LMS FAQ

Maintaining license compliance is important because it protects you, the customer, from financial, operational, and reputational risks. It also helps ensure that software is used within the terms of the agreement(s), helping your organization avoid costly penalties or interruptions to critical business systems. Beyond risk mitigation, compliance also promotes transparency, budget predictability, and trust between you and your software vendors, allowing IT and procurement teams to focus on optimizing value rather than reacting to compliance issues.

Noncompliance results from a lack of insight into a customer’s software, hardware, and business application environments. There are many contributing factors that can lead to this situation, including the following:

• Increase in workforce size—through recruitment, acquisitions, or mergers—that results in increased usage volumes
• Installation of unlicensed software
• Misinterpretation or lack of understanding of Oracle's licensing policies, contractual entitlements, and license agreements
• Changes to the IT hardware environment, such as the incorporation of additional servers, processors, or technologies
• Implementation of new software products or new business applications

In addition, businesses operating with an assortment of license metrics (both obsolete and current) are at additional risk of being licensed incorrectly. New technologies may not suit older license metrics, and this can impact licensing status and potentially create a compliance risk.

Oracle LMS consultants work closely with customers and partners to accurately report usage levels across an extended business operation and provide a thorough comparison of usage against existing contractual entitlements. In addition, Oracle LMS can assess the controls in place for managing Oracle license provisioning and identify any vulnerability. These findings are then passed on to the customer or partner along with recommendations for addressing any known concerns.

Connect with our team to discover how we can help. Visit the Contact Us page for details.

If you’re currently facing a business change or opportunity as it relates to any Oracle software program(s) and would like to understand the potential implications for Oracle licensing, the Assurance Service could best suit your organization’s needs. Please visit the Services page to learn more.

The Audit Service is a licensing verification activity that can only be initiated by the Oracle LMS team through a formal process.

You’ll work directly with an LMS consultant who has deep expertise in both Oracle licensing and architecture configurations. They’ll help you ensure your environment remains compliant and optimized every step of the way.

Like other IT vendors in the IT marketplace, Oracle is concerned with intellectual property rights, copyright infringement, and piracy.

To combat these risks, Oracle has defined contractual requirements and licensing policies that explain its intellectual property rights. Licensing rules, requirements, and supplemental educational material can be found in your Oracle agreements, in product documentation, and in policies available on Oracle.com.

Oracle LMS is the only group within Oracle authorized to review and confirm your compliance status. In doing so, Oracle LMS will provide guidance and education to assist you in managing your Oracle IT assets and maintaining compliance.

Ultimately, when a business is noncompliant, it has a direct impact on Oracle’s license and support revenue and therefore affects the level of investment the company can make in research and development. As these activities are essential for the continued innovation and evolution of Oracle's products and solutions, noncompliance of Oracle IT assets ultimately impacts both customers and the marketplace.

No. The Oracle account teams are part of the sales organization; Oracle LMS is part of the compliance organization. Oracle LMS remains as an independent and objective business unit within Oracle to perform licensing compliance activities.

1. Understand your contractual entitlements.
   • Your rights for using Oracle programs are incorporated into your contractual entitlements and license agreement. If you’re unable to locate your contractual entitlements and license agreement, please seek assistance from Oracle or the Oracle partner who sold your licenses to you.
   • Review your Oracle contractual entitlements and license agreement to understand the specifics of the terms and conditions. Please contact Oracle if you need help with this process.
   • If you’re an Oracle partner, ensure your membership is up to date and regularly review the Oracle PartnerNetwork website for updates, news, training, and events.
   • Stay up to date with Oracle's policies and business practices by regularly checking Oracle’s Global Pricing and Licensing page. Oracle provides many resources on the website that will be of assistance to you, including information on specialty licensing–related topics and the latest price lists
2. Understand your Oracle IT asset usage
   • Document and maintain a complete list of all applications and programs in use as well as details of your hardware environment throughout your organization. Changes to your hardware environment could impact your licensing levels, so it’s essential to keep track of these.
   • Develop a user management process that accurately tracks the lifecycle of Oracle users, from the time they’re first provided access to Oracle-based systems to when they leave the organization. Maintaining an accurate count of Oracle users and what Oracle systems they have access to is a key component in successfully managing your Oracle deployment.
   • Perform regular usage measurement across the company and develop procedures where individual Oracle users are required to report usage statistics. These usage statistics should then be consolidated.
3. Implement IT asset tracking and review processes
   • Define IT asset access and deployment tracking procedures.
   • Designate a single point of contact in the company who is responsible for understanding contractual entitlements and comparing actual usage to the rights granted through your contractual entitlements.
   • Communicate and educate Oracle users on licensed rights and limitations as defined in the contractual and license entitlements.
   • Perform active and regular reviews of your Oracle IT asset deployment.

