We get a lot of questions about Oracle licensing of non-Oracle virtualization servers. In order to understand the licensing model, you must understand that Oracle only acknowledges its own virtualization software and only in standalone servers. This is an extremely important point to internalize, especially if you’re using non-Oracle virtualization software (with VMware being one of the most popular).
End users with non-Oracle virtualization software must license based on the physical size of the server. So, if you’re running a VMware cluster, you must license based on the cluster of servers, not a single server where Oracle software is installed. In other words, a license is needed for each server within the cluster – if there are 10 servers in the cluster, the end user must have a license for each of the 10 servers. Licensing can be extremely complex and become more complex when you introduce non-Oracle applications into the mix.
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