Oracle Processor Licenses: Oracle Consumption Summary by Partitioning Rule

IT Asset Management (Cloud)

The Oracle Consumption Summary by Partitioning Rule report lists all Oracle Processor licenses, calculating for each one four distinct current consumption figures and estimated licensing costs, based on four possible partitioning rules that you might agree in negotiation with Oracle. It is focused on VMware vCenter clusters/networking, where Oracle applies its various 'soft partitioning' rules. The comparative figures show the global impact of the various rules that take account of how potential migration of VMs across hosts may be limited (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 requires 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 rule required licensing of all hosts managed by the vCenter
• Partition around all vCenters — When vCenter 6.0 supported vMotion between vCenters, the Oracle 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.

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. Otherwise the report includes all kinds of installations linked to Oracle Processor licenses, whether on virtual hosts (and their guest VMs), stand-alone devices, or orphan VMs where the host is unknown.

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 (for example) to EMEA sees only those elements linked to the EMEA location, and to any of its child locations.

1. Go to the Oracle Consumption Summary by Partitioning Rule page (Reporting > License Reports > Oracle Consumption Summary by Partitioning Rules).
2. Click Run report to display the results for all Oracle Processor licenses covering software running in vCenter clusters, or on stand-alone virtual hosts.

Reading the report

The following columns (listed alphabetically) are available.

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.

This cost is multiplied by the Oracle points, which are in turn derived from each server's count of processor cores multiplied by the points value table entry for the particular brand/model of virtual host.

Increment cluster to vCenter (currency)

The cost difference (your additional outlay) for switching from Oracle's original soft partitioning rule (bounded at the cluster) to the one introduced for VMware 5.0 (bounded at the vCenter Server). Typically this extra cost is triggered by ESX host(s) in a cluster where no VMs are consuming from the license; but managed by a vCenter that has consuming VMs installed in other clusters. For example, consider this architecture:

vCenter	Cluster	Host	Guest consuming
vCenter A
	Cluster 1
		ESX1
		ESX2
		ESX3
			VM1 (Adv Compr)
	Cluster 2
		ESX4
		ESX5

When the rule is bounded at the cluster, you must license all cores in Cluster 1 on the license covering Oracle Advanced Compression because of the installation on VM1; but in Cluster 2 there are no consuming installations and so no extra cost. When the rule is changed and bounded at the vCenter Server, you must now license all cores in hosts ESX1 through ESX5 because of the one consuming installation on VM1. Here the costs for ESX4 and ESX5 are the increment when switching from the cluster rule to the vCenter rule.

Increment cluster with affinity to cluster (currency)

The difference between the nominal cost to license only those virtual host(s) in clusters that can be accessed by installed and consuming VMs cased on affinity rules, and the cost of Oracle's original soft partition rule (bounded by the relevant cluster).

Increment ESX host to cluster (currency)

The difference between the nominal cost to license only those virtual host(s) where hosted VMs are running the licensed products, and the cost of Oracle's original soft partition rule (bounded by the relevant cluster). This cost difference is driven by the number of hosts that are within the cluster but not running the licensed software on their hosted VMs.

Increment vCenter to all vCenters (currency)

The cost increase (additional outlay) for stepping up from the soft partitioning rule for VMware 5.0 (bounded at the vCenter Server) to the rule for VMware 6.0 (including all your vCenter Servers). Typically this cost increase is triggered by ESX server(s) which have no guest VMs consuming from the license, controlled by (say) vCenter B; while another vCenter A has one or more VMs under management that are consuming from the same license. For example, consider this architecture:

vCenter	Cluster	Host	Guest consuming
vCenter A
	Cluster 1
		ESX1
		ESX2
		ESX3
			VM1 (Adv Compr)
	Cluster 2
		ESX4
		ESX5
vCenter B
	Cluster 3
		ESX6
		ESX7

When the rule is bounded at the vCenter Server, you must license all cores in vCenter A on the license covering Oracle Advanced Compression because of the installation on VM1; but in vCenter B there are no consuming installations and so no extra cost. When the rule is changed and covers all vCenters, you must now license all cores in seven hosts ESX1 through ESX7 because of the one consuming installation on VM1. Here the costs for ESX6 and ESX7 are the increment when switching from the vCenter rule to the all vCenters 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. This report is restricted to Oracle Processor licenses.

Points (all vCenters partition)

The calculated consumption for the same installed products when the soft partition includes all the vCenter Servers in your enterprise (the soft partition rule that Oracle introduced for VMware 6.0).

Points (cluster partition)

This is the calculated license consumption when a soft partition is agreed to be at the boundary of the cluster (Oracle's original rule for soft partitioning). As this is the rule assumed in the management views of licenses in IT Asset Management, this consumption figure is familiar from your management views of this license.

Points (cluster with affinity partition)

The calculated consumption for the same installed products when the cluster soft partition takes into account the VMs to host affinity rules. If a host within a cluster cannot be accessed by any VM installed with a product consuming the license, the host in this partitioning scenario will not trigger any consumption.

Points (ESX partition)

The consumption calculated for just the virtual host(s) where the VM(s) are running the installed software. This is as if you have enforced a hard partition at the boundary of the virtual host (although this is not a rule that Oracle has used for Oracle Processor license consumption calculations). Think of this as a comparative baseline if you had only to license the host(s) running VMs where the software is installed and running.

Points (vCenter partition)

The calculated license consumption when a soft partition is agreed to be around the one vCenter Server (the soft partition rule that Oracle introduced for VMware 5.0).

Publisher

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

Purchased

The total number of license entitlements recorded for this license. This is the sum of the Entitlements from purchases and Extra entitlements values stored in the properties of the license. This is the number of license entitlements your enterprise is entitled to consume.