Oracle Licence Management & Software Advisory
How can we advise you?
Optimise licensing position and negotiate contracts.
Respond effectively, minimise disruption and negotiate settlement.
Cut costs, maintain compliance and increase security.
Prevent contractual breaches when moving off Oracle support.
Manage Oracle licensing in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure or a third-party platform.
Define ERP roadmap and find the best-fit solution.
Truly independent Oracle software and licensing advice to help you master the fate of your IT estate.
Navigate Oracle’s complex licensing and contracts, get your estate in order and cut unnecessary spend with independent, expert advisory from Invictus Partners.
Many organisations have invested significantly in Oracle products over the years, resulting in a diverse footprint across multiple Oracle portfolios. This leads to complexity in managing licensing as well as high support and renewal costs.
Whether you have a large Oracle Database footprint, are dealing with changes to Oracle Java licensing, or run Oracle applications or Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, it’s important to understand your Oracle licensing position at any point in time, so as to get the best value from your Oracle investments and make informed decisions about support, cloud, and ERP strategies.
Invictus Partners can support you in a one-off engagement, or as ongoing advisors, to help your organisation maintain an equitable relationship with Oracle, optimise your Oracle spend, and negotiate your Oracle software contracts with data-driven insights.
Chat to an expert
“Invictus Partners worked closely with us on the Oracle audit, and helped us achieve a successful audit outcome, mitigating the need to settle with any punitive measures or damages.” Grey Properjohn, Head of Technology, RWWA.
Oracle Licensing Management: Gain clarity on your usage vs. entitlements with the right Oracle licensing help.
Invictus Partners can provide expert licence advisory across all Oracle product portfolios, including Oracle Core Technology (Database and Middleware) and Oracle Enterprise Applications. We do this in three phases, which are available as an end-to-end service, or as separate engagements.
Phase 1
Oracle Licence Review
Phase 2
Oracle Licence Optimisation
Phase 3
Oracle Contract Negotiation
Phase 1
Oracle Licence Review
Invictus Partners’ Oracle Licence Health Check involves a full review of your organisation’s current Oracle licensing position to determine how usage compares to entitlements. Once we identify all your requirements, we map them to your entitlements to determine if you are under- or over-licensed. If any potential compliance exposure is identified, we work with you on mitigation strategies to minimise the risks.
We also factor in your technology roadmap and Oracle’s role within that roadmap is to identify future licensing impacts and architectural recommendations for both on premise and cloud options to ensure you gain maximum value from your Oracle investment.
Phase 2
Oracle Licence Optimisation
We can identify optimisation opportunities for your organisation to reduce Oracle licensing and support costs. We examine the different licensing options, and re-architect environments, and determine which, if any, licences can be cancelled or restructured.
Phase 3
Oracle Contract Negotiation
Invictus Partners can help you understand what is in your Oracle agreements, and more importantly, what is not in them. We also provide benchmarking advice in relation to pricing and contract terms. We then actively participate in meetings with Oracle to negotiate the lowest costs and the best terms for your organisation.
Download our Oracle Licence Management Services datasheet
Oracle Licence Audit Defence: Minimise exposure and effectively remediate against Oracle audits.
How confident are you that an Oracle audit wouldn’t result in a large and unexpected financial exposure? Many organisations think they are compliant with Oracle licensing, only to find out the hard (and expensive) way that they are not.
In preparation for an audit, you must know exactly where you stand regarding your licensing. This is the only way to remain in the driver’s seat throughout the audit process rather than following Oracle’s lead.
Common Oracle compliance challenges
Oracle Middleware & Oracle Database Licensing
The bulk of Oracle audits occur in the Core Technology space (Database and Middleware) because the licensing is extremely complex and many organisations get it wrong. Replacing an old piece of hardware with a new one may seem like a simple decision, but what does it mean for your licensing requirements?
Oracle Database and Middleware is licensed based on the number of underlying cores, with unique clauses for how you run them. For Oracle Database alone, there are 19 billable options, ranging from $6,000 to $35,000 per core. These options are quite diverse and they are easy to turn on accidentally without licence keys. It’s possible for an organisation to own only one or two database options, but have activated a number of other options which they are not licensed for. All it takes is Oracle to run an audit script and you could be billed in the hundreds to millions of dollars depending on the underlying infrastructure supporting your
Oracle deployment.
Oracle EBS Licensing,
Oracle Siebel Licensing, Oracle JDE & Peoplesoft.
Oracle Enterpise Applications such as E-Business Suite (EBS), JD Edwards (JDE), Peoplesoft, and Siebel are licensed via various metrics, everything from users, through to Enterprise Revenue, and read-only access. It’s essential to understand all the aspects of application licence compliance and ensure you’re not violating any of the terms. For example, certain modifications to EBS will result in additional licensing requirements.
