Oracle Active Data Guard Licensing

This article focuses on Oracle Active Data Guard Licensing and the costs of licensing this product. But what is Oracle Active Data Guard?

Oracle Active Data Guard is an additional feature for Oracle Database Enterprise Edition. It enhances the performance and high availability of your database. Here’s what you need to know about it:

• What does it do? Oracle Active Data Guard boosts performance and ensures the high availability of your database.
  
• How is it licensed? It must have the same license metric and quantities as the Oracle Database Enterprise Edition license.
  
• Where should it be licensed? You must license Oracle Active Data Guard on primary and standby environments.
  
• What’s the cost? The license cost for Oracle Active Data Guard is $11,500 per processor.

Oracle Active Dataguard Licensing Guide

This article focuses on Oracle Active Data Guard Licensing and the requirements for obtaining a license from Oracle for this product.

Oracle Active Data Guard Licensing

• Oracle Active Data Guard is an add-on feature to the Oracle Database Enterprise Edition.
• The usage of certain features included in Active Data Guard requires an additional license on top of the Enterprise Edition license.
• Active Data Guard is available in two licensing metrics: Named User Plus and Processor.
• The quantity and licensing metric selected for Active Data Guard must match the database license upon which it will run.

What is Oracle Active Dataguard?

Oracle Active Data Guard (ADG) is a feature set that enhances your Oracle Database. Here’s a simple breakdown of what each feature does:

1. Physical Standby with Real-time Query: This feature allows you to run queries on your standby database in real-time, enhancing data availability.
   
2. Fast Incremental Backup on Physical Standby: This feature speeds up the backup process by only backing up changes made since the last backup.
   
3. Automatic Block Repair: This feature automatically repairs corrupt data blocks in real-time, improving data reliability.
   
4. Active Data Guard Far Sync: This feature provides a remote replication target for your primary database, ensuring data safety.
   
5. Global Data Services: This feature manages global databases and workload balancing, improving performance and availability.
   
6. Real-Time Cascade: This feature allows standby databases to receive redo data from the primary database or another standby database in real-time, enhancing data protection.
   
7. Application Continuity: This feature ensures that your applications continue to run even during database outages, enhancing application availability.
   
8. Rolling Upgrade using Active Data Guard: This feature allows you to perform database upgrades with minimal downtime.
   
9. Active Data Guard DML Redirection: This feature (unavailable in Authorized Cloud Environments) redirects DML operations to the primary database, ensuring data consistency.

Remember, in an Oracle Data Guard configuration, the primary database and any standby databases using any of these features must have Oracle Active Data Guard licensed. Standby databases not using any Oracle Active Data Guard features do not require an Oracle Active Data Guard license.

An Oracle Active Data Guard license is not required for customers who back up standby databases to Zero Data Loss Recovery Appliance (ZDLRA) and wish to use the Fast Incremental Backup on Physical Standby or Real-Time Cascade feature. But, if any of the above features are in use, Oracle Active Data Guard must still be licensed on standby databases.

The standby database’s container root (CDB$Root) may be opened read-only without requiring an Oracle Active Data Guard license. However, an Oracle Active Data Guard license is required if any pluggable databases on standby are opened for reading.

By understanding these features and licensing requirements, you can effectively use Oracle Active Data Guard and ensure compliance with Oracle licensing.

What is the cost of Oracle Data Guard?

Oracle Data Guard is a feature of Oracle Database that enhances data availability and protection. While the traditional Data Guard is free, the Active Data Guard option offers additional capabilities.

Let’s look at a licensing example:

Suppose you have a primary node with 4 Database Enterprise Edition processor licenses that cost $47,500 per processor. Then, you have a standby node with two Database Enterprise Edition processor licenses.

1. The cost for the primary node would be 4 (processor licenses) * $47,500 = $190,000.
2. The cost for the standby node would be 2 (processor licenses) * $47,500 = $95,000.
3. The total Database Enterprise Edition licenses cost $190,000 (primary node) + $95,000 (standby node) = $285,000.

Now, let’s calculate the cost of an Active Data Guard. Remember, Active Data Guard needs to be licensed on both nodes:

1. Active Data Guard on the primary node would cost 4 (processor licenses) * $11,500 = $46,000.
2. Active Data Guard on the standby node would cost 2 (processor licenses) * $11,500 = $23,000.
3. The total Active Data Guard licenses cost would be $46,000 (primary node) + $23,000 (standby node) = $69,000.

So, the total cost for the Database Enterprise Edition and Active Data Guard licenses would be $285,000 + $69,000 = $354,000.

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