The Oracle Enterprise Command Center Goody Bag — Part 2 — ECC Technology and Middleware Licensing

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Credit to this blog is entirely to Jennie Brown, a retired Version 1 Oracle license consultant

I am republishing here with her permission! As with many of Jennie’s blogs, the content is still relevant today and worth sharing with the community.

Welcome to the second part of my Enterprise Command Centers blog. In part 1 (The Oracle Enterprise Command Center Goody Bag Part 1 — An Introduction) we talked about the general principles of licensing around Enterprise Command Centers (ECCs) from the EBS application license viewpoint. In this the second part we will talk about Technology/Middleware licensing pitfalls.

Customisation of any EBS install leads to additional licensing requirements for Database and Middleware; this applies to effectively all EBS installations in our experience. If the pre-existing ECC dashboards do not fulfil all the requirements, you can make use of the basic and advanced extensibility features and customise them. There are unlikely to be any licensing implications associated with utilising the basic extensions, which are UI driven, however typically advanced extensions would relate to loading extra data etc. requiring PL/SQL procedures or creating new tables and schemas. Such modifications will trigger a full use Database license requirement. This could represent a risk / additional cost implication for the rare EBS install owner who has not acquired separate DBEE licenses for their install (such customers are exceptional!).

Irrespective of ECC customisations, there may be additional middleware licensing requirements resulting from installing ECC on a separate WebLogic server from the main EBS install.

EBS installs are allowed to use Internet Application Server Enterprise Edition (IAS) and WebLogic Server Basic and these licences are included for use on your EBS servers, unless of course you end up making certain types of modifications at which point you need to license them — again, this is practically every customer using EBS. The Enterprise Command Center Framework runs on a WebLogic Server. There are a few points to consider.

· In the Application licensing table, it shows that the EBS IAS and WebLogic Server licenses are included, but ‘Restricted-use licenses may only be used to run licensed Oracle E-Business Suite Applications.’

· From 12.2 the command centers are clearly shipped with and included as part of the EBS installed products (‘Oracle Assets Command Center feature is available at no additional cost to licensed users of Oracle Financials. It can be applied to Release 12.2.4 and above’). If the out-of-the-box Oracle Enterprise Command Center Framework is installed on the pre-existing EBS application server then the licensing requirement from the original EBS only install would not be changed. i.e., would be free if complying with the restrictions (i.e. no customisations), and licensable if not (applicable to practically every EBS installation).

However, Oracle are strongly suggesting to customers that the WebLogic application server for ECC should be installed on a separate server (other than the EBS application server) to improve performance. At various points Oracle have said this will not need extra licensing, although this approach has never been documented. The lack of documentation may mean Oracle are implicitly saying that the second server may need licensing. Technically this would not be the main EBS application server so our advice would be to clarify this in writing i.e., that Oracle Enterprise Command Center Framework is an E-Business Suite Application and can claim the restricted use license in addition to the main EBS application servers, even when installed separately.

We have yet to see any examples of how Oracle LMS would treat the licensing if on a separate server. It would be to Oracle’s advantage to encourage use of second servers and then ask for customers to license those servers. A second server is only encouraged (is optional, not compulsory) to enhance performance so Oracle may say that the optional server is licensable. After all, it delivers enhanced functionality so is of extra business value.

· Even if the ‘free’ separate server approach were allowed, license requirements may still occur if advanced extensibility features are used.

It is also interesting that the certified WebLogic Server for EBS is WebLogic Server 10.3.6, but the Enterprise Command Center Framework runs on Oracle WebLogic Server 12.2.1.4.0, a much later version.

A quick glance at some of the install documents for the Enterprise Command Center Framework also seem to encourage the use of broader WebLogic features beyond those available solely to the WebLogic Basic Server usage allowed with EBS. Use of these additional WebLogic features would render the included ‘free’ EBS WebLogic Basic license insufficient.

‘Oracle Enterprise Command Center Framework can be installed with high availability cluster setup that allows installation on more than two machines. ECC can be enabled with SSL for communication with EBS provided EBS is TLS enabled.’ E-Business Suite Administering Enterprise Command Centers.

For example, WebLogic Basic has four specific restrictions linked to clustering. If any of these are breached this would result in an additional WebLogic licensing requirement. For more information see my previous blog ’30 Ways to avoid incurring an accidental and unwanted bill for WebLogic use’.

So, to avoid any extra Technology/Middleware costs you need to consider:

a) Any licensing requirements triggered by utilising advanced extensibility and

b) Understand there may be possible additional license requirements if the ECC is installed on a WebLogic server separate to the main EBS server and

c) Avoid using WebLogic features outside those allowed by the basic server licenses.

Summary

As long as you remain cognisant of (and avoid) a few application, technology and middleware licensing pitfalls, Oracle Enterprise Command Centers represent a very useful new set of EBS features at no extra cost.

For more information or to ask any Oracle licensing question contact us directly.

If you have any questions at this point on ECC or any other Oracle licensing topic, contact us directly.

Other popular articles

• How to approach an Oracle Java audit here
• Oracle Database 23ai (was 23c) Licensing Overview here
• Oracle Licensing in Virtual Environments (aka Oracle on VMware) here

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