSS port group names or a dedicated dvSwitch. This completely prevents any manual or DRS initiated vMotion and also prevents VMs being able to be restarted by HA on other hosts. But I'm sure Oracle will claim that this case is different and I'll have to license all hosts in my whole environment/datacenter/whatever abstraction layer anyways.

And to round up the whole hypocrisy, these fickle rules don't apply to Oracle's own virtualization software which accepts their physical CPU-pinning feature but not other vendor's.

The entire logic of having to buy licenses for hosts where no Oracle software ever ran or will run is already so utterly flawed and downright silly, yet customers seem to keep playing along with their antics. They expect you to pay a huge lumps of money for literally nothing, air, a cloud in the truest sense.

What's next, licensing all my VMware Workstation/Player/Fusion desktops/notebooks because I could potentially run the VM in there as well? Licensing all blades of a boot from SAN environment where I could boot a physical server image from any of the blades? Licensing every physical system in my environment because my disaster recovery software could possibly restore it on every device?

There was a video of an Oracle employee at VMworld 2 years ago where he said using strict DRS rules was a valid partitioning scheme in terms of licensing. The video soon got pulled from youtube soon with a contradicting unclear statement from Oracle:

http://www.licenseconsulting.eu/vmworld-tv-oracle-on-licensing-vmware-virtualized-environments-updat...

http://up2v.nl/2011/03/16/oracle-supports-vmware-drs-host-affinity-but-does-not-want-you-to-know-it/

http://oraclestorageguy.typepad.com/oraclestorageguy/2012/09/oracle-throws-in-the-towel-on-vmware-li...

The fact that there are whole companies and experts dedicated to licensing consulting for a single 3rd party vendor is already very telling.

just some weeks ago there was some sales person at our site who strongly recommended running oracle on vmware and promised all help from vmware to do that. so if vmware persons go out on a limb i don`t see the point why a customer shouldn`t ask a multi million dollar company for help solving such an issue. especially with regard to VMware Oracle Support Policy | VMware Deutschland

VMware's Oracle support policy doesn't mention licensing in a single word there. It's about technical issues and obviously only Oracle itself and to a partial degree licensing consultants with close ties to Oracle can be an authoritative source to give "clear and distinctive licensing terms" (good joke, right).

Also the Oracle partitioning document still refers to single physical "servers" or "clusters" as hard partitioning boundaries and not abstract management entities like vCenter servers or a vCenter Datacenter object:

http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/pricing/partitioning-070609.pdf

-- http://alpacapowered.wordpress.com
devzero
Expert
Expert

thanks for this answer. think you hit the nail on the head.

Reply
0 Kudos
devzero
Expert
Expert

more than a week has passed by and vmware has been pretty unhelpful regarding this issue.

i don`t expect that they make change oracle`s licensing behaviour nor do i expect they solve customer`s licensing issues when running oracle within vcenter.

but why i expect is some sort of statement regarding this instead of letting the customer completely alone and tell: naa, that`s not our issue. go away. resolve this with your oracle sales person.

what i at least expect is some sort of official statement and some sort of reaction to this, as vmware keeps telling "Reduce Licensing Cost While Staying Compliant with Oracle Licensing Policies" on their website (for example at "https://www.vmware.com/hu/business-critical-apps/oracle-virtualization/oracle-database").

with the current new oracle licensing model, the information vmware provides is simply untrue.

i don`t like companies who don`t stick to the truth.

pretty ignorant vmware, thank you!

licensing.png

Reply
0 Kudos
PLemetayer
Contributor
Contributor

Hi all,

Oracle told us if we virtualize an Oracle database in a Vmware VM in our datacenter, we have to pay Oracle licenses for ALL the CPU of ALL the ESX in our datacenter.

Incredible !!!

Best regards

Reply
0 Kudos
MKguy
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Ask Oracle where this is stated in the contract or license agreement documents you signed when buying their products.

Hint: As long as they can't provide that answer, their claims are invalid:

» Oracle FUD – The Phantom Menace: Licensing on VMware vSphere Long White Virtu...

-- http://alpacapowered.wordpress.com
Reply
0 Kudos