Hard partitioning / soft partitioning
Catalog row in Vendor License Rules · Cited
- Kind
- Partitioning
- Statement
- Oracle Partitioning Policy (educational; policies in effect as of 14 February 2022; “may not be incorporated into any contract”). Soft partitioning “segments the operating system using OS resource managers.” Examples include Solaris 9 Resource Containers, AIX Workload Manager, HP Process Resource Manager, Affinity Management, Oracle VM, and VMware. “Unless explicitly stated elsewhere in this document, soft partitioning (including features/functionality of any technologies listed as examples above) is not permitted as a means to determine or limit the number of software licenses required for any given server or cluster of servers.” Hard partitioning “physically segments a server” into distinct smaller systems. “Oracle-approved hard partitioning technologies as listed in this section of the policy document are permitted as a means to limit the number of software licenses required for any given server or a cluster of servers.” Approved list (capped/maximum cores required): Physical Domains (PDomains / Dynamic Domains / Dynamic System Domains), Solaris Zones (capped Zones/Containers only), IBM LPAR (adds DLPAR with AIX 5.2), IBM Micro-Partitions (capped only), vPar (capped only), nPar, Integrity Virtual Machine (capped only), Secure Resource Partitions (capped only), Fujitsu PPAR. Oracle Linux KVM and Oracle VM Server only as described in the linked hard-partitioning documents. IBM Power VM Live Partition Mobility is not an approved hard partitioning technology: “All cores on both the source and destination servers in an environment using IBM Power VM Live Partition Mobility must be licensed.”
- Applies when
- Using partitioning or virtualization to license a sub-capacity of total physical cores, as an exception from the contractual Oracle Processor definition.
- Applies to
- Processor-licensed Oracle programs on partitioned or virtualized servers (policy overlay, not a contract term unless incorporated).
- Aliases
- Hard partitioning; soft partitioning; Oracle Partitioning Policy
- Related metrics