Named user plus, what is this?

Question

I was looking at oracle liecense, it looks cheap for named user plus. I mean if I develop a web application in which user has no interaction with database other than registering and logging in and if I make a virtual user inside server to do all these things that is get user name and password from users ect. keep them in queue and execute database commands one by one. Will I need more than one named user plus for this, I am total noob in oracle and web field , i m just a designer who is learning server side technologies so if this question is invalid please let me know why.

Answer 1

Named user licensing is not the best option in this situation - Oracle considers the web application a multiplexing device and will require you to track the users of the application and purchase a named user license for each of them.

[Edit] I see that you've received some good additional licensing information in the other answers, but in short an Oracle schema != an application user. Years ago I was unlucky enough to be the POC for an unwelcome audit by Oracle and for our intranet application I was required to report distinct IP addresses connecting to the application from the web server.

Answer 2

Oracle licensing is a labyrinth which few people understand. Even most Oracle employees won't discuss it because it's so complicated. In fact there are almost as many consultants making a living from offering licensing advice as there are from tuning the actual databases.

So the following is just an opinion, and you definitely should not use it as the basis of a business plan.

If your web application is for an intranet you could purchase a Named User Plus license, because you should be able to identify each and every user of your application. But if your application is going on the Internet with an unknown and unknowable userbase you will need to buy Per Processor licenses.

Oracle has a complicated mechanism for licensing multi-core processors. It very much depends on which platform and type of chip we're using. It is an area of licensing which Oracle revises on a regular basis, as they try to come to terms with multi-core CPUs. It used to be that pretty much everything was 0.75; as Zendar points out, it is now the case that many configurations are licensed at 0.5 per core. Oracle always round up, so if we have a single dual-core CPU which attracts a 0.75 per core multiplier it will still cost us two Per Processor licenses, but a quad-core will only cost three. Find out more.

One thing to bear in mind is that if you application has quite lightweight DB requirements - that is, less than 4GB of application data, suitable to run on a single CPU (single core) - you can use the Express Edition for free, for any purpose.

One more thing: licenses apply to all databases, not just those in produvction. So you need to factor in the cost of licensing your development and test environments as well.

---

With regards to that last point Zendar cites the OTN Download license. That outlines what we can do with products we have downloaded from OTN. The problem with the OTN Download license is made clear in Oracle's explanation of Database Licensing:

"This limited license gives the user the right to develop, but not to deploy, applications using the licensed products. It also limits the use of the downloaded product to one person, and limits installation of the product to one server."

So: if we're a one-man operation (no dog) we can develop an application using the OTN Download license. But if we want a team of developers sharing a database we need a Full Use license. And once we're supporting an application in production we need a Full Use license for the maintenance (formerly development) environment.

The other consideration is this: if we want support and patches for our development environment then we need a proper license.

I said it was a labyrinth.

Answer 3

Oracle for a long time have price list published on its website. So, there is no any secret there.
There you will find their definition of "Named user plus".

Short interpretation: named user plus is every individual and/or device that accesses database.
You can buy per processor license or per named user, pick one that suites you better (be careful with processor license - Oracle have some formula for counting processor cores - check price list and Oracle Processor Core Factor Table)

Regarding APC-s answer - all Intel and AMD chips have core factor 0.5 - meaning 1 processor license per 2 cores.

Development license for Oracle RDBMS products states:

We grant you a nonexclusive, nontransferable limited license to use the programs only for the purpose of developing, testing, prototyping and demonstrating your application, and not for any other purpose.

So, you can download Oracle product and use it for developing, testing, prototyping and demonstrating your application. Well, not really. See below edit.

Disclaimer: I am not and have never been Oracle employee or Oracle reseller. Information here is my interpretation of documents freely available on Oracle website. I worked with Oracle products, they are far from perfect, but anyway I don't like misinformations especially if correct information is available.

Edit:
RE APC's comment:
Yep. You are right. It's restrictive as you wrote in your answer.
I reread license agreement. Few sentences after the one I quoted above says:

The programs may be installed on one computer only, and used by one person in the operating environment identified by us.

So, OTN development licence is practically useless for majority of developers.