As all of my readers know, I have been a strong proponent of VMware virtualization of Oracle Database servers for license cost savings purposes. Predictably, Oracle has pushed back on this issue in the past. Well, they have now thrown in the towel.
In an online video, Richard Garsthagen, Director of Cloud Business Development EMEA for Oracle, has stated publicly that VMware host affinity rules (when combined with vMotion logging) work just fine, thank you very much, for purposes of establishing where Oracle software is "installed and/or running" for purposes of the Oracle Software License Agreement (OSLA).
Previously, Oracle has maintained that all servers in a cluster must be licensed if even a single VM on any server in the cluster is running Oracle software. VMware has officially disagreed with this statement in their white paper on Oracle Licensing and Support. But the opposing view by Oracle has been a serious deterrent to adoption of VMware virtualization of Oracle servers. No longer.
I think we can consider this issue closed. Customers can now virtualize Oracle database servers without any concern about Oracle hitting them with unreasonable license cost demands. This is undoubtedly great news, and a great watershed event in this area.