Oracle Java Licensing Changes
Following changes to Java licensing terms in early 2023, one of the biggest challenges for Oracle Java customers is ensuring that their environments and platforms remain contractually compliant. The new Oracle Java licensing model charges per total number of full- or part-time employees, rather than Processor and Named User Plus pricing. These new employee-based metrics create a need for organisations to re-licence, which could simplify things for heavy Oracle Java users but create added complexity and cost for light users. To add further complexity, Oracle has a cap of 50,000 processors, beyond which additional Java licences are required, regardless of the number of employees. This means it is critical to have visibility of the number of processors where Oracle Java is installed and/or used or risk non-compliance.
With Oracle engaging in Java compliance activities in addition to their standard auditing practices, Invictus Partners recommends taking a proactive approach to Oracle Java management and licensing. Changes to Oracle Java licensing create impetus for organisations to review, restructure and/or rethink their use of Oracle Java.
Invictus Partners has considerable experience assisting organisations in understanding their compliance position in relation to Oracle Java and optimising their architecture and contracted metrics to maximise potential savings.
Download our Oracle Java Licensing datasheet
Our Oracle Software Licence Audit Services
We can help defend against an Oracle audit in three phases, which are available as an end-to-end service, or as separate engagements.
Phase 1
Internal Oracle Audit
Phase 2
Oracle Remediation Strategy
Phase 3
Oracle Audit Negotiation
Phase 1
Internal Oracle Licensing Audit
We conduct an audit of your Oracle licensing position to determine the baseline position of your Oracle entitlements for comparison against what you are actually using. Our audit follows the same process and interpretations of agreements as Oracle’s compliance teams. The only true interpretation of the findings is Oracle’s, so knowing how they will interpret your usage is key to developing a strong defence position and remediating where you can before the audit starts.
Phase 2
Oracle Licence Compliance Remediation
Once we have identified where the Oracle licensing exposures are, we develop an effective remediation strategy and guide you through the implementation process.
Phase 3
Oracle Audit Negotiations Support
We ensure your organisation has the right response and that your negotiation strategy is planned and effectively executed.
Do you need urgent Oracle audit help?
Has your organisation already been targeted by Oracle License Management Services (LMS)?
Every audit is defendable, at any stage. Invictus Partners can help before, during and after an Oracle audit.
Has your organisation been notified of an Oracle LMS audit?
Invictus Partners can work with you to minimise the impact of their software audit process on your organisation. We reduce the stress and hours involved in managing the audit and use our extensive knowledge and experience to deliver the best possible financial and business outcome.
Has an Oracle software audit found you to be non-compliant?
Invictus Partners can review the audit report and provide a vital second opinion. With our understanding of Oracle’s rules, we can normally challenge the findings and bring the baseline down, before using our proven negotiation techniques to reduce it even further.
Oracle Software Asset Management: Licence management, audit defence and vendor management in one end-to-end service.
Governance
Processes
People
Tools
As you can see by the number of services we offer, a lot goes into managing and optimising Oracle software. The good news is, there’s an easier way. Invictus Partners can review and monitor your Oracle deployments on an ongoing basis with our Oracle SAM service.
Oracle SAM gives you a complete and continuous picture of the software you own (and what you actually use). We monitor your Oracle deployments, ensure you maintain an optimal licensing position, and address any compliance exposures as they arise.
Our Oracle SAM approach considers the whole picture people, process, tools, and governance – rather than taking a tool-first approach to SAM. We can provide resources to support your in-house SAM function or manage SAM for you as a service. Our team includes ex-Oracle executives who can provide your team with expert Oracle licensing advice on an ongoing or as-needed basis.
Your organisation probably doesn’t just use Oracle. Invictus Partners also offers a multi-vendor SAM service to help you manage your entire software environment. Bring your own vendors and SAM tools (if you have them) and we will customise our offering to suit your needs. We can provide resources to support an in-house SAM function or manage SAM for you as a service.
Find out more
Oracle Third-Party Support Licence Migration Advisory: Reduce Oracle support costs without increasing risk.
High ongoing support renewal costs are a common problem for organisations with large Oracle estates. Many customers make the switch to Third-Party Maintenance (TPM) providers to reduce their total cost of maintenance.
Financial benefits aside, Third-Party Support is also recommended for Oracle customers looking to:
- Extend the value of systems approaching Oracle hardware end-of-life dates
- Delay cloud-based ERP migration projects
- Avoid expensive Oracle Database and Middleware upgrades.
Third-Party Oracle Support Licence Advisory Services
Third-Party Support is a viable option for many organisations, but extensive due diligence is required to minimise the risks and costs of such a move. Invictus Partners can provide independent advice on whether Third-Party Support is right for your organisation and which TPM providers to consider.
Oracle Licensing in the Cloud: Avoid breaching compliance during an Oracle migration to cloud.
Do you have the right licensing structures for the cloud? Oracle is very strict on licence compliance during cloud migrations. Transitioning to cloud can get expensive if Oracle were to audit you – and they have been known to hit organisations right in the middle of a cloud migration while they are still running their on-premise environments in parallel to their cloud environments.
Oracle customers choosing not to adopt Oracle’s cloud are particularly vulnerable to being audited. Whether leveraging public cloud hyperscalers or moving to a hybrid environment, you must understand the impact such deployments have on their licensing requirements.
