Oracle Database Licensing: Editions and License Metrics

Summary

This article is an English translation of the original post published on 20 February 2019. It outlines Oracle Database editions and the licensing metrics discussed in the original article.

This article is an English translation of the original post published on 20 February 2019. It outlines Oracle Database editions and the licensing metrics discussed in the original article.

Historical note: The licensing statements below are translated from a 2019 article and have not been validated as current licensing advice. Entitlements depend on the applicable Oracle license agreement and the covered program. Confirm current terms in the relevant Oracle Database 19c Licensing Information or the Oracle AI Database 26ai Licensing Information User Manual before making licensing decisions.

Oracle Database editions

• Standard Edition (through version 12.1.0.1)
• Standard Edition 2 (from version 12.1.0.2)
• Enterprise Edition (all versions)
• Express Edition (XE)

Licensing metrics

The original article describes three licensing metrics:

• Per socket (for SE and SE2)
• Per processor (a core factor applies to Enterprise Edition)
• Named User Plus (NUP), for SE, SE2, and EE

Options

Many options are unavailable in Standard Edition but available in Enterprise Edition. The Oracle Database documentation lists the options and the editions to which they apply.

Oracle Express Edition

Oracle Express Edition was Oracle Database’s free edition. When this article was written, the author described these restrictions:

• One instance on any server
• It could be installed on a multi-processor server, but could use only one processor
• A maximum of 11 GB of user data
• A maximum of 1 GB of RAM

Oracle Standard Edition (SE)

The original article describes SE licensing as more flexible than Standard Edition 2 for database versions earlier than 12.1.0.2.

It states that SE could be used on a server with up to four sockets; systems with more sockets required Enterprise Edition. Licensing was based on the sockets used by the database (or by a virtual machine on that server), with no core factor.

The author notes that this could be less expensive in some configurations. For example, a virtual machine running on one 12-core socket could have a lower license cost than Enterprise Edition.

The article also states that Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) could be used with SE or SE2, whereas it was an option with Enterprise Edition.

Oracle Standard Edition 2 (SE2)

The article states that SE2 could be installed only on servers with a maximum of two sockets.

It says an upgrade from SE to SE2 could be made at no additional cost when remaining on an architecture with no more than two sockets. SE2 was also described as limiting database execution to a maximum of 16 threads.

The original article states that no options were available with a Standard Edition 2 license.

Enterprise Edition

The article describes two EE licensing metrics: per processor and Named User Plus (NUP). It says that both take the server’s core factor into account; the original article links to Oracle’s Processor Core Factor Table.

For NUP, the article states a minimum of 25 NUP licenses per processor license (for example, two cores on x86).

Enterprise Edition made Oracle’s options available for separate purchase.