Oracle Database options and management packs are separately licensed additions to Oracle Database Enterprise Edition. An option (for example Real Application Clusters, Partitioning or Active Data Guard) unlocks database server functionality; a management pack (for example Diagnostics Pack or Tuning Pack) unlocks Oracle Enterprise Manager and database server features for monitoring, tuning and lifecycle management. Oracle’s licensing documentation states that a customer must be licensed for an option or pack in order to use any of its features.[1] Options and packs are priced on the same Processor and Named User Plus metrics as the database and, under the Oracle License Definitions and Rules, their license counts must match those of the associated Enterprise Edition licenses.[3]
Because most options are installed with the database software and can be enabled without a key, option and pack usage is a common subject of license reviews. This article describes which offerings carry options, how they are counted, the feature-level rules Oracle publishes, and the restricted-use rights that make some features usable without a separate license.
Editions
Options and packs are an Enterprise Edition concept. The Oracle Database 19c licensing manual describes Enterprise Edition as a product that “can be enhanced with the purchase of Oracle Database options and Oracle management packs”, and states that management packs cannot be used with Personal Edition.[2] Personal Edition includes the Enterprise Edition options other than Real Application Clusters and RAC One Node. Standard Edition 2 is marked as not permitted for the options and packs in the manual’s feature tables.[2]
The Release 26 manual (Oracle AI Database) lists each option with its availability per offering. Options are an “extra cost option” on Enterprise Edition (EE) and Enterprise Edition on Engineered Systems (EE-ES). On Oracle Cloud Infrastructure many of them are an “included option” on Base Database Service Enterprise Edition High Performance (BaseDB EE-HP), Extreme Performance (BaseDB EE-EP) and Exadata Database Service (ExaDB). Active Data Guard and Real Application Clusters are included only on BaseDB EE-EP and ExaDB.[1]
The Oracle Technology Global Price List dated 15 September 2026 prices the options and packs as follows (US dollars, educational):[4]
| Item | Named User Plus | Processor | Catalog SKU |
|---|---|---|---|
| Multitenant | 350 | 17,500 | Processor |
| Real Application Clusters | 460 | 23,000 | Processor |
| Real Application Clusters One Node | 200 | 10,000 | Processor |
| Active Data Guard | 230 | 11,500 | Processor |
| Partitioning | 230 | 11,500 | Processor |
| Real Application Testing | 230 | 11,500 | Processor |
| Advanced Compression | 230 | 11,500 | Processor |
| Advanced Security | 300 | 15,000 | Processor |
| Label Security | 230 | 11,500 | Processor |
| Database Vault | 230 | 11,500 | Processor |
| Database In-Memory | 460 | 23,000 | Processor |
| Diagnostics Pack | 150 | 7,500 | Processor |
| Tuning Pack | 100 | 5,000 | Processor |
| Database Lifecycle Management Pack | 240 | 12,000 | Processor |
| Data Masking and Subsetting Pack | 230 | 11,500 | Processor |
| Cloud Management Pack for Oracle Database | 150 | 7,500 | Processor |
The same price list carries related Enterprise Manager and database add-ons outside the Enterprise Edition option list, including the Exadata Management Pack Processor, the Zero Data Loss Recovery Appliance Management Pack Disk Drive (priced per Disk Drive), Database Cloud Backup for Amazon S3 Stream (priced per Stream) and Key Vault Server (priced per Server).[4]
Metrics
Options and packs use the same metrics as the database: Processor (cores multiplied by the Oracle core factor, rounded up) and Named User Plus. The metric definitions are those of the License Definitions and Rules and are not redefined for options.[3] The price list adds program-specific counting notes for a few packs. For the Data Masking and Subsetting Pack, all database servers where masked data or data subsets originate must be licensed under the Processor metric, and only the users of those originating servers are counted under Named User Plus.[4]
Counting / floors
Matching the associated program
The License Definitions and Rules contain a two-column table. Programs in column A (Database Enterprise Edition options and Database Enterprise Management packs) must match the number of licenses of the associated program in column B (Oracle Database Enterprise Edition). This applies to both metrics. Where the option and the database were licensed at different times and the core factor changed, the number of cores used to calculate the option’s Processor licenses must match the number of cores used for the database.[3] The catalog records this as Options and packs must match the associated program.
