An Oracle software audit is a review of a customer’s use of Oracle products to ensure compliance with the terms of the Oracle software license agreement. It is a process that involves identifying the Oracle products in use, verifying that the products are properly licensed, and ensuring that the customer is using the products in accordance with the terms of the license agreement.
Conducting an Oracle software audit is a complex and time-consuming process, as it involves reviewing a large amount of documentation and verifying the accuracy of the information provided. The audit process typically begins with the Oracle audit team requesting a list of all Oracle products in use, as well as documentation on how the products are deployed and used within the organization. This may include information on the number of users, the types of hardware and software platforms on which the products are installed, and any modifications or customizations that have been made to the products.
Once the audit team has gathered all of the necessary information, they will review it to ensure that the customer is in compliance with the terms of the Oracle software license agreement. This may involve verifying that the customer has the proper number of licenses for the products in use, and that the products are being used in accordance with the terms of the license agreement.
If the audit team finds any discrepancies or non-compliance issues, they will work with the customer to resolve the issues and bring the customer into compliance. This almost always involves the purchase of additional licenses or the implementation of new policies and procedures to ensure compliance with the terms of the license agreement.
Overall, an Oracle software audit is an important process designed to ensure that customers are using Oracle products in a legal and compliant manner. It is a complex and time-consuming process where customers will face high financial risks if they don’t know how to handle the process and negotiate license shortfalls.
Oracle LMS – Tools and Services
Oracle License Management Services (LMS) is a suite of tools and services offered by Oracle to help customers manage and optimize their use of Oracle products. LMS tools are designed to ”help” customer track their Oracle licenses, ensure compliance with Oracle’s licensing terms, and optimize their Oracle environment to reduce costs.
Some of the key LMS tools and services offered by Oracle include:
- Oracle License Management Console: A web-based tool that allows organizations to view and manage their Oracle licenses, including the number of licenses they have, the products they are licensed for, and the expiration dates of their licenses.
- Oracle License Management Pack: A set of tools and utilities that help organizations automate the process of tracking and managing their Oracle licenses.
- Oracle License Management Services: A team of Oracle experts who provide guidance and support to help organizations optimize their Oracle environment and reduce costs.
- Oracle License Review Services: A team of Oracle experts who conduct in-depth reviews of an organization’s Oracle environment to identify opportunities for cost savings and ensure compliance with Oracle’s licensing terms.
Overall, Oracle LMS tools and services are designed to audit Oracle customer and ensure compliance. However, any compliance issues will be resolved between the customer and Oracle sales team. Consequently, the combination of complex audit tools, difficult to understand license terms and high products cost, is the Oracle sales person’s opportunity to close large deals and any unexpecting customer’s bill to pay.
Oracle LMS Audit scripts
The Oracle audit scripts are a set of instructions or commands that can be run against an Oracle technology produces (database and middleware) and Oracle applications (EBusiness Suite, Siebel, etc.) to gather information about the database and its configuration. The information gathered by the audit script can be used to review compliance with Oracle’s licensing terms, identify any potential compliance issues.
As an Example, the Oracle audit scripts for database includes a series of SQL queries or commands that are run against the database to retrieve information about the database schema, objects, users, and other aspects of the database configuration. The audit script may also include commands to gather system-level information about the hardware and software environment in which the database is running.
The audit scripts are collecting different information for each of Oracle’s product group. To properly review and use the data output from the tools takes years of training and so far no automated SAM tools has the capabilities to properly review the use any Oracle software products.
If you are facing audit or want to ensure compliance within your organization without alerting your software vendor, you might want to consider the services of independent license expert and consultants who can help remediate high risks compliance issues.
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