Oracle Software Asset Management Intro
Oracle software asset management strategy advice for managing different factors such as Oracle license compliance, Oracle Contract Management, Oracle license optimization, and Oracle ULA management. Oracle licensing costs can be huge if Oracle license management is left unattended. To maintain compliance, annual Oracle licensing reviews should be conducted. Oracle licensing can be a difficult topic to master as few official training courses are available.
Oracle Software asset management – Oracle Compliance
Enterprise companies should not trust a software asset management tool to manage and accurately measure their Oracle software assets. Any trust given to a tool to provide an Oracle licensing position that holds up in an Oracle license audit or an Oracle ULA certification is misplaced.
Oracle-verified software asset management tools are good from the point of view that you receive the Oracle LMS scripts. If you have in-house expertise or are working with an external firm that can analyze the raw output, then there is a value from a third-party verified tool.
Any Oracle license management software should not measure Oracle middleware and Oracle applications. You need a manual process for reviewing Oracle Middleware and Oracle Applications licensing.
Oracle Software asset management – Contract Management
We understand there may be justifications for purchasing Oracle software and cloud services decentralized on a subsidiary or business unit level, but these justifications are few and weak. We believe that the benefits of signing contracts centrally at the parent level always outweigh any benefits of signing them on a local level.
- The major benefit from an Oracle software asset management point of view is that by signing contracts centrally, you can move/shift licenses to different entities and avoid a shortfall at one entity and a surplus at another, creating a licensing pool to avoid over and under licensing.
- If you consolidate all your purchases will get better commercial terms in all your contracts, even thou Oracle treats every transaction individually. The bottom line is that you will get better discounts and better terms.
- Contract management, far too often, I come across companies who don’t know what terms to include in their licensing and cloud agreements. By requesting to sign them all centrally, you will minimize the risk of signing poor contracts.
- No audits on local subsidiaries; yes, some companies have faced multiple audits from Oracle at different entities because they had license purchases made on a subsidiary level. If no licenses exist on a subsidiary level – no Oracle license audit letter will be sent.
Oracle License Optimization
Far too often, companies have not optimized their Oracle licenses and are over-paying to Oracle. This should be a priority for Oracle software asset management professionals to try and conduct Oracle license optimizations regularly.
Below are a few quick wins for how to accomplish this
- Ensure you license with Oracle Named User Plus for all non-prod env if possible. Licensing per user for technology is always cost-effective – a 50% reduction in Oracle licensing costs.
- You may also negotiate specific test and/or backup licensing models with Oracle.
- Do you use Enterprise Edition versions? And do you know why? Often companies simply purchase what the vendor recommends. We often encounter customers who can easily downgrade to standard edition versions for DB or Middleware products.
Oracle Unlimited License Agreement – Management
- You must initiate an Oracle Certification project when you have 12 months left of your Oracle ULA.
- Oracle ULA certification project includes an Oracle licensing review to understand which Oracle products you have installed and remediate financial risk. You also need to plan how to maximize your Oracle ULA to maximize the value of the current agreement.
You may still choose to renew your Oracle ULA. Still, the best negotiation position will be to know your license position and have a maximized Oracle ULA so that you can reject Oracle ULA’s offer if their commercial renewal offers are not competitive.
- Ensure you align any hardware refresh with year 2 or 3 in your ULA. You want to maximize your deployments before your ULA ends. Many companies have renewed their ULA and paid millions of dollars to Oracle simply because they realized that they must perform an HW refresh the year after their ULA ends.
- If you are going to succeed with your ULA, you need to have a good understanding of different Oracle licensing policies, such as soft partitioning (VMware) and other virtualization technologies. You must also know your ULA contract inside out and understand what contractual limitations exist.
Do you need expert advice on improving your Oracle software asset management? Contact us to request a proposal and a statement of work.
