Licensing Oracle on VMware
Intro
This article describes requirements for licensing Oracle (database) on VMware.
Disclaimer
The information provided here is best-effort and not guaranteed to be accurate. Verify with an independent licensing consultant to make sure you are compliant.
Assumptions
- Oracle Database Enterprise Edition
- Processor based licensing (including ULA)
- VMware vSphere (ESX) hypervisor
What to license
Oracle requires appropriate licensing on each "processor" that has Oracle ("the software") installed or running. As "processor" is defined with a circular reference (not very clear) the safest approach is to license entire physical hosts.
Oracle Database Enterprise Edition is licensed by physical CPU core. So every physical host that we use to run Oracle database needs to be licensed. No more, no less.
How to correctly implement Oracle on VMware
There are several methods to run Oracle on VMware without risking license compliance issues.
- Build completely hardware-separated clusters (with their own vCenter server, dedicated hosts, and possibly even dedicated storage and networking). Recommended only for large deployments.
- Build dedicated groups of hardware nodes (VMware "Datacenters"). You would have one central vCenter server but it is managing separate clusters. Recommended for medium size deployments.
- Dedicate a number of nodes in a cluster for Oracle (VMware "Clusters"). Recommended for small deployments.
Q & A
Do I need to license every host in a VMware cluster?
No, as long as adequate restrictions are implemented to prevent virtual machines (accidentally) running on non-licensed physical hosts.
Is there a requirement for multiple vCenter servers?
No (at least not to solve Oracle licensing issues).
What about cross-vCenter vMotion?
This is a feature introduced in vSphere 6. It allows virtual machines to be live-migrated (using vMotion) to entirely different vCenter clusters. Possibly because of this feature, Oracle started spreading the requirement that ALL VMware hosts in an entire datacenter would need to be licensed. This is incorrect. Cross-vCenter Vmotion cannot be used "by accident" and requires a number of specially prepared configuration changes before it can work. As long as it is not enabled deliberately on vCenter servers, it does not impact Oracle licensing.
How to prevent compliance issues with Oracle on VMware
TBD.