Oracle Processor Licenses: Oracle Partitioning Rule Impacts

IT Asset Management (Cloud)

The Oracle Partitioning Rule Impacts report gives full details of points consumed from Oracle Processor licenses, with special focus on a "what if" comparison of the effects of different partitioning rules (listed here from the smallest scope to the largest):

Partition at the ESX host — This concept, where administrators use host affinity and similar rules to restrict a VM to a single server, is not one of Oracle's "soft partitioning" rules, but remains a possibility for negotiation
Partition at the cluster — Oracle's original soft partitioning rule that required all hosts in the cluster to be licensed when a licensable product was installed on any VM(s) within the cluster
Tip: This position is a common outcome of negotiations, and is the basis for Oracle Processor calculations within Management views in IT Asset Management.
Partition at the vCenter — When vCenter 5.1 supported vMotion across multiple clusters that were managed by a single vCenter, the Oracle soft partitioning rule required licensing of all hosts managed by the vCenter
Partition around all vCenters — When vCenter 6.0 supported vMotion between vCenters, the Oracle soft partitioning rule required licensing of all hosts in all vCenters within your data center.
Partition at the cluster with affinity — This concept, where administrators use host affinity to restrict consumption to hosts within clusters that can be accessed by installed VMs, is not one of Oracle's "soft partitioning" rules, but remains a possibility for negotiation

This report does not contain any chargeback values for departmental use of licensed products (for which see Oracle Licenses: Consumption Details and Optimizations), nor any recommendations for optimizing your virtual architecture (for which see Oracle Processor Licenses: Cluster Optimization Report). While the report includes consuming devices in any virtualization environment (such as VMware virtual machines, IBM LPARs, Solaris Zones, Oracle VMs and the like), the main focus for its analysis is on VMware vCenter clusters/networking, where Oracle applies its various 'soft partitioning' rules. The report provides a straight comparison of points potentially consumed for current installations when applying the different partitioning rules.

Tip: Because software installations in containers (whether Docker containers or in Kubernetes clusters) are not currently included in license consumption calculations in IT Asset Management, applications installed in containers are out of scope for this report.

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.

Go to the Oracle Partitioning Rule Impacts page (Reporting > License Reports > Oracle Partitioning Rule Impacts).
Click Run report to compare points consumed under different partitioning rules.

Reading the report

The following columns (listed alphabetically) are available.

Column name	Description
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.)
Can navigate only on given DRS rules	This column will show “All hosts on the cluster” when no affinity rule is in place or will give the list of possible hosts when an affinity rule exists.
Capped cores	The maximum number of cores that a virtual machine may use, which may be set using the time-sharing controls on the virtualization console. This number may be lower than the value shown in Cores for this row. Remains blank if capped cores have not been defined for this row.
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.
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.
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 Amount field on the Financial tab of the license properties. 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 (reflects parent-child relationships)	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 Allocations and 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` (that is, a vCenter Server) `Virtual Machine` `VM Host` `VM Pool`.
DRS Rule Comment	This column gives an explanation when a host in a cluster with installed and consuming VMs does not consume, because no consuming VM can reach the host given affinity rules in place.
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.
Included for all vCenters	A Boolean that shows whether or not the consumption in this row is triggered specifically by the soft partitioning rule that includes all vCenters. This may show: `Yes` for any `VM Host` (and only for a virtual host) where consumption of license points occurs because of the 'all vCenters' soft partition rule, when the same consumption would not occur under either the cluster or single vCenter partitioning rules. Most often, this occurs when this host belongs to a vCenter where there are no VMs consuming from the license, but in another vCenter there is consumption occurring; and the 'all vCenters' rule therefore requires that all cores on all hosts under all vCenters are licensed. Remember: In the Management view, when you inspect license properties, points consumed in virtual environments are always shown at the host level, for which reason only a `VM Host` device may show this positive result in the Reports view. `No` for every row where Device type is anything other than a `VM Host`; and for any virtual host where the consumed points are not specific exclusively to the 'all vCenters' partitioning rule (for example, where the same consumption would also occur under either the cluster partitioning rule or the single vCenter partitioning rule).
Included for vCenter	A Boolean that shows whether or not the consumption in this row is triggered specifically by the soft partitioning rule covering a single vCenter. This may show: `Yes` for any `VM Host` (and only for a virtual host) where consumption of license points occurs because of the 'vCenter' soft partition rule, when the same consumption would not occur under the cluster partitioning rule. Most often, this occurs when this host is within a cluster where no VMs are consuming from the license, but in a different cluster managed by the same vCenter there is a hosted VM that is consuming from the license. Remember: In the Management view, when you inspect license properties, points consumed in virtual environments are always shown at the host level, for which reason only a `VM Host` device may show this positive result in the Reports view. `No` for every row where Device type is anything other than a `VM Host`; and for any virtual host where the consumed points are not specific exclusively to the 'vCenter' partitioning rule (for example, where the same consumption would also occur under either the cluster partitioning rule or the all vCenters partitioning rule).
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. In this report, this column must always display `Oracle Processor`, as this is the only license type included in this report.
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).
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 (reflects parent-child relationships) column.
Points (all vCenters partition)	The license consumption for the host, when this consumption is triggered by the soft partitioning rule that covers all vCenters. For the same reason, this row shows Included for all vCenters with the value `Yes`.
Points (cluster partition)	Shows consumption for the device on the current row under the 'cluster' soft partitioning rule. Different kinds of devices, including orphan VMs (those where the host cannot be identified from imported inventory) and stand-alone servers, as well as virtual hosts, may display this kind of consumption. (In this regard, the behavior of this column is different than the results in the Points (all vCenters partition) or Points (vCenter partition) columns.) Tip: This is the rule applied in license consumption calculations within the Management pages in IT Asset Management, and may be a common outcome of negotiations with Oracle. Since these results within Reports are familiar from the Management view, these may be taken as a baseline for license consumption.
Points (DRS partition)	Shows consumption for the device on the current row under the 'cluster with affinity' soft partitioning rule. Different kinds of devices, including orphan VMs (those where the host cannot be identified from imported inventory) and stand-alone servers, as well as virtual hosts, may display this kind of consumption. (In this regard, the behavior of this column is different than the results in the Points (all vCenters partition) or Points (vCenter partition) columns.). There will be a difference with the cluster partition points only for hosts that cannot be reached by any of the installed VM consuming the license in the cluster, due to affinity rules in place. The DRS rule comment will explain this “hosts exemption” reason.
Points (ESX partition)	The number of Oracle Processor points consumed by just this one ESX host, as if administrators used host affinity and similar configurations to stop relevant VMs from moving to any other host. Remember: Oracle does not, by default, allow any concept of "hard partitioning" of ESX servers, as these VMware products are not included in Oracle's list of acceptable hard partitioning technologies. While this figure can provide helpful comparisons, you should not expect this to be acceptable to Oracle.
Points (vCenter partition)	The license consumption for the host, when this consumption is triggered by the soft partitioning rule that covers a single vCenter. For the same reason, this row shows Included for vCenter with the value `Yes`.
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.
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` `IBM zKVM` — An open source hypervisor supported in zSystem environments that runs VMs. `IBM zVM` — An IBM hypervisor that runs VMs on the operating system. `Linux KVM` `LPAR` `nPar` `Oracle VM` `SRP` `Unknown` `VMware` `vPar` `WPAR` `Zone`.

IT Asset Management (Cloud)

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