Run-up to an Oracle License Audit

Oracle audits can be formal, informal, or even casual. But they are not random. Below are some descriptions of Oracle license audits & their stages:

1. A seemingly friendly ask by Oracle salesperson on your architecture or deployment or to advise you on your Oracle footprint.
   Most customers look up to Oracle salespersons as go-to sources for Oracle technical information forgetting that his/her only job is to get revenue from their set of accounts. The sales reps are compensated for delivering against stiff sales targets. This financial incentive makes the conversation of an Oracle sales rep highly suspect.
2. An email or letter from Oracle’s LMS team to educate you on Oracle licensing.
   You might receive a note from Oracle’s license management team stating that they would help you understand Oracle licensing. The acceptance of such an offer could lead to a detailed discussion that opens you to a more formal audit notice.
3. A formal notice for audit.
   When a friendly discussion to purchase more licenses fail, it is customary for Oracle to send a formal notice for an audit. This has a contractual binding.

Key Features of an Oracle LMS Engagement

Oracle License Management Services is the established authority on Oracle licensing policy. (This organization is nowadays also called Global Licensing Advisory Services (GLAS)).

Their job is to validate the compliance position of your Oracle deployments, identify license violations and correct them by purchase of licenses where necessary.

A formal Oracle LMS Audit goes through the following stages:

1. A formal notice for an audit or a correspondence discussing the measurement of your deployment.
2. A declaration of usage by the customer through the update of an MS Excel spreadsheet.
3. Deploy tools to gather installation and usage data.
4. Analysis of the gathered usage data.
5. Inform you regarding the deployment & usage of audited products in your network.
6. In case of non-compliance, collaborate with the sales team internally within Oracle to submit a commercial proposal that will correct the license gap through a negotiated purchase.

Which customers does Oracle audit?

As discussed earlier, Oracle license audits are not random. The customers are targeted to get in more revenue.

Some reasons for a potential license audit are:

1. The customer has not spent any money on fresh Oracle licenses for 2 – 3 years.
2. There was a change in sales territory allocation within Oracle and the customer is assigned to a new sales rep.
3. The customer is growing and the IT team is investing in non-Oracle technologies & applications.
4. The customer has been audited by another publisher.
5. There has been a merger or acquisition in the recent past.
6. The customer is using E-Business Suite.
7. The customer has purchased new hardware in the datacenter.
8. The customer is using VMware, Nutanix, or other virtualization technologies or appliances.
9. The customer decides to certify, rather than renew, a ULA.
10. The customer has put in a question in a support request about a product that is not purchased.