Multi-Core Chips And Software Licensing

i_r_sensitive writes "NetworkWorldFusion has an article on the interaction between multi-core processors and software licensed and charged on a per-processor basis. Interesting to see how/if Oracle and others using this pricing model react. Can multi-core processors put the final nail in per-processor licensing?"

Comments

Oracle 9i RAC doesn't charge for HT

[photon317]

I don't if it's any indication of what they'll do for dual-core, but on Hyperthreading Xeon's, Oracle charged us RAC licensing fees per physical processor, even though most OS tools show twice as many virtual processors.

Microsoft still does it by the physical processor

[millisa]

A recent example would be the Hyperthreaded CPUs. SQL Server can be licensed per CPU and with Hyperthreading, the software does for all intents and purposes treat it as a second CPU. However, Microsoft's stance is surprisingly that you only license per the physical processor. Page has doc with more info on MS specifics

Re:this is all BS.

[jsprat]

It is BS. But Oracle used to charge per "processing unit". It took into account the speed of the chip you planned to run it on as well as the number of processers in the system and the number of expected connections. Or you could purchase the "Web server" edition, which would have broken our company.

Today, Oracle's price list is 11 pages of different price plans that would confuse a car dealership!

wake up fools

[GISGEOLOGYGEEK]

Why are any of you surprised?

Oh ya, its because you can only think with the open source half of your brain.

Of course software companies will try to charge you more money any chance they can!

Just like every other product you can buy anywhere, if they can sell it for more, they will.

Wake up!

Until you complain enough, they will reap what they can from this conundrum.

If you don't like how Oracle screws you on your new dual core processor, then send them packing, I'd bet that Postgresql / PostGIS is now sufficient for the needs of most enterprise database users .. AND ITS FREEEEEE.

In fact, I personally am going to skip the chance at ever having the topic at hand affect me .....

Today I called, found out that, ESRI in canada charges $13,500 for a 1cpu license of ArcSDE or $19,000 for a 2cpu license, it remains to be seen what they define as a CPU.

But instead of blowing that $19,000, I am installing PostGIS to serve my spatial datasets. Screw them! ... they really didnt like it when I pointed out that I'll be saving $52,000 by using MapServer + Postgresql + PostGIS over their ArcIMS + ArcSDE/Oracle setup.

And the joke is on them as my system is faster, easier to setup / deploy, and can handle much bigger raster datasets in a fraction the time.