Should Dual Cores Require Dual Licenses? 425
sebFlyte writes "The multi-core debate continues. HP and Intel have laid into Oracle and (to a lesser extent) BEA over their their treatment of multi-core processers. Oracle's argument that 'a core is a CPU and therefore you should pay us all your money' isn't a popular one, it would seem. What does Oracle's stubbornness imply for the industry as a whole, with multicore chips coming to the fore so strongly?"
Re:Kinda torn (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Kinda torn (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Dual-Core should NOT have additional costs... (Score:3, Informative)
They aren't the only ones (Score:5, Informative)
This is what drove many Oracle users to Windows, because Intel based servers tend to be smaller.
Oracle came after the place I was working for being out of license by around a million dollars. After a long negotiations Oracle agreed to charge us per installed CPU. So after signing the agreement with started pulling CPU's and max'ing out RAM. We ended up only owing Oracle a few thousand, and maintained performance with the extra RAM.
Veritas NetBackup is the same thing. Explain to me why it cost more to backup a multi-CPU server.
Re:Riiiight! (Score:2, Informative)
http://developers.slashdot.org/article.
Re:Why license based on processor? (Score:2, Informative)
In the end it's all about supply and demand. If they price it at an amount targetted at the Sunfire F25K, then they'll simply lose the business of the local database user. So they use number of processors as a means for segmentation. This means they can charge a lot to people who can afford a lot, and less to people who can't afford as much. Fair enough, but this isn't about fairness. It's about maximising profits. I could go into more detail, but this guy [joelonsoftware.com] has already written a long winded article about the subject.
Re:Oracle is asking for it... (Score:5, Informative)
First, it can be easier if you were running Linux, but the way it sounds, youre running solaris, right?
Well, if you do happen to be running Linux on this, just nab the 2.6 kernel, and make a Usermode Kernel. Run Oracle under the UML kernel, where it cant touch any hardware at all, without going through an abstraction layer. What it doesnt know wont hurt it. Even better yet, you could run this "Kernel Job" on proc #3 and give it sole prio over that CPU (in other words, run only that process- the UML process).
Since, you're probably running Solaris, I believe there's 2 possibilities.. For one, VMware I believe can run on that architechure. Just do with VMware what you can do with UML Kernel. Run it on last CPU like UML. Sits there happy as a clam at high tide.
The last possibility is what Im not completely not sure of. I believe the new solaris had UML-like capability and to partition hardware resources to seperate "Computers". Since Im not quite sure, I'll have have you go look at Sun's website about possibly looking down that path of execution (heh I made a funny).
Nevertheless, if there's a method of little overhead that partitions hardware resources, it's something you ought to look into.
Just an idea
Re:Why do they licence per CPU in the first place? (Score:3, Informative)
Availability and performance are at least as important - particularly for big corporate types. Availability is in part given by multiple CPUs. Performance can also be addressed by multiple CPUs - particularly where large memory caches are allocated.
And ultimately that is why people choose Oracle - not to create gigantic databases, but for high-performing, high-availability, centralised processing databases.
Re:You asked a questions so my answer is.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:There _Are_ Other DBMS's (Score:3, Informative)
Using != copying (Score:3, Informative)
Licences like the GPL and BSD ones say nothing about using software, so you're back to that legal position of being able to use it how you like. OTOH, companies like Oracle and Microsoft make you agree to a licence before you can use the software, so they restrict that right. Those licences are contracts, so if there's a problem, it's a matter of contract law.
Proprietary software licences don't usually give you the right to copy software (apart from backup purposes), but the GPL and BSD licences do. So they're adding rights, not taking them away. If you don't comply with them, you're back to the default legal rights, so you're still free to use the software how you like; you just can't copy it (which would violate copyright law).