Licensing Oracle Software in the Cloud Computing Environment

Executive summary: Licensing Oracle Software in the Cloud Computing Environment

What is “Licensing Oracle Software in the Cloud Computing environment?

• This is a non-contractual policy document released from Oracle, explaining its policy on how to calculate Oracle cloud licensing in AWS and Azure; it does not apply to Google or any other public cloud providers.
• This policy covers the use of Oracle software in cloud computing environments from Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure.
• When licensing Oracle programs in these environments, customers must count the maximum available vCPUs as specified in the policy.
• When licensing Oracle Standard Edition One, Standard Edition 2, or Standard Edition, pricing is based on the size of the instance.
• Oracle Database Standard Edition can only be licensed on instances with up to 16 vCPUs, while Oracle SE1 and SE2 can only be licensed on instances with up to eight vCPUs.
• Licenses acquired under unlimited license agreements (ULAs) can be used in these environments but cannot be included in the certification at the end of the ULA term.

The long answer

What is “Licensing Oracle Software in the Cloud Computing environment?

This document outlines the policy for licensing Oracle software in cloud computing environments from Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. The policy provides guidelines on how to count the maximum available vCPUs when licensing Oracle programs in these environments, as well as information on pricing and vCPU limitations for Oracle Standard Edition, Standard Edition One, and Standard Edition 2. 

It is important to carefully review and understand these guidelines in order to properly license Oracle software in the AWS and Microsoft Azure environments.

• This policy covers the use of Oracle software in cloud computing environments from the following vendors:
• Amazon Web Services (AWS)
  • Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
  • Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
  • Microsoft Azure Platform
• When licensing Oracle programs in the above-mentioned cloud environments, customers must count the maximum available vCPUs of an instance type as follows:
• AWS EC2 and RDS:
  • If multi-threading of processor cores is enabled, count two vCPUs as equivalent to one Oracle CPU license.
  • If multi-threading of CPU cores is not enabled, count one vCPU as equivalent to one Oracle Processor license.
• Microsoft Azure:
  • If multi-threading of processor cores is enabled, count two vCPUs as equivalent to one Oracle CPU license.
  • If multi-threading of CPU cores is not enabled, count one vCPU as equivalent to one Oracle Processor license.

Oracle Cloud Licensing Calculation

• When licensing Oracle software in Authorized Cloud Environments, the Oracle Processor Core Factor Table should not be used.
• When licensing Oracle SE1, SE 2, or SE in the product name, the pricing is based on the size of the instance:
  • Instances with four or fewer Amazon vCPUs or four or fewer Azure vCPUs should be considered equivalent to one socket (or one Oracle processor license).
  • Instances with more than four AWS or Azure vCPUs require one socket for every four Amazon/Azure vCPUs used (rounded up to the nearest multiple of four) or every four Azure/AWS vCPUs used (rounded up to the nearest multiple of four).
• Under this cloud computing policy, Oracle DB SE may only be licensed on instances with up to 16 AWS/Azure vCPUs. Oracle DB SE1 and SE2 may only be licensed on instances with up to eight Amazon vCPUs or eight Azure vCPUs.
  • If licensing Database Standard Edition 2 using the Named User Plus metric, a minimum of 10 NUP licenses is required per 8 Amazon vCPUs or 8 Azure vCPUs.

Licensing Oracle Database Enterprise Edition on Azure

To license Oracle Database Enterprise Edition on a Microsoft Azure instance with 32 vCPUs, you would need to count the maximum available vCPUs as specified in the policy. 

According to the policy, you would count two vCPUs as equivalent to one Oracle CPU license if multi-threading of CPU cores is enabled and one vCPU as equivalent to one Oracle CPU license if multi-threading of CPU cores is not enabled.

In this case, with an instance that has 32 vCPUs, you would need to count each vCPU as equivalent to one Oracle CPU license. Therefore, you would need 32 processor licenses to properly license this instance.

Licensing Oracle Database Standard Edition 2 on Azure

To license Oracle Database Standard Edition 2 on a cloud computing instance with eight vCPUs, you would need to count the maximum available vCPUs as specified in the policy. 

According to the policy, when licensing Oracle Standard Edition One, SE2, or SE in the product name, the pricing is based on the size of the instance. 

Instances with four or fewer vCPUs are considered equivalent to one socket (or one Oracle processor license). Instances with more than four vCPUs require one socket for every four vCPUs used (rounded up to the nearest multiple of four).

In this case, with an instance that has eight vCPUs, you would need to count four vCPUs as equivalent to one Oracle CPU license. Therefore, you would need two processor licenses to properly license this instance.

FAQ on Licensing Oracle Software in the Cloud Computing Environment