Oracle Licenses: Consumption Details and Optimizations

FlexNet Manager Suite 2021 R1 (On-Premises)

The Oracle License Consumption Details and Optimizations report covers all license types linked to Oracle products, providing sufficient details to explain where and why consumption is occurring. It includes details for chargeback where relevant license costs can be assigned back to enterprise groups that you have linked to the appropriate devices. The report also suggests details for optimizing your infrastructure to minimize costs under Oracle rules for soft partitioning.

Tip: This report does not include Kubernetes clusters and their related servers.

Generating the report

Note: This report is scoped to the data that each operator is entitled to see, according to their access rights. While an administrator can see all available licenses, clusters, consumption, and optimizations, another operator who has access rights restricted to EMEA sees only those elements linked to the EMEA location, and to any of its child locations.

1. Navigate to License Compliance > Optimization > Oracle License Consumption Details and Optimizations.
2. Click Run report to display the results for all known cases of Oracle software running in vCenter clusters, or on stand-alone virtual hosts.

Reading the report

The following columns (listed alphabetically) are available.

Allocated

Indicates whether this row of the table records an allocation of a license entitlement to the inventory device or user. (Allocations are independent of installations.)

Capped cores

The upper limit of cores for the device in this row, typically (for example) the number of cores available in the host server. This is the maximum number of cores that can be used for licensing purposes, even if relevant VMs are assigned a higher total number of cores as available through time-sharing of host resources.

Remains blank if capped cores have not been defined for this row.

Chargeback consumption (currency)

The value that can be charged back as a cost to the enterprise group (if any) associated with the device in this row. This is the mathematical product of the Chargeback points times the Cost per entitlement.

Chargeback points

The number of license entitlements that can be charged back as a cost to the enterprise group (if any) associated with the device in this row. This shows the number of consumed entitlements down to the level of the individual inventory device. In the case of a stand-alone device (or an orphaned VM for which there is no known host) which alone is consuming from the license, this is the same consumption as is visible on the Consumption tab of the license properties. Where the VM has a known parent (either a free-standing host, or a host that is part of a cluster), the consumption (and Chargeback points) for the VM is its fraction of the total number of assigned (or capped) cores of all the VMs in the same scope consuming for the same product from the same license.

Example: All of the following drives consumption from a single Oracle Processor license OPL1 covering the use of Oracle Database Enterprise Edition (various versions):

• In Cluster C, there are three relevant ESX hosts: H1, H2 and H3.
• H1 hosts three VMs with cores assigned to run Oracle Database Enterprise Edition, although time-sharing of the host cores introduces some core capping for license consumption:
  • VM1 = 2 cores (capped at 0.25 core)
  • VM2 = 2 cores (capped at 1 core)
  • VM3 = 4 cores (not capped)
• H2 hosts two more VMs that also have cores assigned to run Oracle Database Enterprise Edition, and this time there is no capping in effect:
  • VM4 = 2 cores
  • VM5 = 2 cores
• The total number of 'effective' cores (capped where capping occurs) is therefore 0.25+1+4+2+2 = 9.25
• For VM1, its share of points (as a decimal fraction) is 0.25/9.25, or 0.027027...
• H3 currently is not hosting any relevant VMs (but because of clustering, any VM could move to this host if required)
• For 'soft partitioning', Oracle requires that all potential cores are licensed (across all potential hosts). Assuming that H1, H2, and H3 have 16 cores each, with an Oracle points factor of 0.5 in each case, the total cluster consumption is 8+8+8=24 points.
• For VM1, therefore, the share of that total consumption is (0.25/9.25)*24, or 0.648648649 points.
• Assuming a Cost per entitlement of US$16,000, the relevant Chargeback consumption for this VM to its operational corporate unit would be US$10,378.38.

In tabular form, the example looks like this:

Scope	Cores	Capped cores	Oracle points factor	Consuming VM cores	Consumed	Chargeback points
Cluster C				9.25	24
Host H1	16		0.5	5.25	8
VM1	2	0.25				0.648648649
VM2	2	1				2.594594595
VM3	4					10.37837838
Host H2	16		0.5	4	8
VM4	2					5.189189189
VM5	2					5.189189189
Host H3	16		0.5	0	8

Cluster name

The path in the virtualization hierarchy to the cluster (in the form of domain/clustername). Cluster names are not forced to be unique, although giving them unique names is best practice. If you need to differentiate between (for example) two clusters with the same name, check the hosts and instances.

