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Connor McDonald

Thanks for the question, Tim.

Asked: September 08, 2020 - 5:07 am UTC

Last updated: April 20, 2022 - 4:33 am UTC

Version: 12.2.0.1

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You Asked

Hello,

we are currently in the process of rolling out a system with Standard Edition 2. With the Standard Edition 2
there is a CPU thread limit. The license guide ( https://www.oracle.com/assets/lic-def-rules-v030819-5390819.pdf ) says, among other things, that we are responsible for ensuring that the following restrictions are not violated:

Oracle Database Standard Edition 2 may only be licensed on servers that have a maximum capacity of 2 sockets.
When used with Oracle Real Application Clusters, Oracle Database Standard Edition 2 may only be licensed on a maximum of 2 one-socket servers. In addition, notwithstanding any provision in Your Oracle license agreement to the contrary, each Oracle Database Standard Edition 2 database may use a maximum of 16 CPU threads at any time. When used with Oracle Real Application Clusters, each Oracle Database Standard Edition 2 database may use a maximum of 8 CPU threads per instance at any time.
If you purchase Named User Plus (NUP) licenses, you must maintain a minimum of 10 NUP per server.


Of course we would like to comply with the restriction regarding the use of maximum 16 CPU threads. How can we check, control and ensure that only 16 CPU threads in total are used?

Regards,
Tim


and Connor said...

You establish this rule by setting CPU_COUNT to 16 (which I think it should already be so for SE2 anyway).

As long as this is set, we won't use more then the allowed amount. Note this does not restrict you using a particular set of 16 threads, it simply limits the utilization to 16 threads "worth" of work. So if you were running this on a 48core server, then all 48 cores could be used all at once, but you'd see them at ~33% busy (ie, 16 cores *worth* of work being done).

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Comments

Is there still the limitation of 16 cpu?

A reader, April 13, 2022 - 12:04 pm UTC

Hi,

Looking at the SE2 FAQ, I couldn't find the 16 CPU limitation anywhere. There it only talks about the socket limitation.

From the text that is in the FAQ I understand that this limitation no longer exists, and that the limit is just the socket, which regardless of the amount of core.

"Oracle Database SE2 can be licensed on servers with a maximum of 2 sockets. However, the core counts per 2-socket server can increase over time without impacting customer license obligation. With Oracle Database SE2, customer license costs remain the same regardless of the number of colors in the socket."

My interpretation is correct, has it really changed?

Thanks
Connor McDonald
April 19, 2022 - 3:11 am UTC

The FAQ is saying that you can run SE2 on a machine with 2 sockets and each socket could have (say) 32 cores each....As hardware evolves, you can imagine core counts will just continue to spiral.

But the *reason* that does not impact SE2 licensing, is because we limit SE2 to 16 concurrent threads as per the previously mentioned license document.

Sergey Stetsenko, April 19, 2022 - 12:59 pm UTC

May be these investigations could give a definitive answer:

https://blog.dbi-services.com/standard-edition-2-testing-the-16-thread-limitation/
Connor McDonald
April 20, 2022 - 4:33 am UTC

Indeed. Good post on the topic
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