If you need assistance at any stage of a ULA from our team of ex-Oracle LMS personnel, reach out to us for a consultation. Usually, realization comes at the end of the ULA, when Oracle makes them aware of it if they want to certify their ULA. Today there are many different cloud providers. An Oracle Certified Specialist is more specialized and focuses on implementation. Having a complete and accurate understanding of what such a transformation means for your organization is important to define the appropriate strategy during and at the end of the ULA. The traps of virtualization in a ULA. Many end users entered into an Unlimited License Agreement (ULA) with Oracle Corporation for a certain period of time. ULA Optimization & Management: This is a … First Name * Last Name * Company * Job Title. Even if a customer does manage to get through the certification phase and manages to close out the ULA process, if Oracle is not satisfied, then Oracle’s License Management Services (LMS) may decide to invoke their audit rights and initiate a formal license audit of the customer’s entire environment. An Oracle Unlimited License Agreement (ULA) is an arrangement in which an enterprise pays a single up-front fee to get as many licenses as they want for a specified set of Oracle products over a fixed time frame.. Oracle has no financial incentive to make certification easy for you. Redwood Compliance delivers audit defense, contract negotiation, license optimization and advisory services around Oracle licensing. We provide multiple services for management of Oracle Unlimited License Agreements: ULA Assessment: This is for customers who are not currently under a ULA with Oracle. Oracle License Management Services (LMS) is the established authority on Oracle licensing policy. This means there are two possible scenarios that can result from exiting and certifying deployed licenses at the end of a ULA. One key approach for Oracle is challenging and questioning the certification numbers. At the end of the Oracle ULA term, there are two primary choices – enter into a new ULA, or allow the ULA to lapse. When you certify your ULA, you do not give Oracle more money. Hours: 9AM - 5PM Mon-Fri US Pacific Oracle ULA certification roadblocks include certain contractual provisions, unclear licensing policies, non contractual Oracle guidelines, the new 56 question Oracle LMS/Audit Certification checklist … the list goes on. In case you entered into an ULA already and did not negotiate non-standard terms and conditions in your agreement to upfront resolve such situation, the only option you have is to start a commercial discussion with Oracle. However, Oracle certifications show professional-level industry knowledge and skills, and achieving them requires additional comprehensive study, practice, and exam preparation. In such discussion, you should realize that this “Licensing Oracle Software in the Cloud Computing Environment” policy document states (in the footer): “This document is for educational purposes only and provides guidelines regarding Oracle’s policies. The official acceptance of your ULA certification can take 6 to 12 months. The ULA certification process of counting up the usage of Oracle software at the end of the ULA term is a very significant undertaking that is underplayed by Oracle during the ULA sale. Oracle will often apply negotiation tactics and leverages to get a customer to simply renew the ULA at a higher price. Oracle will often apply negotiation tactics and leverages to get a customer to simply renew the ULA at a higher price. Oracle ULA Services. If a customer insists on letting the ULA expire, and go down the certification route, Oracle may, and often does, make things difficult. How to help take control of the certification process. To get the ULA in the first place, you paid a license fee for the ULA of €3.000.000 NET. If you contractually agreed to this situation, you most likely will only have the option to commercially negotiate a new ULA with Oracle. However, many end users that entered into an ULA a couple of years ago are currently in a transition phase to move their on premises deployments to the (public) cloud. When considering if ULA renewal is a viable option, it is important to determine your future license requirements. Oracle is a coin operated machine and you must always be aware of that. Such settlement results in an amendment to your license agreement which specifies the number of licenses that need to be counted as being deployed in Amazon and/or Azure for certification. Common challenges are getting the certification process wrong and then suffering a forced and costly renewal of the ULA. Any customer within a ULA should plan to deploy in a manner that eliminates the need for incremental purchases of the same software for years to come. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates. During this period you can expect a variety of enquiries from Oracle LMS and your Account manager as … He started to work in the license management industry in 2004 and worked for almost 10 years at Oracle as regional director of compliance. Determine whether an Oracle ULA is the optimal way for your organization to obtain or maintain access to Oracle products. Based in Palo Alto, California – the heart of Silicon Valley – Redwood Compliance consists of subject matter experts with extensive experience in software licensing, contracting, and sales. If a customer insists on letting the ULA expire, and go down the certification route, Oracle may, and often does, make things difficult. An end user with an Unlimited License Agreement for the Oracle Database Enterprise Edition is entitled to deploy the software both on premise and public cloud (Amazon EC2). Most customers seriously underestimate the effort needed to do this, and lack the technical and licensing expertise to do this accurately and efficiently. Oracle may inquire about how the data was collected and attempt to poke holes in the approach and methodology. In this case, the customer is entitled to install and use this product an unlimited number of times for an agreed product bundle and over a specific time period. Additionally, Oracle may offer “assistance” with a ULA assessment – even if the customer does not want this assistance. For example, if you transition from on premises deployments to a (public) cloud provider like Amazon EC2 or Microsoft Azure, there will be a period of time in which there will be an increased license requirement. This article provides an overview of all the things you need to know if you are in this situation. It is understandable that end users don’t realize this, since they believe they have an UNLIMITED license agreement. counting two vCPUs as equivalent to one Oracle Processor license if hyper-threading is enabled, and counting one vCPU as equivalent to one Oracle Processor license if hyper-threading is not enabled) Contact Us Form. The Oracle ULA Certification & Renewal Management service addresses the scenario where your organization has engaged into an Oracle Unlimited License Agreement (ULA) and the Unlimited Deployment Period will end within one year. As such, it is correct that you can deploy the Oracle programs on public cloud providers such as Amazon AWS, Amazon RDS and Microsoft Azure. Why Oracle’s Certification Questionnaire is complex and potentially risky. Identify whether the organization’s ULA is in … Oracle is usually willing to grant such language if you ask for it, but will require you to include only the daily average of the number of Processors on which the Oracle programs are installed and running on your cloud environment for a predefined number of days prior to the end of your ULA. Richard is one of the managing partners at B-lay. As a standard the licenses deployed and certified in the public cloud are restricted to public cloud environments only. An Oracle Unlimited License Agreement (ULA) is a contract that gives you the right to use an unlimited quantity of specified Oracle products for an agreed time period, usually 3 years. In case you would like to know more about our ULA Services, have a look on our website and don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We deliver independent, unbiased services in the best interests of our clients. In case you did not enter into an Unlimited License Agreement already and you are planning to deploy the Oracle programs on a public cloud, it is recommended to negotiate non-standard language in your agreement. The latter in essence is nothing different than a virtualized VMware infrastructure on which your Oracle programs are deployed. Through Oracle certification, students can demonstrate a professional level of technical skills with a distinction recognized throughout the information technology industry. b) count and certify the number of virtual cores or vCPUs into Processor licenses on which the Oracle programs are deployed against an agreed counting methodology at the end of the ULA (e.g. At the end of their ULA, the users have two options: renewing their ULA or certifying it. The most common clauses included in Oracle’s ULA (II), The most common clauses included in Oracle’s ULA (I). This can include the completion of spreadsheets, running of Oracle’s scripts, and the collection and submission of large amounts of deployment data. c) deploy your certified Oracle programs on both public cloud environment(s) and on your on premises environment post ULA certification. The annual support of 22% means an annual fee of €660.000. Let’s have a look at an example of what this means in practice. At the end of the unlimited period, Oracle will grant you a fixed quantity license on the basis that you have made a declaration of usage which Oracle believes to be accurate and realistic. This results in a situation where the end user would, as per Oracle’s policy document, be allowed to certify only 6+8+4 = 18 Processor licenses, while there are an additional 4 + 2 + 8 = 14 Processor licenses deployed on Amazon cloud. Redwood Compliance LLC is an independent firm and not associated with Oracle. It sometimes refers to cloud providers like Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle’s IaaS or PaaS cloud services, but it can also refer to your outsourcer’s “private cloud” solutions. An Oracle ULA is a special type of corporate contract for Oracle software. This since the only basis for counting the required number of licenses is the contractually agreed Processor license metric definition. As per Oracle’s current policy this means counting two vCPUs as equivalent to one Oracle Processor license if hyper-threading is enabled and counting one vCPU as equivalent to one Oracle Processor license if hyper-threading is not enabled. At the end of the Unlimited License Agreement, the end user is allowed to certify only the licenses which are deployed on premise. When you renew your ULA, you give Oracle a lot more money. Letting a ULA expire and certifying is not in Oracle’s best interests – whether or not the customer wants to. Aside from not being contractually required to submit such details, customers may expose instances where Oracle is not convinced that the software is truly “installed AND running” and/or expose other compliance risks. b) count and certify the number of virtual cores or vCPUs into Processor licenses on which the Oracle programs are deployed against an agreed counting methodology at the end of the ULA (e.g. Be prepared for an Oracle audit. If you contractually did not agree on this situation, you could take the position that you will need to certify all the physical cores of all the physical machines that are part of the Amazon datacenter(s) on which the virtual machines are hosted, resulting in 100.000’s of Processor licenses to be certified. So far so good. Oracle may inquire about how the data was collected and attempt to poke holes in the approach and methodology. Home | The "iN" Report | Oracle ULA – Certification Process in a Nutshell. This can include the completion of spreadsheets, running of Oracle’s scripts, and the collection and submission of large amounts of deployment data. Join Craig Guarente, CEO of Palisade Compliance and former Oracle GVP responsible for License Management Services (Customer Audits) along with Dan Ashton of Rimini Street to get guidance on ULA certification plus reduce your support costs, free up resources and focus on your new IT initiatives. This means the end user is non-compliant for 14 Processor licenses upon certification of the ULA. This non-standard language should make sure that you are allowed to: a) deploy the Oracle programs on public cloud environments He uses his knowledge of enterprise software