12 May Oracle licensing optimisation
How to limit penalties for non-compliance by optimising your licenses
In a nutshell
Understanding Oracle’s licensing systems can be daunting, yet non-compliance with their definition of fair use may result in severe penalties. In this article, we’ll discuss how those penalties happen and how you can avoid them through license optimisation. Read on to find out more!
Do you need some help to figure out your Oracle licensing structure? Did you just receive a request for an audit, and are you not sure on how to deal with the non-compliance penalties? Contact us, and we’ll look at how we can optimise your environment’s licenses together.
In recent years, software asset management has become a hot topic. CIOs and other IT executives have to deal with increasingly complex license pricing structures, and audits often lead to unwelcome budgetary surprises and loss of face. The situation has become so convoluted that Beltug, the Belgian association of CIOs and digital technology leaders, included software asset management in their action plan for 2022.
In this article, we’ll discuss how you can deal with these penalties when they arise, and how to avoid them in the first place by optimising your licenses. Joining us today is Dries Moelans, one of our managing partners.
How Oracle licensing non-compliance penalties happen
Oracle’s business model puts user responsibility at the forefront, which sometimes leads to confusion. You can only use the Standard Edition (SE2) on licensed systems, but virtualisation can blur those boundaries. In the Enterprise Edition (EE), users receive a complete version of Oracle’s database software by default. This includes options and features that are not part of the contract.
The advantage of using the EE is that you can immediately enable additional features with no additional installation or configuration, should they prove necessary for your organisation. The downside is that using these features leads to non-compliance fees if users do not inform Oracle and renegotiate their agreement.
Your database employees can trigger some of these flags unknowingly by running a script for testing or support purposes. In certain cases, we’ve even seen third-party applications enable unwanted or unneeded features with little to no warning.
Regardless of the intention, non-compliant use of Oracle’s software will lead to financial penalties if they are discovered during an audit. It’s clearly in your best interest to stay on top of things. Because of the complexity of licensing agreements, using a trusted and experienced partner like Monin is highly recommended.
“It’s always important to keep an eye on your licenses. In today’s world of quick successive innovations, our IT infrastructure also changes rapidly. Just think of virtualisation, the cloud, and edge computing. Oracle’s software helps you keep pace with those innovations, but their impact on licenses is often overlooked. While not ill-intended, non-compliance still has a significant impact during licensing audits.”
Do I need an Oracle licensing partner?
There’s no two ways about it: yes, everyone needs one. At Monin, we have achieved significant savings for every single client that approached us with licensing concerns. This includes small companies, so even if you are just running a basic SE2 implementation, the savings will still be worth it.
We pride ourselves on tailoring not just our solutions, but our services to the needs of the client. If your data infrastructure is relatively simple and all you require is a basic check-up, we will condense our complete assessment into some essential tests.
In our experience, using a partner is always recommended. If you use virtualisation or if you are migrating or renewing your data infrastructure, you should be especially mindful of upcoming audits. We’ll go into more detail on the when and how below, but the one thing to keep in mind is that you should choose a partner that thinks along with you.
How can Monin help you with Oracle licensing costs?
We want to emphasise that we don’t just help you remedy penalties when you already have a data infrastructure set up. As end-to-end database management partners, we can help you with proactive measures from the get-go. We always have licenses in the back of our mind during the implementation, configuration, and migration phases. After all, the best way to avoid non-compliance fees is to make sure that you are compliant in the first place.
Depending on the size and needs of your organisation, we offer several options together with our partner, LicenseFortress. These range from a single Compliance & Optimisation Review (COR) to a standard and premium subscription service. Each of these tiers has their own set of characteristics, so please contact us for more details with no obligations.
Whichever tier you choose, we offer a unique complementary approach by examining both the business and technical sides. Other companies specialise in either technical know-how from a DBA’s perspective or business goals from a CIO’s perspective. Thanks to our broad expertise and experience, as well as our exclusive partnership with LicenseFortress, we can look at both. If you opt for the premier subscription service, we even offer legal services, contract negotiation, and a financial guarantee.
When is it too late to avoid non-compliance penalties?
We’re always ready to listen and help where possible, but prevention is still the best tactic. You should not wait to call us until you’ve received an audit request. Our services focus on predictive analysis and contract optimisation, so you don’t need to worry about audits at all. Using the details of your particular situation, we will draw up a comprehensive action plan.
Conclusion
If there’s one thing you should remember from this article, it’s to always be prepared. No matter the status of your project, no matter the size of your company or data infrastructure, being proactive is key. Working with a trusted licensing partner like Monin will help you do just that, so you avoid severe penalties and loss of face. We guarantee that our partnership will deliver significant ROI because of its potential savings, so there’s no reason not to contact us.
Need some help figuring out your Oracle licensing structure? Contact us!