Consumed

The total entitlements consumed from the license referenced in this row. Since more than one row of the report may reference the same license, this figure may be larger than the one shown in Entitlements consumed, which is limited to the consumption for just the row (and not the entire license).

Consuming installations

A list of installed applications which are covered by the license referenced in this row. For multi-product licenses, only the applications that are part of the primary product are included.

Consuming instances

A comma-separated list of the Oracle Database instances installed on devices (including VMs) that are linked to the license in this row. Each entry has two parts:

• The device name where the instance is running (most often the name of a VM)
• In parentheses, the number of active users using the instance when the most recent inventory was collected.

Examples:

orcl~CDB_ROOT(0 active users)

Here the database instance called orcl~CDB_ROOT had no active users as the last inventory was collected.

Consuming VM cores

For virtual machines where the installed software is consuming from the license in this row, this is the sum of the hosts' cores assigned to each of the relevant VMs.

Cores

The number of cores available for the item in this row, whether they be processor cores available in a physical device (such as a host server, or a stand-alone computer); or cores assigned to a virtual machine; or cores available in a pool.

Cost per entitlement (currency)

The unit cost per processor point (or other single entitlement) for the current license, which is the first available of:

• The Override unit price shown in the Purchases tab of the license properties
• The most recent Unit price in software purchases attached to the license.

Device corporate unit

The corporate unit that has been linked to the device shown in this row.

Device cost center

The cost center that has been linked to the device shown in this row.

Device location

The location that has been linked to the device shown in this row.

Device hierarchy

A presentation of the device name, indented with dashes to indicate its level within the hierarchy of cluster, host, virtual machine, standalone computer, and so on.

Tip: This column is most useful if you sort on the Path column, making the hierarchy more self-evident.

Device name

The name of the inventory device. The compliance calculation updates this field with the machine name returned in inventory (matched by several properties, including serial number).

Device path

Details of the complete path for the device in this row.

Device role

Specifies the role assigned to a device. Assigning a role may allow for exemptions that limit license consumption for roles specified in some license agreements. Device roles (where permitted by the product use rights on a license) can exempt devices from consuming entitlements on a license to which they are (and remain) attached. For example, some license agreements may grant an exemption for testing devices. For more details, see Exemptions.

Possible roles include:

• Backup / Archive — This device cannot be started without first restoring it from an archive copy. Typical publisher terminologies include backup, or archival.
• Cold Standby / Disaster Recovery — This device is not currently running, but could be started at any time. Typical publisher terminologies include disaster recovery, cold standby, cold disaster recovery, or failover.
• Development — This device is used exclusively for system development. It does not carry any production load.
• Hot Standby / Active Failover — This device is running, and probably doing work such as mirroring database changes. Typically, this system requires a license, so that it would be unusual to select this role for an exemption. Typical publisher terminologies include hot standby, active, active clusters, mirroring, HA, standby, or remote mirroring.
• Production — Specifies that the device is being used in the production environment, and it consumes license entitlements for its installed software. This is the default value for all newly imported devices, and you need to change it to reflect any other specific role.
• Test — Specifies that the device is being used exclusively in system testing, and does not carry any production load.
• Training — Specifies that the device is being used for training purposes. Most publishers require that this use is exclusive, and may also require that the device is within a dedicated training facility.
• Warm Standby / Passive Failover — This device is on, but is idling and not carrying any production load.

Device status

The condition of this device at the most recent inventory import and compliance calculation.

Device type

The kind of computer (or other device) represented in this row. Possible values include:

• Cluster
• Computer
• vCenter
• Virtual Machine
• VM Host
• VM Pool.

Entitlements consumed

The license entitlements consumed by the device (or host, or pool) displayed in this row. This may be less than the total consumed for the entire license, depending on what other instances of installed software are also linked to the license.

Exemption reason

The reason why the individual computer or user is exempt from consuming an entitlement under this license, even though the application is in use. When this column is blank, application use on this computer, or by this user, can count towards consumption of the license.