No. All of Oracle LMS’ services are completely complimentary and can be used as many times as warranted. The Assurance Service is led and initiated by the customer, and the Audit Service is initiated by Oracle LMS.

Oracle LMS uses two primary tools: the Oracle Collection Tool and the Global Deployment Matrix. Designed and built by Oracle, these tools are completely complimentary to use and can provide you with a detailed assessment of your Oracle software deployments.

You may also be able to use your own SAM tool. Oracle’s partnerships with third-party tool vendors include verification that their tools provide accurate Oracle usage data, so customers can have confidence that any verified tools they’re using will accurately collect software deployment information related to Oracle products.

Visit the Tooling page to learn more.

A license compliance shortfall may be corrected in one of the following ways:

1. Through the purchase of sufficient licenses and associated support to cover the compliance shortfall. Backdated support may also be assessed for the period of unlicensed usage. Your account team will work with you to determine the optimal path forward.
2. If you remove the Oracle software or reconfigure your hardware environment, a term license and associated support can be purchased to cover the period of unlicensed usage. Again, your account team will work with you to explore options for the optimal path forward.

Oracle LMS’ Assurance Service is designed to help you build confidence in your purchasing decisions. It’s a proactive solution that can help you answer your license deployment questions. The Assurance Service is repeatable; you can use this service for every purchasing decision. You set the scope and timing to meet the needs of your business.

Please visit the Services page to find more information about the Assurance Service.

• To assess licensing needs associated with hardware migrations
• To gain knowledge about licensing for disaster recovery, development, testing, and virtualization
• To validate software deployments
• To identify license risk and/or exposure
• To evaluate the cloud as a path to maintaining software compliance (in both the planning and execution phases of your cloud deployment)

• Testing your software asset management processes
• Merger, acquisition, or divestiture activity
• Supporting renewal requirements
• Migrating to a new hardware/architecture, including the cloud
• Evaluating disaster recovery/virtualization implementations
• Inheriting an Oracle platform from a predecessor
• Informing your finance team to build your budget/forecast
• Requiring confirmation of a purchase to meet compliance requirements
• Advance planning for regulatory purposes (for example, SOX attestations)

• Ability to make informed purchasing decisions
• Increased knowledge to strengthen your procurement policies
• Confidence in signing your Sarbanes-Oxley attestations
• Flexibility to improve planning and resource management
• Ability to test and improve your internal SAM processes
• Compliance with your Oracle agreement(s)

Typically, an engagement will be between three and eight weeks, subject to the size of the scope. The timing and scope are customer-driven, so you’ll be key in establishing the project timelines and completing the effort.

You’ll be asked to resolve the license shortfall, either by migrating from other surplus licenses—if any are available with a valid migration path—or by acquiring new licenses. Ultimately, the account team will assist you through the process of determining any purchase requirements.

Yes, you certainly can. Contact your LMS consultant to verify that your plans or decisions align with Oracle’s licensing policy.

Visit the Contact Us page for details.

1. Identify all business entities you would like included.
2. Identify the people that need to be involved or have oversight over Oracle programs.
3. Identify which Oracle programs you need assistance on from LMS to help narrow and tailor the scope.
4. Identify areas of focus (i.e., hardware refreshes, cloud migration plans, and so on).
5. Identify any software asset management tools currently used.

Oracle LMS will send an official audit letter on Oracle letterhead, signed by an LMS consultant. This letter could be received via email PDF, fax, and/or mail.

We work collaboratively with customers to outline our process and agree on the appropriate steps required for each engagement. However, a number of factors can impact the time needed to complete the process. For example, engagement timelines can be impacted by the complexity of the corporate structure and/or IT environment. We’re committed to completing all engagements as efficiently as possible while taking care that the outcomes meet the needs of both the customer and Oracle.

The Oracle LMS process has four steps: Kickoff, assessment, reporting, and close. Please see the Process section on the Overview page to learn more details about the deliverables required in each phase.

Oracle LMS uses these primary tools: the Oracle Collection Tool and the Global Deployment Matrix. These complimentary tools are designed and built by Oracle to provide you with a detailed assessment of your Oracle software deployments. See the Tooling page for more detailed information.

A license compliance shortfall may occur, which could result in the need to resolve the license compliance violations. Oracle endeavors to resolve license compliance violations in a fair and accurate manner. If a business resolution cannot be obtained, the resolution will be escalated to the appropriate authority through Oracle’s legal department. Remedies open to Oracle include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Charging full list price for any additional software licenses required to correct the license violation
• Charging technical support fees for the period of unlicensed use of the software
• Suspension of technical support service and software updates, where applicable
• Termination of the license agreement and associated licenses
• Cancellation of Oracle PartnerNetwork status and sublicense rights

Oracle LMS aims to use the most constructive methods to reach compliance and will support customers in their resolution process. Ultimately, unresolved license compliance is expected to be resolved. Oracle will explore all options to engage with customers to resolve these matters.