Invictus Partners can help you understand your current licence position, identify and mitigate compliance issues, and rightsize your licensing structure for the new model.
Interested in moving to Oracle's cloud?
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) has a full range of IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS capabilities and offers favourable entitlement mapping of existing Oracle licensing compared to non-Oracle clouds. However, moving to the cloud with Oracle does not automatically keep you compliant, nor will it necessarily save you money. Click below to learn how we can help you safely migrate to OCI.
Oracle licence migration to third-party public clouds.
It’s important that you move to the best-fit cloud for your organisation, which may be OCI or a third-party platform such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform.
Regardless of your chosen provider, Invictus Partners can help you with the license-to-cloud transition and ensure your Oracle licences work in the new environment in a compliant and cost-effective fashion.
Licensing Oracle on AWS
Migrating to AWS offers significant cost savings for organisations, as you only need to pay for the vCPUs
you use, rather than the entire server. However, using Oracle on AWS requires special licensing and compliance requirements that can derail these opportunities. Invictus Partners can help you move your Oracle workloads to AWS, whilst avoiding the cost traps and risks around Oracle licensing.
Licensing Oracle on Azure
Like AWS, Oracle allows customers to move to Azure to licence per vCPU and not the full cloud platform. Azure is the best option for hybrid cloud environments and
organisations can benefit from the many tools and processes available to aid the migration of workloads.
However, costs are the Achilles heel of Azure cloud, with data egress charges and ease of access often leading to unplanned charges and bill shock.
Licensing Oracle on GCP
Google Cloud Platform does not benefit from the same special licensing rights as AWS and Azure, as it is not one of Oracle’s “authorised cloud environments”. This means you need to license
Oracle software the same way you would for your on-premise environment. Invictus Partners can help you navigate a GCP migration and ensure you are correctly licensed.
Independent Oracle ERP Advisory: Choose the next-generation options that are right for your organisation.
If your organisation is one of the many that have run their businesses on Oracle ERP solutions for years, you are probably feeling the pressure to adopt Oracle’s next-gen ERP platform, Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP.
Invictus Partners provides Next-Gen ERP Advisory to investigate all of the options available to you, and help you choose the best path for your organisation. We can review your current ERP system to determine its suitability in catering to the organisation’s needs, and the pros and cons of upgrading to a Oracle’s cloud-based version, undergoing a full replacement, or implementing a hybrid model of best-of-breed solutions. We don’t resell or implement next-gen ERP solutions, so our advisory is based solely on your needs and goals.
The Invictus Partners difference: What makes us stand out from other Oracle consulting firms?
We are a completely independent, vendor-agnostic advisory firm. We don’t have any affiliation with Oracle or its partners, and we don’t have vested interests in Oracle products. When you work with Invictus Partners, you can feel confident that you’re getting expert advice, without the bias and BS.
The Invictus Partners Oracle Practice understands the inner-workings of Oracle, with licensing and software specialists who are ex-Oracle VPs and senior directors, former Oracle licence auditors, contracting professionals, and business analysts. Our certified Oracle team has a broad skill set across the Oracle spectrum to cover licensing analysis in preparation for compliance checks, cost optimisation, agreement renewals, contract negotiations, and audit defence.
Our advisors have deep knowledge of Oracle’s licensing policies, contractual terms, sales processes, negotiation tactics, and product roadmaps. And we have the experience to back it up, having supported both commercial and public sector clients across Australia and New Zealand, Asia Pacific and Japan, Africa, Europe and the Americas through licence audits, licence optimisation, migration to Third-Party Support and cloud engagements. Since 2014, we’ve cut down our clients’ enterprise software costs by So far, we’re just over $1 billion and counting.
Doug Gibson
Managing Partner
Doug is a 29+ year international IT veteran, having worked in executive and general manager roles with organisations including SAP, Oracle, and IBM across A/NZ, Asia Pacific, and Africa. Doug’s intimate knowledge of software vendors, licensing and auditing practice has enabled him to successfully assist clients in retail, manufacturing, utilities, the public sector, and financial services to achieve positive outcomes in their audits, along with assisting them during software contract negotiations. Heading up the team and the company, Doug embodies the relevant skills and mindset to grow this company into a worldwide organisation.
Talk to our Oracle Licensing expert
Andy Ridge
Oracle Practice Lead
Andy has spent 30+ years working for large corporate customers in all sectors of industry ranging from IT, mining, health, defence, federal and local government institutions within Asia Pacific, Europe, Africa, and North America working in contract management, health and safety, project management, environmental sustainability, cloud migration strategy and vendor compliance roles. Andy specialises in several related fields such as corporate licence compliance, auditing, audit defence, Oracle contract management, Oracle Unlimited and Enterprise Agreement negotiations, projects and change management as well as software/hardware asset management, cloud deployments, cloud licence migrations and licensing/ITAM/SAM training.
Case Study
RWWA reduces Oracle licensing costs and expertly navigates Oracle auditing with Invictus Partners
