1000+ Oracle cores identified – maximised existing licenses, avoiding unnecessary spend
300+ cores optimised – streamlined license management for cost efficiency
Compliance secured – Verified with a surplus, strengthening renewal negotiations
Risk eliminated – Isolation agreement removed compliance risks for VMware clusters
Introduction
Our client, a prominent global organisation transacting in highly regulated markets, serves both governmental and private sectors, with entities globally. With a longstanding partnership with Oracle, our client sought our assistance in the review of Oracle Database license consumption in their business and the preparation of an ELP (Effective License Position) and Oracle Server Worksheet (OSW) in preparation for negotiations with Oracle.
Their Challenges
- Our client has a large and complex environment, with many servers
- Used a variety of virtualisation technologies- both soft and hard partitioned
- The client has a number of business units with their own separate networks
- Several outsourced partners managing the infrastructure
- Mix of licensing metrics both core and user-based licenses
- Small IT Asset Management team managing large complex environment, range of vendors and products
Their Objectives
The clients’ objectives encompassed:
- Understanding their current Oracle Licensing position ahead of their upcoming renewal.
- To obtain a cyber security assessment of oracle database technology
- To prepare an oracle ELP and OSW for over 700 Oracle database instances
- Identify any compliance risk and/ opportunities to reduce license demand
Our Approach
A phased approach was used to deliver the project based on bedigital Horizons methodology.
The Horizons Methodology has been developed by bedigital for the rapid and iterative approach to the measurement of Oracle database license consumption.
Each horizon represents the level of detail we can “see” regarding Oracle database usage based on the information available for that level.
At each level you will have an estimation of the Oracle database products deployed and licenses required. The higher the horizon the more assumptions that need to be made but also the less information the client needs to provide.
Project Execution
The project was executed following a phased approach, using bedigital’s Horizons methodology which is a rapid and iterative approach for the measurement of Oracle database license consumption.
This allowed us to quickly calculate an estimate of the number of cores that need to be licensed for database options and packs. A continuously improving License Demand report was delivered at the end of each sprint.
The analogy we will use of that of the view for an airplane at 50,000, then 20,000, then 5,000, then 1,000 feet and finally on the ground level.
At a high level the view to the horizon is at its furthest. You get a complete view but lack certain detail. The lower you go the more detail you get and the more confident you are in what you are seeing. Until finally you have perfect visibility on the ground. The horizons are named as follows from highest to lowest:
- H5 – 50,000 meters
- H4 – 20,000 meters
- H3 – 5,000 meters
- H2 – 1,000 meters
H1 – Ground level
Challenges Overcome
- Finding all the servers that were suspected of running an Oracle database
- Eliminating false positives
- Using multiple sources of data to understand the hardware configuration
- Getting a definitive list of entitlements for Oracle licenses due to many different business units buying software
Outcomes
Entitlement:
- Oracle Global Entitlement received and verified against our clients’ orders
- Over 1000 cores of Enterprise Edition licenses were found available
- An isolation agreement was identified for VMware clusters protecting against compliance risk in the future
Deployment:
- Over 300 cores of oracle databases were bought under license management
- Client compliance verified with a small surplus
- Virtualization servers highlighted for inclusion in new isolation agreement
Benefits
- Verified compliance risk
- Prepared ELP and OSW which can be used by team
- License verification and compliance- bedigital verified that the client is compliant against Oracle orders
- Resource optimisation: identification of surplus licenses, allows the client to plan for future needs without purchasing additional licenses
- Risk mitigation: the identification of an isolation agreement for some of the VMware clusters allows the client to have clarity on which environments are properly licensed
- Strategic planning opportunities: the client now has a clear understanding of their license availability and compliance, so they can develop a strategic approach to their renewal and future license management
Conclusion
The Oracle Database Effective License Position Project was deemed a success, delivering the client an ELP report and OSW using their data, proving compliance, and highlighting areas of surplus and compliance. This aligns with our clients Oracle renewal plans, and overall cost reduction targets.
*Sample list of Oracle products in scope
- Oracle Database Standard Edition
- Oracle Database Enterprise Edition
- Partitioning
- Real Application Cluster
- Multitenant
- Spatial
- Active Data Guard and Xstream
- Oracle Advanced Compression
- Advanced Security
- Database Vault
- In-Memory
- Diagnostic Pack
- Tuning Pack
- Application Server Configuration Pack
- Application Server Diagnostics Pack
- Database Configuration Pack
