2.2 Trusted Partitions

Trusted Partitions allow you to use virtual machines (VMs) to limit the required number of processor licenses for Oracle software on Oracle Exadata Database Machine.

Note:

Trusted Partitions are supported only on 2-socket Exadata database servers. Because virtualization is not supported on 8-socket Exadata database servers, Trusted Partitions are not available for 8-socket Exadata systems.

On Oracle Exadata Database Machine, you can use a virtual machine (VM) as a Trusted Partition. In this case, any Oracle software running in the VM needs to be licensed according to the CPU resources used by the VM.

When licensing Oracle programs in a Trusted Partition, two virtual CPUs (vCPUs) are counted as equivalent to one physical CPU core. Also, under Oracle processor licensing rules, one processor license covers two physical CPU cores. Therefore, one processor license is required to cover every four VM vCPUs.

Each Exadata database server is also subject to a minimum licensing requirement for Oracle Database Enterprise Edition, which is equivalent to the minimum number of active cores for capacity-on-demand. The minimum licensing requirement does not apply to other Oracle software, such as database options and Enterprise Manager packs, which are licensed according to usage.

For example, consider an Exadata X10M system with two database servers. Each database server contains two physical CPUs with a total of 192 physical CPU cores. Furthermore, assume that the system runs 2 databases (D1 and D2) in separate VM clusters with the following characteristics:

• Both databases use Oracle Database Enterprise Edition with the Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) and Oracle Partitioning options.

• D2 also uses the Oracle Advanced Security option.

• On each server, D1 runs in a VM that uses 32 vCPUs, and D2 runs in another VM that uses 24 vCPUs.

In this case, using Trusted Partitions, Oracle Database Enterprise Edition, Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC), and Oracle Partitioning must be licensed for 112 vCPUs (2 servers, each with 32 vCPUs + 24 vCPUs), which requires 28 processor licenses for each software item.

Also, the Oracle Advanced Security option used by D2 must be licensed for 48 vCPUs (2 servers, each with 24 vCPUs), which requires 12 processor licenses.

To use Trusted Partitions on Oracle Exadata Database Machine, you must be running Oracle Exadata System Software 12.1.2.1.0 or later, and you must continually use Oracle Enterprise Manager to monitor the system and verify the configuration.