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.
Term
How the publisher counts
What the engine does
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.