We were wondering about Oracle licensing policy on IBM virtualized servers. Imagine that, there are two IBM servers named ToolServer1 and ToolServer2, and each one has 16 cores. IBM LPAR technology are being used on these servers, so in each server, we separated 3 cores for VIOS (Virtual I/O Server), which means that we can’t assign these cores to the LPAR servers, so there are only 13 cores left in each server to use.
There are five LPAR servers, and some of them have 1 core, and the others have 2 cores. We CAPPED all of these servers not to use more cores than assigned. The sum of CAPPED cores on all LPAR servers is 10, and there is no server which has been configured as UNCAPPED. As far as I know, LPAR has been approved hard partitioning technology by Oracle. The document below says like that.
Oracle-approved hard partitioning technologies as listed in this section of the policy document are permitted as a means to limit the number of software licenses required for any given server or a cluster of servers. Oracle has deemed certain technologies, possibly modified by configuration constraints, as hard partitioning, and no other technology or configuration qualify. Approved hard partitioning technologies include: Physical Domains (also known as PDomains, Dynamic Domains, or Dynamic System Domains), Solaris Zones (also known as Solaris Containers, capped Zones/Containers only), IBM’s LPAR (adds DLPAR with AIX 5.2), IBM’s Micro-Partitions (capped partitions only), vPar (capped partitions only), nPar, Integrity Virtual Machine (capped partitions only), Secure Resource Partitions (capped partitions only), Fujitsu’s PPAR. All approved hard partitioning technologies must have a capped or a maximum number of cores/processors for the given partition
http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/pricing/partitioning-070609.pdf
All LPAR servers are in ToolServer1, and there are no LPAR Servers in ToolServer2, however some of these servers were moved once using IBM LPM technology. In the same document, Oracle says that IBM Power VM LPM is not approved hard partitioning technology. Now, it’s a confusion here, because we are using CAPPED approved as hard partitioning, which means that we can’t use more than 10 cores.
IBM Power VM Live Partition Mobility is not an approved hard partitioning technology. All cores on both the source and destination servers in an environment using IBM Power VM Live Partition Mobility must be licensed.
In our case, my question is that how many Oracle licenses do we need for these two servers? I would appreciate getting answers from especially from people awarded Oracle ACE
The possible answers we thought:
- 1. We need to have 10 Oracle CPU licenses because we have capped all LPAR servers, and there are no UNCAPPED servers.
- 2. We need to have 20 Oracle CPU licenses because we used LPM, and we need the double licenses of the sum of cores on the CAPPED servers.
- 3. We need to have 26 Oracle CPU licenses because we used LPM, and we need the licenses for all cores on toolserver1 and toolserver2 except 3+3 =6 VIOS cores
- 4. We need to have 32 Oracle CPU licenses because we used LPM. It is not important that you used approved CAPPED technology for all LPAR servers. Even you need to have the licenses for VIOS cores.
Best Regards