Oracle ULA - How did 15 companies manage their ULA contracts

I have helped over 40 companies with their Oracle ULAs (EU/US/APAC) - starting point for every project has been one of the below.

• Help my client exit their Oracle ULA
• Help the client make an informed decision if they should renew or exit.

There is only 1 Oracle ULA strategy that works if you want to exit and that is to run Oracle audit scripts and analyze it yourself with an expert. As soon as you tell Oracle you want to exit you will need to run the scripts and have Oracle create your licensing position. If you do that you are giving Oracle a licensing bomb. The question is not if you are under-licensed, but by how much.

I often start any project by saying my client may want to exit, but it may not be the best option for you. You should until the Oracle ULA project has delivered a licensing position and made clear by analyzing the contract that you can exit.

Now back to the Licensing Expert licensing summit. I reviewed 15 of my old Oracle ULAengagements and put together some key data into a data driven ppt. Aimed at helping other Oracle ULA customers to better understand how are other companies performing.

If you have an Oracle ULA and wants to better understand your options contact me by visiting our company website and book a meeting- click here

This article is a teaser for my ppt.

Why did they enter an Oracle ULA in the first place?

Comment: Almost 50% of the companies had to enter an Oracle ULA due to being audited by Oracle. The overwhelming reason for this is that companies were audited by Oracle, and Oracle found that they had deployed Oracle in virtualized env. The figures are enormous and the customer quickly signs a Oracle ULA when Oracle proposes it.

I have written about this topic here 5 ways for how companies are licensing Oracle in VMware environments.

How to prevent: Next time you are audited by Oracle, engage with an license expert. And you will not need to sign an Oracle ULA for this reason.

How much did they pay for their Oracle ULA?

This graph shows you why you dont want to reveal any numbers to Oracle in any Oracle ULA renewal/exit discussion. Oracle ULA Pricing is all made up, its fictive and its based on a business case that you and Oracle come up with.

If your business case is 50m € license gap. Then your Oracle ULA price will be based around that number. If you instead give Oracle a price that you are willing to pay for your Oracle ULA such as making up a competitive scenario. Then you are paying 1-3m €. Any Oracle ULA renewal must be based upon you negotiating from a position where you do not need to choose Oracle.

Oracle ULA pricing is NOT

• Based upon your existing Oracle software investments
• Number of employees
• Company revenue.

Oracle ULA Experience/Renewal

The companies that i have worked with, 9 was first time Oracle ULA customers. 6 of the companies had renewed their Oracle ULA at least once before.

Why did the 6 companies renew their Oracle ULAs?

Out of the 6 companies that had renewed their Oracle ULA in the past, 4 or 66% of them did so because of non compliance discovered by Oracle in their attempt to exit their first Oracle ULA

Pro tip: You must work with an Oracle license expert who can analyze your deployments using Oracle LMS scripts.

You will only renew your Oracle ULA because you have identified a massive license gap and YOU decide that you will renew your Oracle ULA and include new products that will solve that license gap. (without alerting Oracle about your issue) .

Benefits of this approach

• You will pay 1-3m € for your Oracle ULA (or market competitive)
• You will have a stress free quarter

If you want to learn more, click here to read how to avoid a "forced" Oracle ULA renewal

Reviewed their licensing position and what did we find?

None of 15 companies had a zero license compliant gap. Every review we did showed over 1m €. The average license gap showed 25m €.

Ask yourself, if you want to exit your Oracle ULA - and you hand Oracle script output that will show your company has a license gap of 25m €. Do you think that you will get out of your Oracle ULA?

I don't have the statistics, but most had a SAM tool in place. A SAM tool can be good, but when you are dealing with Oracle Software and combining unlimited deployment rights and virtualization even the smallest mistake is deadly. You cannot trust and use a SAM tool as the source for your compliance. You use the SAM tool to understand where is Oracle installed, but then you use scripts to review deployments.

Who renewed and who exited their Oracle ULA?

I hope this helps!

If you want to listen to this and more details, attend our Oracle licensing expert summit. We are hosting this together with Version 1 who will be talking about Java licensing.

We plan a very interactive session where everybody can both ask and answer questions. You sign up by visiting the landing page. It will be streamed on video.

If you need help to negotiate , manage or undergo Oracle ULA certification you can contact my company Redress Compliance.

How to exit your Oracle (get your exit plan from watching this video)