Effective December 5, 2019, Oracle Advanced Analytics (OAA) and Oracle Spatial and Graph (OSG) options are included with Oracle Database. This affects Enterprise Edition, SE2 and Database Cloud Service (DBCS) Standard Edition and Enterprise Edition. The official Oracle Database blog post announcing this licensing change can be found here. This blog post contains links to additional posts for each of these options.

Oracle Database includes industry-leading multi-model and analytic capabilities. As a converged database, Oracle Database supports multiple data types and data models (e.g. spatial, graph, JSON, XML), algorithms (e.g., machine learning, graph and statistical functions) and workload types (e.g. operational and analytical). While many of these capabilities are included in Oracle Database products and cloud services today, Oracle’s goal is to provide these advanced machine learning, spatial and graph development APIs to all developers and applications.

While other providers require the use of separate data management platforms to address each different data type and data model, Oracle Database supports all data types and workloads in a single unified platform. Oracle’s architecture enables developers to build modern applications more rapidly, without incurring the overhead of operational complexity. As compared to the separate single-purpose data services, Oracle provides greater simplicity (one data engine to manage, rather than multiple data engines), tighter data integration across domains, and better security, scalability and availability.

• Why has Oracle made this change?

  This licensing change encourages and enables more customers and prospects to use the full breadth of Oracle Database. Technologies like machine learning, graph analytics, and spatial intelligence should be part of almost every modern application, and Oracle believes that these technologies should be broadly available to all Oracle customers.

  While these capabilities are widely used today, the added cost of the database options have prohibited adoption for some customers. The removal of cost as a factor, combined with recent additions of developer and data scientist-friendly Oracle Machine Learning Notebooks and selfservice tools like Spatial Studio with Oracle Autonomous Database, offers a more all-inclusive data platform for developer and data scientist communities.

• How does this change benefit developers and data scientists?

  Oracle Database has been recognized as having market leading spatial, graph and machine learning capabilities. The scalability and performance of these capabilities means that data scientists can work with bigger data, faster, across the enterprise. Developers are able to integrate these powerful capabilities into applications—taking advantage of open source as well as proprietary techniques. For example, Oracle Machine Learning for R (formerly Oracle R Enterprise from Oracle Advanced Analytics) allows developers to work with user-defined R functions produced—possibly produced by data scientists—for immediate deployment via SQL.

• Why is a converged database architecture superior to separate databases for different workloads?

  Oracle’s converged database enables you to have a single database engine for all of the functionality in your applications. With Oracle, you can use JSON, Spatial, XML, Graph, Machine Learning, Text, Time Series, ROLAP, streaming/event queues, LOBs, and external files all within a single platform. As compared to a solution based on separate single-purpose databases, Oracle’s converged architecture is superior in many ways:

  • Faster application development—All data is in the Oracle database, easily available to the developer through standard interfaces or domain-specific APIs.
  • Simpler administration—Organizations need only to manage one Oracle database, rather than developing expertise to manage multiple types of databases.
  • Better data security—Data is more secure in Oracle because security policies are defined and enforced in one place. Replicating data between data sources, which may become inconsistent, opens security risks.
  • Higher levels of availability and scalability—Oracle builds enterprise capabilities into one platform. No single-purpose database can justify the same investment in enterprise availability and scalability. With an architecture comprised of multiple single-purpose databases, an application is limited by the availability and scalability of the least-capable database component.
  • Stronger data consistency—By relying on Oracl’s converged database architecture, data consistency is automatically enforced within Oracle Database. Conversely, with multiple single-purpose databases, the application developer is burdened with ensuring data consistency through their code when an application is sharing data across multiple databases.
  • Lower cost of ownership—A converged platform makes more efficient use of hardware resources, and does not require multiple skill sets for administration and security configuration.

• How does this change affect existing customers?

  All licensed users of Oracle Database EE and Oracle Database SE2 with active support contracts and Oracle Database Cloud Service (all editions) with active subscriptions are now licensed to use the features of Oracle Advanced Analytics (OAA) and Oracle Spatial and Graph (OSG). In fact, OAA and OSG are no longer options of Oracle Database. All of the functionality of these options are now features associated with the Oracle Database license. Please note that support for Oracle Database SE2 and certain Cloud deployments will depend upon a forthcoming update.

• Will customers who have Oracle Database ULAs now have ULAs for Oracle Spatial and Graph and Oracle Advanced Analytics (Machine Learning)?

  Yes.

• Are all features of OAA and OSG now included in Oracle Database? Are there any changes to packaging?

  All features are included to the extent that the underlying database supports them. For example, Oracle Database SE2 does not support parallel operations, so Machine Learning, Graph or Spatial features will execute serially on SE2. With respect to components, those that required a separate installation previously, e.g., Oracle R Enterprise, Spatial Studio, Property Graph In- Memory Anaytics (PGX), and the coming soon Oracle Machine Learning for Python, will still require separate installation. There may be packaging/installation changes in the future, but these are not related to licensing changes. Details are available in the Database Licensing Information User Manual. Please note that support for Oracle Database SE2 and certain Cloud deployments will depend upon a forthcoming update.

• Will there be any increase to license or subscription prices as a result of this change?

  No. Customers will receive the benefits and features of the database Spatial, Graph and Machine Learning without any increase to the price of Oracle Database licenses or DBCS subscriptions.

• Will this change affect the investment Oracle is making in these technologies?

  These technologies are critical to Oracle’s converged database architecture and Autonomous Database offerings. Machine learning, graph and location (spatial) analysis are among the most rapidly growing and critical technologies being adopted today and we anticipate increased adoption of these capabilities by our customers. Oracle is actively investing in the development resources supporting and enhancing the machine learning, spatial, and graph capabilities in Oracle Database and related cloud offerings.

• Does this affect Database Cloud Service (DBCS) offerings?

  Effective December 5th, all Oracle Database Cloud Service editions - Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition, Enterprise Edition High Performance, and Enterprise Edition Extreme Performance - will be licensed for the database spatial, graph and machine learning features. The availability of specific software in the various DBCS offerings is dependent on the DBCS development uptake schedule.