Hello Community,
I wanted to ask you how do you approach the following case. I did today some investigation into oracle unspecified edition, and I found out that in a docker container is an oracle database 18c with unspecified edition. I know that the actual version of FNMS do not calculate license consumption for docker containers, but I wanted to ask in the feature, will be the agent capable to do the inventory for oracle database which are found in a docker container?
Also how do you tackle this topic with FNMS 2020 R1
Thank you for your inputs.
‎Sep 23, 2020 07:33 AM
Hi
I will let Flexera answer on your docker inventory question more in detail. My understanding is that they can do inventory but do not yet calculate license consumption etc.
However the other interesting issue in regards to having Oracle DB in a docker container is the Oracle Partitioning Policy.
Since Docker adds another layer of software virtualisation on-top of ex VmWare or even docker on baremetal
We are not running Oracle in docker containers, but have anyone taken up the dialogue with Oracle in regards to Docker and Partitioning Policy?
Since basically then you can move the instance to whatever server you want and gets problematic with "Installed and/or run"
‎Sep 23, 2020 09:14 AM
Hi @adrian_ritz1,
I'm unaware of any reason why the FNMS wouldn't identify the Oracle edition, I'd suggest getting the agent logs from a similar container and opening a support case as this should be possible and if it's not working, we absolutely need to identify why and make sure it's resolved.
We are planning on adding licensing for containers however we're dependent on the "official" rules being provided by the producers so for example I've not found an official page from Oracle however a 3rd party (unverified) page - https://www.itassetmanagement.net/2018/02/05/guide-to-containers/ suggests that they will treat containers as soft partitioning technology so will likely follow similar licensing rules as if you run Oracle DB on VMWare i.e. all of the hosts in the infrastructure will need licensing.
I will see if our Oracle contacts can provide extra details but that's what we have to date.
I anticipate further improvements to our container functionality will be added soon.
Hope this helps.
‎Oct 01, 2020 09:40 AM
Hi @mrichardson ,
Thank you for your feedback, I'm in process to find the support group for that particular server and ask them why is Oracle in a container and why the agent is unable to audit the oracle found in that container.
I will keep you updated in our findings, but this can take some time.
‎Oct 02, 2020 01:33 AM
Hi,
My assumption would be that installer evidence alone might be insufficient for edition recognition. While usually the agent would look "inside" the database for "Oracle DB inventory", I am not sure if that's the case for Oracle DBs running inside a container.
As container inventory is still in development, I would actually be surprise if the agent did this.
Best regards,
Markward
‎Oct 08, 2020 04:21 AM
Oracle has updated it's partitioning policy in regards to containers
https://www.oracle.com/assets/partitioning-070609.pdf
https://www.oracle.com/a/tech/docs/running-and-licensing-programs-in-containers-and-kubernetes.pdf
‎Oct 14, 2020 01:42 PM