Update – August 23, 2017:
Oracle LMS Rejects Grandfathering of Licenses
We expected caveats to any grandfathering rules, but not a complete turnaround. However, that is what has apparently occurred. We were researching with Oracle some very specific grandfathering questions for a client. After several months, yes months, Oracle License Management Services stated that there would be no grandfathering option when it came to pre-Jan 23, 2017 Oracle license purchases that had been allocated to AWS environments that were in place prior to Jan 23, 2017.
Oracle would indeed consider such a client out of compliance now, even though they were considered compliant prior to Jan 23, 2017. We have yet to see a client environment with the above mentioned conditions dealing with a recent Oracle Audit. However, since many people depend on our advice, we wanted to update everyone with the latest information on this topic. If you wish to understand your options more fully, then please contact Miro Consulting.”
Original Report:
Miro has important news for organizations looking to move their Oracle assets to a non-Oracle cloud like Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft’s Azure. Oracle had recently announced in January that certain standard implementations of Oracle database products on other clouds would cost twice as much in licensing as running the same Oracle product on Oracle’s cloud.
Licensing experts at Miro have learned that the doubling of costs does not apply to all on premise licenses moved to the cloud. Moving on premise licenses to the cloud does not necessarily trigger the double cost.
Licenses purchased before Jan 23, 2017 do not necessarily double license requirement if deployed on a non-Oracle cloud. These licenses can be “grandfathered” into non-Oracle clouds, so organizations won’t have to pay the increased costs as they would on new Oracle licenses. There can be caveats to managing such a “grandfathering”, so assumptions of license compliance should not be made.
Additionally, Miro has learned that Oracle will allow some support maintenance payments to be used for Oracle cloud purchase. Clients that have supported spare on-prem licenses can apply the cost of the unused support cost towards a new Cloud subscription. However, the full subscription cost must be at least 200% of the support cost that is being shelved.
Miro can assist you in understanding whether investing in a Cloud solution is strategic for your Oracle environment. Please contact us for more information.