Oracle Linux and Oracle VM pricing guide

By wcoekaer on Oct 30, 2013

A few days ago someone showed me a pricing guide from a Linux vendor and I was a bit surprised at the complexity of it. Especially when you look at larger servers (4 or 8 sockets) and when adding virtual machine use into the mix.
I think we have a very compelling and simple pricing model for both Oracle Linux and Oracle VM. Let me see if I can explain it in 1 page, not 10 pages. This pricing information is publicly available on the Oracle store, I am using the current public list prices. Also keep in mind that this is for customers using non-oracle x86 servers. When a customer purchases an Oracle x86 server, the annual systems support includes full use (all you can eat) of Oracle Linux, Oracle VM and Oracle Solaris (no matter how many VMs you run on that server, in case you deploy guests on a hypervisor). This support level is the equivalent of premier support in the list below.
Let's start with Oracle VM (x86) :
Oracle VM support subscriptions are per physical server on which you deploy the Oracle VM Server product.

(1) Oracle VM Premier Limited -> 1- or 2 socket server : $599 per server per year

(2) Oracle VM Premier -> more than 2 socket server (4, or 8 or whatever more) : $1199 per server per year

The above includes the use of Oracle VM Manager and Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control's Virtualization management pack (including self service cloud portal, etc..)
24x7 support, access to bugfixes, updates and new releases. It also includes all options, live migrate, dynamic resource scheduling, high availability, dynamic power management, etc
If you want to play with the product, or even use the product without access to support services, the product is freely downloadable from edelivery.
Next, Oracle Linux :
Oracle Linux support subscriptions are per physical server.
If you plan to run Oracle Linux as a guest on Oracle VM, VMWare or Hyper-v, you only have to pay for a single subscription per system, we do not charge per guest or per number of guests. In other words, you can run any number of Oracle Linux guests per physical server and count it as just a single subscription.

(1) Oracle Linux Network Support -> any number of sockets per server : $119 per server per year

Network support does not offer support services. It provides access to the Unbreakable Linux Network and also offers full indemnification for Oracle Linux.

(2) Oracle Linux Basic Limited Support -> 1- or 2 socket servers : $499 per server per year

This subscription provides 24x7 support services, access to the Unbreakable Linux Network and the Oracle Support portal, indemnification, use of Oracle Clusterware for Linux HA and use of Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud control for Linux OS management. It includes ocfs2 as a clustered filesystem.

(3) Oracle Linux Basic Support -> more than 2 socket server (4, or 8 or more) : $1199 per server per year

This subscription provides 24x7 support services, access to the Unbreakable Linux Network and the Oracle Support portal, indemnification, use of Oracle Clusterware for Linux HA and use of Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud control for Linux OS management. It includes ocfs2 as a clustered filesystem

(4) Oracle Linux Premier Limited Support -> 1- or 2 socket servers : $1399 per server per year

This subscription provides 24x7 support services, access to the Unbreakable Linux Network and the Oracle Support portal, indemnification, use of Oracle Clusterware for Linux HA and use of Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud control for Linux OS management, XFS filesystem support. It also offers Oracle Lifetime support, backporting of patches for critical customers in previous versions of package and ksplice zero-downtime updates.

(5) Oracle Linux Premier Support -> more than 2 socket servers : $2299 per server per year

This subscription provides 24x7 support services, access to the Unbreakable Linux Network and the Oracle Support portal, indemnification, use of Oracle Clusterware for Linux HA and use of Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud control for Linux OS management, XFS filesystem support. It also offers Oracle Lifetime support, backporting of patches for critical customers in previous versions of package and ksplice zero-downtime updates.

(6) Freely available Oracle Linux -> any number of sockets

You can freely download Oracle Linux, install it on any number of servers and use it for any reason, without support, without right to use of these extra features like Oracle Clusterware or ksplice, without indemnification. However, you do have full access to all errata as well. Need support? then use options (1)..(5) So that's it. Count number of 2 socket boxes, more than 2 socket boxes, decide on basic or premier support level and you are done. You don't have to worry about different levels based on how many virtual instances you deploy or want to deploy. A very simple menu of choices. We offer, inclusive, Linux OS clusterware, Linux OS Management, provisioning and monitoring, cluster filesystem (ocfs), high performance filesystem (xfs), dtrace, ksplice, ofed (infiniband stack for high performance networking). No separate add-on menus.
NOTE : socket/cpu can have any number of cores. So whether you have a 4,6,8,10 or 12 core CPU doesn't matter, we count the number of physical CPUs.

Oracle Data Protection: How Do You Measure Up?

