Sun push the thread envelope

According to The Register the next iteration of Sun's Niagara chip will have 16-cores and 16 threads per core . Apart from the mind-boggling number of threads which will become available in an eight socket 1U rack, the licensing implications are a bit of a facer for Oracle. Soon a server with a single chip in it could incur a sixteen CPU license. At least at the moment if customers don't want to pay Oracle's multi-core fees they have the option to tear out some chips. But that's not an option with Niagara 3. Can Oracle seriously maintain a policy of selling licenses in bundles of sixteen?

Esprit de cores

Oracle-L has been hosting an interesting thread on migrating to another (cheaper) DBMS. It seems like the company in question has not targeted a specific product yet, they just want a cheaper one. The entire thread has much to recommend it but I would like to highlight Mark Brinsmead's analysis of the definition of 'processor' in the Oracle License and Services Agreement, because it complements my post on licensing multi-core servers.

"[The OLSA] certainly adds a new wrinkle to SE licensing that I had not noticed until just now. Probably a lot of IT professionals, few IT managers, and even fewer lawyers, know the difference between a 'chip' and a 'carrier'. What's more, how many people *know* when they are purchasing a system with quad-core X86 'CPUs' whether the carriers in that system contain a single chip with 4 cores, 2 chips with two cores each, or four single-core chips. It makes little difference when purchasing the hardware (well, okay, it might make more than you think), but it can make a *huge* difference to your license costs and compliance."

Core blimey!

The Register reports on the latest developments in Oracle's multi-core licensing policy:

"Oracle, we hear, is charging a factor of .75 for Sun's T2 and T2+ systems even though they're running at about the same speed as the T1s. The major difference with the new chips is their support for more threads and the fact that the T2+s can go into multi-socket servers making them more useful for, er, databases. And by 'more useful' here we mean 'useful at all' since no one in their right mind would have thrown the older T1 systems at Oracle.

The .75 T2 factor comes as quite a shock to Sun customers who have upgraded their hardware only to have the Oracle tax man come along and tell them that the solid price/performance they were expecting via the hardware will be eroded via the software."

Of course Oracle is entitled to price its licences however it wants. But trebling the fees for customers who move to a different server with the same number of cores as their old kit doesn't seem like the best way to maintain loyalty. It also alienates Sun, who have previously used the favourable licensing terms to sell T1 boxes.

I disagree with Ashlee Vance's conclusion that Oracle's licensing policy will drive customers into the arms of IBM. If you're going to take the pain of moving to a new DBMS and if licensing costs are the main driver then free is a lot more attractive than DB2, no matter how sane IBM's fee structure. In his blog Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz recounts a pertinent story from a recent visit to a large commercial institution:

"We had just closed the acquisition of MySQL, so before I wrapped up, I asked, 'And would you like a quick update on the newest addition to our family, MySQL?'

The CIO responded categorically with 'we don't run MySQL, we run [name withheld to protect the proprietary].' The CISO said, 'We can't just let developers download software off the net, you know, we've got regulation and security to worry about.' The CTO smiled. Everyone else appeared to be sitting on their hands. I was going to leave it at that. Thanks for the business.

Until a (diplomatically) assertive Sun sales rep piped up, 'Um... no, I connected with a buddy of mine over at MySQL, and had him check - you've downloaded MySQL more than 1,300 times in the last twelve months.'

After a profoundly awkward silence, one of the individuals from their internal development team piped up, 'Actually, everybody uses it. Why bother hassling with license agreements when MySQL's got you covered. We're stoked you bought them.'"

As we all know, purchasing decisions are frequently made on the basis of which product is the most cost-effective rather than which product is the best. The danger for Oracle is that Sun's purchase of MySQL lends the free database a lot more credibility than it had before. If Oracle won't give Sun any more sweetheart deals then Sun has more reason to start trumpeting the price-performance advantages of running MySQL on their new multi-core boxes. Oracle has made a lot of play about the benefits of free when it adopted Linux as its OS of choice. So it's not like it doesn't understand the allure. Which is probably why Oracle has restricted the price gouging to the Enterprise Edition licences whilst the Standard Edition is charged per socket. The jump from the SE feature set to MySQL is probably a lot less daunting than the equivalent jump from EE.

Footnote

Over at the Service Architecture - SOA blog Steve Jones considers the implications of the Register article for Software licensing in a virtual world.

Footnote #2

At the time of writing, the Multi-Core Processors - Impact on Oracle Processor Licensing document hurls an 404 error. This may indicate that Oracle are updating it to reflect the new chip sets.

Footnote #3

Also worth a read is the Register's recent interview with Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu's rentaquote-in-chief. Amongst other things he makes this prediction about Oracle's Unbreakable Linux strategy:

"Oracle will find themselves in a position where, if this business is successful or strategically important to them, they will need to fork or buy Red Hat. They will do one of those things within three to five years."

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