Skip to content

By vendor exposure
Oracle LMS

Four hundred installs of Oracle Database
is the start of the work.

The count does not tell you which options are enabled, which cores are licensable under which core factor, or which hosts are covered down by an Enterprise Edition pool. That gap is where the audit finding lives.

Answered on one platform. One data model across ITAM, SAM, SaaS, Cloud and AI.

Oracle measurement

Illustrative

prod-ora-04 · Database Enterprise Edition

Options and packs, with evidence and override

Partitioning in use · evidence attached
licensable
Diagnostics Pack in use · evidence attached
licensable
Advanced Compression detected, overridden with reason
not chargeable
Processor core factor x86 multi-core
0.5
Licensable processors 16 cores × 0.5
8
Covered down by EE pool pool with hosting rights and geography
yes

Measurement data

accepted by Oracle’s audit team during an official audit

Publisher verification

Oracle LMS/GLAS verified

Verified by Oracle License Management Services. Oracle’s audit team can accept data from Certero during an official audit, as an alternative to installing Oracle’s own measurement tools.

Verification

Oracle Partner

Third-party tool verifications for Java, Database and Fusion Middleware

The problem

Oracle licensing is decided by four things a generic SAM tool does not model.

The finding is always in the options, the cores, the pools or the certification.

  1. 01 one query, one option

    A DBA enabled Partitioning to test something in 2019.

    Options and management packs become licensable the moment somebody uses one. Nobody records the moment it happened, and by the time it is found it has been true for six years.

    Options and packs with evidence and override SAM

  2. 02 cores times a factor

    Sixteen cores is not sixteen licences, and it is not eight either.

    The licensable count is cores multiplied by a factor that depends on the processor type. Get the factor wrong on a handful of hosts and the position is wrong by a six-figure sum in either direction.

    Processor types and core factors SAM

  3. 03 pools and cover-down

    The entitlement you need may already be sitting in a pool.

    Pools carry hosting rights and geographic rules, and an Enterprise Edition entitlement can cover a Standard Edition deployment. Without that logic you buy licences you already own.

    Cover-down logic for Enterprise Edition SAM

  4. 04 certification day

    A ULA is unlimited right up until the moment you have to declare.

    At certification, what you have deployed becomes the number you keep forever. If you have been counting a ULA as “not a problem” you arrive at that day with no measurement and no negotiating position.

    Uncapped quantity for unlimited agreements SAM

  5. This is the level of detail an Oracle LMS engagement actually turns on, and the level at which a tool either helps or is decoration.

Recognition

The only vendor named Customers’ Choice in the 2024 Gartner® Peer Insights™ Voice of the Customer for Software Asset Management Tools.

Customers’ Choice in the category: 2019, 2020, 2021, 2024

Read the announcement

GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark, and PEER INSIGHTS is a trademark and service mark, of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner Peer Insights content consists of the opinions of individual end users based on their own experiences and should not be construed as statements of fact, nor do they represent the views of Gartner or its affiliates.

How it is actually done

How the Oracle position is built.

Measurement first, entitlement second, and the arithmetic that connects them held in one place.

  1. Inventory the hosts Oracle runs on

    Including the Unix platforms most tools treat as an integration problem.

    • Native inventory agent for Windows, macOS, Linux, AIX, HP-UX and Solaris ITAM
    • Agentless and command-line inventory (csinvcli) for locked-down environments ITAM
    • Oracle VM ITAM
    • Network Discovery across NetBIOS, SNMP and ICMP ITAM
  2. Measure the database, options and packs

    What is installed, what is enabled and what has actually been used, with the evidence retained.

    • Options and packs with evidence and override SAM
    • Processor types and core factors SAM
    • E-Business Suite responsibilities SAM
    • AppsMonitor file-based usage metering with first-used and last-used tracking SAM
  3. Model the entitlement properly

    Pools, hosting rights, geography, cover-down and the agreements that sit behind all of it.

    • Licence pools with hosting rights and geographic rules SAM
    • Cover-down logic for Enterprise Edition SAM
    • Uncapped quantity for unlimited agreements SAM
    • Licences, transactions, agreements, maintenance, suppliers and publishers SAM
  4. Hold the position, continuously

    So certification day, an LMS request or a renewal all draw on the same live number.

    • Effective Licence Position: purchased, used, available, required, variance, exposure SAM
    • Continuous compliance position rather than point-in-time reconciliation SAM
    • Audit trail across agreements, transactions and exclusions SAM

Ask to see any one of these running in the product itself, on the screen where it happens.

