RE: Anyone Running Oracle on VMWare?

  • From: "Storey, Robert \(DCSO\)" <RStorey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2010 13:36:07 -0500

In my discussions with Oracle and reps on licensing, it matters not how
many instances of oracle you are running on the physical box. So, I
interpret this in that if you are running a native instance, or 5 guest
hosts each with its own instance, then you're running oracle on that
box. Oracle cares not that you are running multiple instances, as I read
it.

So, the minute you install oracle on that box, whether it be in a guest
host, or a native install, you license oracle for the physical hardware.
So, on a Dell 710, if you're running dual processer, quad cores, for a
total of 8 cores, that's 4 CPU of license, whether you load one or 10
instances on that box.

Now, that's non-virtual world setup. I've not read-up on how OracleVM
licenses.  Now, I'm not VM smart. So, out of your 5 host cluster, if
oracle "could"reside on any of those physical hosts at any time, then
you have to license all 5.  I think someone referred to the point that
you could do up to 10 days a year on a non-licensed box to handle
failovers and such.

So, I'm betting donuts that Oracle would argue that if you're
x-instances move around those physical hosts in that cluster fairly
regularly, and not just in a emergency, then you would be asked to
license all 5 boxes.

So, to me, if your 3 guests hosts are always on one box, then I read
that's as licensing that host. However, if your instances will reside
for longer than 10 days on any of the other boxes, then that box must be
licenses as well. 

I license my production box, and my dataguard box, because I may need to
move to it at any time for undetermined periods of time.  

Good discussion.

-----Original Message-----
From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Allen, Brandon
Sent: Friday, April 16, 2010 11:09 AM
To: D'Hooge Freek; Taylor, Chris David; 'oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'
Subject: RE: Anyone Running Oracle on VMWare?

Are you saying that if you had a cluster of 5 physical hosts in a
cluster and you were running 3 virtual guest hosts that were running
Oracle instances, then you'd have to license the physical hardware for 3
physical hosts even if you're running all three Oracle guest hosts on a
single physical box?  That's ridiculous, but again, I wouldn't be
surprised to hear it from Oracle Sales.  Of course, just because it
comes from Oracle Sales doesn't make it true - I've received conflicting
answers from different Oracle Sales reps and had to correct them myself
on more than one occasion.

The documentation from Oracle says that you have to license all the
processors for the hosts on which you are running Oracle, regardless of
the number of virtuals or any "soft partitioning".  That's what the
documentation says so that's what I'm going with until I see otherwise
in official Oracle documentation.

Thanks,
Brandon

-----Original Message-----
From: D'Hooge Freek [mailto:Freek.DHooge@xxxxxxxxx]


I did some research a while ago about this topic and what I heared from
Oracle is that you need to license the minimum between the number of
virtual guests and the number of physical servers in the cluster.


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