In practice an option is licensed for every processor on which the associated database is licensed, not only for the processors where the feature happens to be used. As an illustration, a server with 16 cores rated at a core factor of 0.5 requires 8 Processor licenses of Enterprise Edition. Adding Diagnostics Pack and Tuning Pack on that database requires 8 Processor licenses of each pack. When licensing by Named User Plus, the 25 Named Users Plus per Processor minimum of Enterprise Edition (Named User Plus minimum) sets the database count that the option must match.[3]
The failover right in the License Definitions and Rules applies the same principle: “When licensing options on a failover environment, the options must match the number of licenses of the associated database” (Failover: ten 24-hour periods per year on an unlicensed spare).[3]
Prerequisites between packs
Some packs require other packs. Oracle Tuning Pack requires Oracle Diagnostics Pack, and Oracle Cloud Management Pack for Oracle Database requires Oracle Database Lifecycle Management Pack for Oracle Database (Tuning Pack requires Diagnostics Pack; any access requires a license; Cloud Management Pack requires Database Lifecycle Management Pack).[1]
Feature-level rules
The licensing manual sets out rules for individual options. The most commonly cited are:
- Active Data Guard. It must be licensed on the primary database and on every standby that uses an Active Data Guard feature, such as real-time query or Far Sync. Standbys that use none of these features need no Active Data Guard license. The container root of a standby may be opened read-only without a license, but opening any pluggable database of the standby for read requires one (Active Data Guard licensed on primary and using standbys).[1]
- Multitenant. In the 19c manual, any offering may have up to three user-created pluggable databases per container database without the Multitenant option. With the option the limit is 252 on Enterprise Edition and 4,096 on Engineered Systems and the higher OCI service tiers. For licensing purposes one non-CDB instance counts as one user-created PDB (Three user-created PDBs without the Multitenant option).[2]
- Database Vault and Label Security. The licensing metric for either option must match the Enterprise Edition metric. The license covers the entire container database and cannot be bought for individual PDBs. A Label Security license is needed once a Label Security policy is created in any container, but not when the option is merely installed (Database Vault and Label Security metrics must match Enterprise Edition).[1]
- Real Application Testing. Database Replay requires the option on both the capture and the replay systems, charged by the total number of CPUs on those systems. Some comparison reports also require Diagnostics Pack.[1]
- Advanced Compression. RMAN backup compression and Data Pump export compression fall under the option, except for RMAN DEFAULT COMPRESS and Data Pump COMPRESSION=METADATA_ONLY. Hybrid Columnar Compression without row-level locking does not require the option.[1]
- Advanced Security. The option covers Transparent Data Encryption and Data Redaction. Network encryption and strong authentication are no longer part of it and are available in all licensed editions.[1]
Access to pack functionality
For Diagnostics Pack and Tuning Pack, Oracle states that “any and all methods” of accessing pack functionality require the pack license. This covers the Enterprise Manager console, desktop widgets, command-line APIs, and direct access to the underlying data, including the Automatic Workload Repository. The initialization parameter CONTROL_MANAGEMENT_PACK_ACCESS accepts DIAGNOSTIC+TUNING, DIAGNOSTIC or NONE and controls whether pack functionality is enabled in the database server.[1]
Oracle provides the script options_packs_usage_statistics.sql through My Oracle Support to report option and pack usage. The manual states that its output is informational only and does not represent license entitlement or requirement (Feature usage script output is informational only).[1]
Restricted-use and special license rights
The licensing manual grants several rights that make option features usable without a full-use license, each limited to a stated purpose:[1]
- Oracle Partitioning may be used free of charge on all offerings solely for the RMAN recovery catalog, the unified audit trail, Transactional Event Queues, and certain Spatial and Graph structures (Restricted-use Partitioning for internal schemas).
- A separate single-instance database may be used as an infrastructure repository for RMAN, Enterprise Manager Cloud Control, AWR Warehouse and similar catalogs without additional licenses, provided all targets are correctly licensed. Enterprise Edition must be used for it (Infrastructure repository database without additional license).
- Advanced Compression and Advanced Security may be used during a Zero Downtime Migration or OCI Database Migration, only while the migration runs.
- Database Vault configures Label Security for its own use. Creating Label Security policies requires a full-use Label Security license.
Some capabilities are licensed through separate products rather than options. GoldenGate Supplemental Logging requires an Oracle GoldenGate license on premises regardless of the API used to consume the log records, and XStream is licensed through Oracle GoldenGate (GoldenGate Supplemental Logging requires a GoldenGate license; GoldenGate Processor). The Pro*C/C++ and other precompilers require a separate Oracle Programmer license (Programmer Named User Plus).[1][4]
Virtualization & partitioning
Because option licenses must match the associated database, the processors counted for an option are the processors counted for Enterprise Edition. That count follows the Processor definition (“all processors where the Oracle programs are installed and/or running”) and the Oracle Partitioning Policy. Where soft partitioning does not reduce the Enterprise Edition count, it does not reduce the option count either.[3] See Oracle Partitioning Policy for hard partitioning, Trusted Partitions and container rules.
Cloud / BYOL
On OCI, the higher Base Database Service tiers and Exadata Database Service include many options and packs in the service price, as described under Editions.[1] When on-premises licenses are brought to OCI database services under Oracle BYOL, the Universal Credits Service Descriptions require Enterprise Edition “plus a license for each database option/management pack” run in the service. Data Masking and Subsetting Pack, Diagnostics Pack, Tuning Pack, Real Application Testing, the DDL logging function of Database Lifecycle Management Pack and Transparent Data Encryption may be used within the BYOL service without a supported license (BYOL database services: which options need licenses; BYOL to OCI database services grants additional features).[6][1]
For large Autonomous AI Database BYOL instances, the service descriptions also require Real Application Clusters licenses above 64 ECPUs, and Active Data Guard licenses when a standby is used for query or reporting (Autonomous BYOL over 64 ECPUs requires RAC licenses).[6] In Authorized Cloud Environments (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud), the 19c manual limits Multitenant use to three pluggable databases per container database.[2]
Programs
Options and packs belong to the database’s license set for technical support. The Oracle Software Technical Support Policies define a license set as including “any options” and “Data Enterprise Management programs” licensed for a program, and require all licenses in a set to be supported at the same service level (License set definition for technical support; Matching service levels within a license set).[5] Dropping support on an option therefore means terminating the option licenses. Support for the remaining licenses on the same order may then be repriced. See Oracle technical support and Lifetime Support policies.
Out of scope
- Base edition pricing, metric definitions, Named User Plus minimums and Standard Edition 2 caps are covered in Oracle Database licensing.
- Middleware management packs (WebLogic Server Management Pack, SOA Management Pack, Management Pack for Oracle Coherence) follow the same column A/B matching rule against the managed application server. They are covered in Oracle WebLogic Server licensing.
- Options that no longer appear on the 15 September 2026 price list but still appear in the matching table, such as the industry data models, are not described here.