The licence model

The Oracle licence model, term by term.

Each row is how Oracle actually counts, and what the engine does about it. A tool that cannot answer the second half of every row is not doing Oracle.

Options and management packs

How the publisher counts Enabling an option is a licensable event whether or not anybody meant to enable it.

What the engine does Detected with the evidence that proves use, plus an override where the usage is genuinely not chargeable.

Processor types and core factors

How the publisher counts Licensable processors are physical cores multiplied by a factor that depends on the chip.

What the engine does Processor type and core factor held per host and applied to the count automatically.

Licence pools

How the publisher counts Entitlement sits in a pool with hosting rights and geographic constraints, and travels with the pool.

What the engine does Pools modelled with hosting rights and geographic rules, then allocated across the hosts that need them.

Cover-down

How the publisher counts An Enterprise Edition entitlement can cover a Standard Edition deployment.

What the engine does Cover-down logic applied before exposure is reported, so you do not buy what you already hold.

Unlimited agreements

How the publisher counts A ULA is unlimited until certification, when what you have deployed becomes your permanent entitlement.

What the engine does Uncapped quantity supported, so a ULA does not distort the rest of the position while it runs.

E-Business Suite

How the publisher counts Application licensing turns on which responsibilities each user actually holds.

What the engine does E-Business Suite responsibilities read and reported alongside database measurement.

Virtualisation

How the publisher counts Oracle’s position is that a VM can be counted against every host it could run on.

What the engine does Oracle VM, VMware, Hyper-V, IBM HMC and Nutanix topology inventoried from the same platform.

The Oracle engine is part of CerteroX SAM, running on the same inventory and the same entitlement store as every other publisher you hold.

The end state

What good looks like.

Five things that are true when Oracle is genuinely under control.

  1. 01

    You know which options are on, and why.

    Every licensable option carries the evidence that it was used, and every override carries the reason it was not chargeable. Both survive the person who recorded them.

  2. 02

    Core factors are held per host.

    Processor type per host, factor applied automatically. Nobody is maintaining a spreadsheet of chip families in parallel with the tool.

  3. 03

    You buy nothing a pool already covers.

    Hosting rights, geographic rules and Enterprise Edition cover-down are applied before exposure is reported, which routinely removes purchases from the shortlist.

  4. 04

    Certification is a report you run.

    Uncapped quantity keeps a running ULA from distorting the position, so on certification day what you have deployed is already measured.

  5. 05

    Your measurement is one Oracle accepts.

    Certero is verified by Oracle License Management Services: Oracle’s audit team can accept data from Certero during an official audit, as an alternative to installing Oracle’s own measurement tools.

Oracle, specifically

Questions worth asking us.

Not the one you came with? Ask it directly and we will answer it in writing.

Do we still have to run Oracle’s own measurement scripts?

Certero is verified by Oracle License Management Services, which means Oracle’s audit team can accept data from Certero during an official audit, as an alternative to installing Oracle’s own measurement tools. That changes who controls the measurement: you hold a current number continuously, on your own timetable.

How do you detect option and pack usage without touching production?

Measurement is read-only and evidence-backed: usage is captured, retained and attached to the finding, and where a detection is not genuinely chargeable it can be overridden with a recorded reason. Both the detection and the override are defensible six months later.

Our Oracle databases run on Solaris and AIX. Is that a problem?

It is where most tools stop and where we do not. AIX, HP-UX and Solaris get the same native agent, the same inventory cycle and the same licence engine as Windows and Linux, so the Unix side carries a measured number like everything else.

We are inside a ULA. Is there anything to do before certification?

Everything. Uncapped quantity handling means a running ULA does not distort the wider position, and continuous measurement means you approach certification knowing what you have actually deployed. That is the only number that will matter and the only ground you will have to stand on.

What about Oracle Cloud?

Oracle Cloud (OCI) is one of the twelve platforms in CerteroX Cloud Management, costed in the same model as AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and Kubernetes. Licensing and consumption sit on the same platform.

Oracle, specifically

Four things decide the finding.
See all four modelled.

Options and packs with the evidence behind each detection, core factors applied, pools and cover-down resolved: walked host by host on a populated Oracle position. Say which of the four you are least sure of and we open it first.

Measurement data Oracle’s audit team can accept during an official audit.