We get a lot of questions about Oracle’s processor core factors. Core factors can change and this is particularly difficult when you’re the person in charge of tracking changes in licensing or the procurement process. Case and point, the Sun UltraSPARC T2+ core processor licensing changed from 0.75 to 0.50. As soon as the change is in effect, your organization is considered out of compliance.
See Oracle Processor Core Factor Table, which charts vendor and core processor licensing factors. Changes can be found as a footnote at the bottom of the page.
Scott,
Why would one go out of compliance if the core factor is decreased, since the hardware now requires less CPU licenses, meaning one could, if practical, acquire more CPU’s for the existing licenses.
The other thing I disagree with is that since licensing terms are transaction bound, such changes can only apply to current or future purchases. They cannot be imposed retroactively. Also, Oracle have inserted in their definitions that in such cases the number of ‘old’ licenses and new purchases (e.g. RDBMS and newly acquired options) might mismatch while being compliant.
Kind regards,
Balazs Repkenyi