The Exemption reason may be set on the Consumption tab of the license properties; or it may be based on the setting of the device role which matches an exemption reason identified in the product use rights of the license.

Host name

The host name of the stand-alone virtual host. Host names are not forced to be unique, although giving them unique names is best practice.

License name

The license from which the devices in this row are consuming for their installations of Oracle software. The License name is editable in the Identification tab of the license properties.

License type

The kind of license referenced in this row.

Operating system

The operating system running on this device. This value is collected from the device inventory record.

Value may be blank for rows that do not represent a single device (such as rows where the Device type is Cluster, vCenter, or VM Pool).

Editable in the Hardware tab of the inventory device properties (for manually-created records).

Optimization value (currency)

The savings coming from an optimal structure of the vCenter clusters within your enterprise. This figure may be:

• Positive, meaning that this is a potential saving yet to be realized, and requiring a restructuring of your vCenter clusters
• Negative, meaning that this is a saving already achieved because of appropriate configuration of your vCenter clusters.

This saving is based Oracle's requirement for soft partitioning that, if any VM within a cluster has Oracle Database or any related Oracle option installed, then all ESX servers in the cluster must be fully licensed for the same software. Typically, this requires licensing every core on the stand-alone host, or the sum of all cores on all hosts in the cluster. The saving relies on restricting installation of Oracle software to tightly 'focused' clusters that have the minimum number of virtual hosts (and cores) to provide database services to other client systems. The saving is then the difference between licensing all cores in your current cluster, and licensing fewer cores in a minimized and tightly bounded cluster. Experiment by moving installations of Oracle product, and re-running the report to identify changes, especially in this Optimization value.

Oracle points factor

The points factor for the current processor type selected from the points table attached to the Oracle Processor license. May remain blank for licenses that do not use a points table.

Path

A pseudo-path created from:

• The license name
• The license ID (in parentheses)
• The path to the device.

Tip: Click on this column (sort by Path) to re-establish the hierarchies visible in the Device hierarchy column.

Processor type

The brand and model of the processors in the virtual host.

Processors

The number of processors used to run the application(s) listed in this row.

Publisher

The name of the software publisher (responsible for its development and distribution), as shown in the license properties.

Suggested optimization

The direction for optimizing the configuration in ways that minimize the license consumption and associated monetary values. Possible values include:

• Cores under-used, less than 50 instances for 100 cores
• Factor calculated by report from Oracle Factor table
• Factor failed to be calculated, set to 0.5
• No Option or Oracle Instance installed but must be licensed
• Note that the Host is ignored and has installed Virtual Machines that are active. Wrongly, no license is consumed by the host.
• Only 1 instance
• Optimized Virtualization
• Priority 1 Virtualization misuse: high waste value - above 50K
• Priority 2 Virtualization misuse: Waste value above 0 but less than 50K.

Total consumed for cluster

The mathematical sum of all the points consumed for devices within this cluster. (In general, this is often less than the value for Consumed, which covers the entire license rather than just the cluster referenced in this row.) May show a value also for a VM, where it represents the consumption for the cluster where this VM was running at the most recent inventory collection time.

Unassigned host cores

The number of cores of the virtual host that have not been assigned to any virtual machine(s) that are consuming from the current license.

Value consumed (currency)

The monetary value of the license entitlements consumed in this row. This is the simple mathematical product of the Entitlements consumed by the Cost per entitlement.

vCenter name

The name given by an operator to the current vCenter controller.

Tip: Where no name is available, this may display the IP address of the controller.

vCenter version

The release number for vCenter used in the current controller.

VM type

Specifies the type of the virtual machine. The inventory process overwrites the value of this field.

Select any of the following options from the VM type drop-down list, and Save the VM type.

• AWS EC2 — This type is set automatically when this virtual machine record is created/updated from an AWS instance found in inventory imported through an inventory beacon connecting to Amazon Web Services. For further details, see the Cloud hosting tab.
• Hyper-V
• Linux KVM
• LPAR
• nPar
• Oracle VM
• SRP
• Unknown
• VMware
• vPar
• WPAR
• Zone.