vendors (such as Oracle, SAP, IBM and Microsoft) to educate, equip and enable software end users in their challenges regarding proper software license management. Oracle ULA Certification: Should you run LMS’s scripts? Richard holds a master’s degree in IT, from University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. But how does it work if you have a ULA agreement with Oracle and you deploy Oracle programs in the cloud from such providers? Business E-mail Address * Phone Number. Letting a ULA expire and certifying is not in Oracle’s best interests – whether or not the customer wants to. Oracle has included their license audit team (LMS) into the ULA process as a regular standard of practice. As per this policy document, Oracle allows you as an end user to deploy the Oracle programs on Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS and Microsoft Azure, but Oracle states that you may not include the licenses deployed with these cloud providers in the certification at the end of your ULA term. It's not a matter of IF you'll be audited, it's WHEN. ULA agreement, Oracle requires you to “roll-in” the existing licenses of the acquired entity and the corresponding support fees are added to the Total Support Stream. Exiting the ULA is when some Oracle customers first realize that the support fees paid during the ULA term will stay the same regardless of how many licenses are deployed and certified. This level of certification goes beyond foundational and Associate-level knowledge to an advanced understanding of Oracle concepts and skills, and requires 2-3 years of experience. Aside from not being contractually required to submit such details, customers may expose instances where Oracle is not convinced that the software is truly “installed, Oracle ULA - Lost Value and Compliance Risks. We provide Oracle customers with an open, transparent, and definitive assessment of their compliance position. Since the Oracle programs are deployed on the public cloud environment, this creates a commercial momentum for Oracle to have the end user buy additional licenses. The support fee you already had prior to the ULA (€340.000) was migrated into the ULA. Completing each step in your path guides you toward earning a globally recognized and well-respected credential that proves your expertise - in the least amount of time possible. Email: info@redwoodcompliance.com The International Association of IT Asset Managers (IAITAM) is the largest organization providing education, certification and thought leadership to the management of IT as a business. The public cloud solutions such as Amazon EC2 and RDS or Microsoft Azure are the most commonly used at this moment in time. Redwood Compliance is independent of Oracle - we are neither a partner nor reseller. counting two vCPUs as equivalent to one Oracle Processor license if hyper-threading is enabled, and counting one vCPU as equivalent to one Oracle Processor license if hyper-threading is not enabled) As a first step you would therefore need to validate in your own ULA if such language has or has not been contractually agreed. Maximize benefits from existing Oracle ULA agreements through optimization recommendations. Additionally, Oracle may offer “assistance” with a ULA assessment – even if the customer does not want this assistance. Oracle’s treatment of ULA certifications as an audit often lead to an extension, including additional fees, rather than a maximized agreement. Ask any Oracle ULA customer, and they will tell you how much Oracle wants them to renew their ULAs. Oracle ULAs in Third Party Clouds - How We Can Help. Register for this webinar today! Oracle is eager to offer companies a ULA, an Unlimited License Agreement, especially at the end of the financial year. The most common ULA term is three years. If these companies are considering an ULA, this company obviously met the criteria : a large company with Oracle products in their roadmap, and anticipating a growing usage of Oracle products. Many end users do not realize that this policy document exists and what it states. The biggest mistake you can make is self-inflicted! Oracle ULA – Certification Process in a Nutshell. Certifications are not, in fact, an audit. Fax: 1-650-618-1641 The word “cloud” however is quite often being used for different types of IT infrastructure(s) and/or cloud services. Our recommendation is to perform regular internal reviews to be prepared for your ULA certification/renewal, to identify any issues upfront and to engage with an expert licensing firm to determine the options. Every customer that has a ULA will have an Unlimited Deployment Right clause in its agreement stating that as long as you continue to pay your license and support fees, you have the right to use the programs (as included in your ULA contract) across an unlimited number of Processors or Users. This means that your annual support is €1.000.000. Earning an Oracle Certification empowers you with the latest product-specific knowledge and skills to compete in the rapidly changing world of technology, and sets you apart, giving you an edge in job interviews. We help clients to enter, manage and exit the Oracle ULA agreement. Although many end users are under the impression that they won’t have any compliance issues because they have a ULA in place, they may be wrong when they are moving from their on premises environments to (public) cloud environments. We have worked with companies that certified out of a ULA, were audited less than a year later, only to learn they were out of compliance because they did not understand the terms of their ULA. What happens if your Oracle ULA “certification” is not good enough? Oracle ULA Certification Ask any Oracle ULA customer, and they will tell you how much Oracle wants them to renew their ULAs. US: 1-888-252-2506 It may not be incorporated into any contract and does not constitute a contract or a commitment to any specific terms”. Oracle ULA – Certification Process in a Nutshell Many companies entered into an Unlimited License Agreement (ULA) with Oracle, and if you’re one of them, you might want to read on to learn what are your options at the end of the agreement. In this situation, Oracle will typically state that a settlement between both parties needs to be agreed upon to normalize the business relationship for the future.