RE: Oracle license requirements for unused options

  • From: "Goulet, Richard" <Richard.Goulet@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "Dunbar, Norman (Capgemini)" <norman.dunbar.capgemini@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, <Brandon.Allen@xxxxxxxxxxx>, <Jay.Miller@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, <oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 18 May 2011 09:51:00 -0400

Norm,

        My experience with LMS was pre 10g, but it's nice to see that
the results remain the same.  BTW in 11g they report:

NAME                 FIRST_USA LAST_USAG
-------------------- --------- ---------
Partitioning (system 28-OCT-10 13-MAY-11
Partitioning (user)

In dba_feature_usage__stats which I read somewhere may not be exactly
correct, but now they know if you've ever used the feature never mind
currently using.  Tricky.


-----Original Message-----
From: Dunbar, Norman (Capgemini)
[mailto:norman.dunbar.capgemini@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2011 8:57 AM
To: Goulet, Richard; Brandon.Allen@xxxxxxxxxxx;
Jay.Miller@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Oracle license requirements for unused options

Richard,

>> .... they are used by Oracle for their internal purposes.
Partitioning in
>> Enterprise Edition comes immediately to mind.  You must install it 
>> and you can't deinstall it because some of the internal
sys objects are
>> partitioned which a check of a 11.1.0.7.0 EE database shows:

Have you checked DBA_FEATURE_USAGE_STATISTICS for partitioning?

SQL> select name
  2  from DBA_FEATURE_USAGE_STATISTICS
  3  where name like 'Partitioning%'

NAME
---------------------
Partitioning (system)
Partitioning (system)
Partitioning (user)
Partitioning (user)

There are two separate partitioning "options" in a 10g database. I have
no idea why there are duplicates! Might be a separate "incarnation" of
the database. I'll check the DBID later.


>> TABLE_OWNER                      COUNT(*)
>> ------------------------------ ----------
>> MDSYS                                         2
>> SYSTEM                                     38
>> SYS                                            220

So the ones you have listed in the above query will be Partitioning
(system) usage. On my 10g database I see this:

SQL> select banner from v$version;

BANNER
----------------------------------------------------------------
Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition Release 10.2.0.4.0 - Prod PL/SQL
Release 10.2.0.4.0 - Production
CORE    10.2.0.4.0      Production
TNS for Linux: Version 10.2.0.4.0 - Production NLSRTL Version 10.2.0.4.0
- Production

As you can see, nothing there mentions the Partitioning option, but ...

SQL> select owner,count(*)
  2  from dba_tables
  3  where partitioned = 'YES'
  4  group by owner;

OWNER                            COUNT(*)
------------------------------ ----------
SYSTEM                                 27
SYS                                    23


And querying DBA_ shows this for partitioning:

SQL> select dbid, name, detected_usages, currently_used
  2  from DBA_FEATURE_USAGE_STATISTICS
  3  where name like 'Partitioning%';

      DBID NAME                  DETECTED_USAGES CURRE
---------- --------------------- --------------- -----
3189876621 Partitioning (system)               31 TRUE
3189876621 Partitioning (system)              151 TRUE
3189876621 Partitioning (user)                  0 FALSE
3189876621 Partitioning (user)                  0 FALSE


(I have even less ideas about the duplicates now!)


>> Now they definitely can't make you pay for an option that you're not 
>> using, but they are.

I have also mentioned that when I patched a database from 10.2.0.x to a
later 10.2 release, various options that I explicitly did not install -
data mining, OLAP etc - were reinstated after the patching. 

And, when we were audited (in a past life), Oracle Licensing *were* and
indeed *did* attempting to charge us for options installed regardless of
use. 


Cheers,
Norm.

Norman Dunbar
Contract Senior Oracle DBA
Capgemini Database Team (EA)
Internal : 7 28 2051
External : 0113 231 2051


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