Oracle OLAP becomes ‘free’, 19c Premier Support extended
TL;DR
Oracle Database 19c has had Premier Support extended from April 2024 to April 2026, meaning that it is no longer in Extended Support (with waived fees).
Oracle have changed the Oracle OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) database option from being costed to being a core part of the Oracle database — i.e. you no longer have to pay for it, though it has been pointed out to me that in 23ai, OLAP is desupported. If you need OLAP licenses for 19c or earlier databases, however, you will not be able to pay for OLAP.
Management Packs for Exadata and ZDLRA are now released and on the price list.
Oracle have not put up prices at this time (there are a few minor FX rate changes but not for ‘major’ currencies).
19c Premier Support Extended
Perhaps in acknowledgement of the delayed release of 23ai for various platforms (On-premises, Database Appliance) from 1st half to 2nd half of 2024, Oracle has switched 19c’s Premier support to now end at the end of April 2026 rather than 30 April 2024 plus 2 years of waived Extended Support. Paid Extended Support remains the same from 2026 until 2027. Extended Support means that new Oracle and third-party products will not be certified against the release. The support timelines for Long Term Support (LTS) releases now looks as follows:
Bye bye OLAP fees*!
June is often a time for Oracle to make changes to their offerings and bring in new changes. Whilst there are only early signs of increased ‘audit’ of Oracle Java SE — something we expect to see a lot more of in the next few months — there are more evident changes which have been issued regarding the Oracle Database.
Firstly, OLAP — an extra cost option for many years, though seldom used in ‘anger’ (<1% of estates based on our view of many tens of thousands of databases globally), and is now desupported in 23ai and replaced by analytic views included in the base database cost. It is clear from the Oracle pricelist, supplement (and the removal of OLAP as an option) and Oracle licensing information manual (for 23ai at least), that the option has joined the ranks of other previously paid-for database options which have become free (Spatial and Graph, Advanced Analytics, in-transport Advanced Security elements) but, in this case, is likely as a result of the desupport in 23ai.
* If you pay Oracle annual support for OLAP already, it is unlikely you can remove these costs unless they are on their own segregated order (often considered to be the CSI, though this is not strictly correct) — care is required. Oracle requires customers to still pay for support for Spatial / Advanced Analytics despite its inclusion in the core database fee.
Out with the old, in with something completely different
Oracle have added Exadata Management Pack (‘Engineered Systems Management Pack — Exadata’) and ZDLRA Management Pack (‘Engineered Systems Management Pack-ZDLRA). The former has a pre-requisite of Diagnostics Pack. There’s no evident information or datasheets/documentation available for these at the moment but the Exadata Management Pack will be functionality above the default / basic plug-in for Exadata.
As is often the case, a small number of ‘obscure’ products have been removed from the pricelist. There are no evident replacements for these at this time:
- Enterprise Metadata Management (OEMM) link here
- Metadata Management for Oracle Business Intelligence — related but not identical to OEMM-insightful link here
- Application Management Pack for Oracle Fusion Applications — specific ‘point solution’ which was rarely seen in the ‘wild’ -datasheet here
About the Author
Paul Bullen is a Principal License Consultant at Version 1, having over 23 years of experience in Oracle technology and Oracle licensing for large enterprises.
Popular blogs by Paul Bullen
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