Nutanix and Oracle licensing is quite simple; this is how it works
- Oracle does not approve Nutanix as sub-capacity licensing.
- You must fully license the servers and or clusters with Oracle software running. Licensing cannot be done on the virtual CPU level.
Nutanix Oracle Licensing Introduction
It’s crucial to understand that when utilizing the Nutanix Virtual Computing Platform with Processor-based licensing, the smallest licensable unit is a standalone Nutanix node.
It’s impossible to divide a single Nutanix node into smaller units for licensing purposes, unlike Hyper-V and vSphere, which are considered soft-partitioned platforms.
If you are utilizing VMware on Nutanix and not Nutanix’s own AHV platform, the following information is relevant to you.
Nutanix AHV enhances CentOS KVM with VMware-like capabilities, including virtual motion, which could raise concerns for those aware of Oracle’s stance on such features.
During an official audit, Oracle may request script outputs from VMware vCenters to identify all physical hosts, regardless of whether Oracle virtual machines are in use. The positive news for Nutanix AHV users is that no automatic script is available for Oracle to assess the farm. It’s up to the customers using Prism Central to identify and declare their physical Nutanix servers. However, Oracle may attempt to overstep its bounds and apply Galaxy licensing, given that shared storage is a feature of Nutanix.
Like with VMware, it’s recommended to license the compute capacity needed to replicate Oracle’s solutions for high availability, disaster recovery, and systems management, including isolating servers. This means that servers not running Oracle should be licensed, considering their importance to the continuity of Oracle workloads.
