Oracle License Audit and Software License Manager

ssolberg

VIP Member
I'm hoping to start a lively discussion about an Oracle User Audit we just went through (we also did back 3 years ago and we had some discussions on the list back then) and see if any other shops have been put in the situation we currently are in.

First, let me layout a couple things about us and our environments. We run JDE on 5 iSeries boxes (one is development only) and the other 4 run anywhere from 1 to 10 production environments (different companies) on each. We've been on World for a long time and have our 280 current licenses spread across these 5 boxes accordingly. Way back when JDE had "box licensing" (and we were on that), they changed all of us over to User Based Pricing and we agreed to a "mix" of what they termed Named/Concurrent/Moderate licenses. And at that point, the Software License Manager was required to be put in place. As we all know, the Software License Manager does NOT audit users by "type" of license and essentially just treats everyone as a Concurrent User.

On all boxes, we are in "compliance" (according to the SLM-we aren't exceeding the licenses). After Oracle came in and did their magical user license audit, they say we are essentially out of compliance by "X" (pick a number) concurrent users but as we all know, Oracle will not sell you any Concurrent licenses... only Named. And here's another surprise- and I quote "The Software License Manager is NOT a compliance tool for users". Huh??? Then how come is locks us out if we exceed the licenses we have allocated to that box? Oddly, they even told us that they have gone into shops that have "built their own compliance tool" to prevent users from accessing the system to live up to their contract, which I can't fathom. Isn't that the software giant's job? Obviously we are going to greatly question their auditing results if we get there because why would anyone just "trust what they are telling you" when it comes to something this big.

In a nutshell (and not surprisingly), they have come back and told us we have to convert all our current user licenses to Named licenses (or go to Unlimited) and after all their math, we need to buy "Y" (which is roughly "X" above times 5) Named licenses! And write a big 'ol check while you are at it.

So my questions are for anyone out there that has had to recently go through this process with Oracle and what did you do? Is there actually any shops out there that have written their "own compliance tool"? If so, I would LOVE to talk with them offline. And don't bother with "just drop them and go to third party maint" arguments because I can't go there at this point and I know all the pro's and con's already.

We have ALWAYS felt we have complied with the contracts we have done over the years and bought licenses (pre-Oracle) as needed to stay within what we felt were the words of those contracts.

Frustrated....
 
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