By tichien on Jun 12, 2014

This is the first installment in a blog series, which examines the results of a recent database protection survey conducted by Database Trends and Applications (DBTA) Magazine.
All Oracle IT professionals know that a sound, well-tested backup and recovery strategy plays a foundational role in protecting their Oracle database investments, which in many cases, represent the lifeblood of business operations. But just how common are the data protection strategies used and the challenges faced across various enterprises? In January 2014, Database Trends and Applications Magazine (DBTA), in partnership with Oracle, released the results of its “Oracle Database Management and Data Protection Survey”. Two hundred Oracle IT professionals were interviewed on various aspects of their database backup and recovery strategies, in order to identify the top organizational and operational challenges for protecting Oracle assets.
Here are some of the key findings from the survey:

• The majority of respondents manage backups for tens to hundreds of databases, representing total data volume of 5 to 50TB (14% manage 50 to 200 TB and some up to 5 PB or more).
• About half of the respondents (48%) use HA technologies such as RAC, Data Guard, or storage mirroring, however these technologies are deployed on only 25% of their databases (or less).
• This indicates that backups are still the predominant method for database protection among enterprises. Weekly full and daily incremental backups to disk were the most popular strategy, used by 27% of respondents, followed by daily full backups, which are used by 17%. Interestingly, over half of the respondents reported that 10% or less of their databases undergo regular backup testing.

 A few key backup and recovery challenges resonated across many of the respondents:

• Poor performance and impact on productivity (see Figure 1)
• 38% of respondents indicated that backups are too slow, resulting in prolonged backup windows.
• In a similar vein, 23% complained that backups degrade the performance of production systems.
• Lack of continuous protection (see Figure 2)
• 35% revealed that less than 5% of Oracle data is protected in real-time.
•  Management complexity
• 25% stated that recovery operations are too complex. (see Figure 1)
•  31% reported that backups need constant management. (see Figure 1)
• 45% changed their backup tools as a result of growing data volumes, while 29% changed tools due to the complexity of the tools themselves.

Figure 1: Current Challenges with Database Backup and Recovery

Figure 2: Percentage of Organization’s Data Backed Up in Real-Time or Near Real-Time

In future blogs, we will discuss each of these challenges in more detail and bring insight into how the backup technology industry has attempted to resolve them.

Upgrade to Oracle Database 12c

Upgrading to Oracle Database 12c provides the latest in efficient, reliable, secure data management for mission-critical on-line transaction processing applications, query-intensive data warehouses, and cloud applications. The right planning, preparation, and upgrade steps will make the upgrade process simpler, faster, and more predictable from start to finish. 

White Paper: Upgrading to Oracle Database 12c

This white paper outlines the methods and alternatives available for you to upgrade and migrate your database to Oracle Database 12c.  Learn about different use cases and key factors to consider when choosing the method that best fits your requirements.
Upgrading to Oracle Database 12c 

Upgrade Compatibility Matrix

Wondering which versions are supported for direct upgrade to Oracle Database 12c? Here is the support note with that information.

 Database Server Upgrade/Downgrade Compatibility Matrix (Doc ID 551141.1) (My Oracle Support)

White Paper: Simplify the Migration of Oracle Database and Oracle Applications from AIX to Oracle Solaris

This white paper discusses the four simple steps customers can take to migrate from AIX to Oracle Solaris. Migration may also include upgrading to a new database version to get the benefits of the latest features and enhancements to Oracle Database 12c.
Simplify the Migration of Oracle Database and Oracle Applications from AIX to Oracle Solaris 

Mike Dietrich's Upgrade Blog

Database Upgrade Team member Mike Dietrich maintains a BLOG relating to Database Upgrade presentation, events and topics.
Oracle Database upgrade blog
 

Upgrade and Migration to Oracle Database 12c - Workshop Presentation   

This presentation covers a full day database upgrade and migration workshop with plenty of background information from installation and patching to various upgrade and migration techniques covering also fallback strategies, performance managements and application upgrades.

Upgrade, Migrate, and Consolidate to Oracle Database 12c  (~30M)

 

Manual Upgrades

This document provides a checklist to review prior to performing a manual Upgrade.
Complete Checklist for Manual Upgrades to Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1) (Doc ID 1503653.1) (My Oracle Support)

DBUA Upgrades

If you plan on using the Database Upgrade Assistant to perform your upgrade, this document provides a check-list you should review first.

Complete Checklist for Upgrading to Oracle Database 12c Release 1 using DBUA (Doc ID 1516557.1) (My Oracle Support)

 

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