Webinar Highlights: Who are ULAs good and bad for?

Oracle ULAs can be beneficial to some organisations, while others can walk away with a sour taste in their mouth and a gaping hole in their pocket. In this webinar highlight, Mark Smith, CEO of Support Revolution, and Mark Bartrick, Forrester’s Negotiations Advisor, discuss exactly which organisations benefit from ULAs, and which ones are severely impacted.

Who a ULA is good for

If you’re a growing organisation scaling at a very fast pace, ULAs have clear advantages. If you like Oracle products and you’re planning on using a lot of them, an Oracle ULA is a great solution, saving time and constant administration.

Although a little outdated in this modern world, some organisations’ tech strategies are 100% focused on Oracle databases. If you know you will only ever use Oracle and you’ll use more and more of their products as time progresses, a ULA can be a good solution.

Who a ULA is bad for

However, if your organisation’s use of Oracle is static or declining, a ULA is a very bad idea. You have to pay for the “unlimited” licences whether you use them or not, including support fees. If you are entering a ULA, make sure there is a high demand for Oracle products within your organisation. Ensure that this demand is likely to increase over the next three to five years.

Another big problem for organisations is when they do not have a clear IT roadmap. They don’t have defined milestones for when projects end and when the ULA ends. If this isn’t in place and the ULA rolls on, costs can very quickly accumulate.

For organisations looking for audit protection, you will not find it in a ULA. This is not an audit defence program. The “unlimited” part of the ULA is very misleading. You are in fact limited in many ways such as number of products, geography, etc. If you’re a global organisation, communicating this new definition of a ULA to everyone who uses it makes it almost impossible to remain compliant. The lack of clarity around what a ULA is makes these clients a prime target for the Oracle audit team.

Finally, if you’re in the modern IT world, you’ll be using a variety of products. These will come from a variety of vendors to best suit your organisation. Obviously, the Oracle ULA only applies to Oracle products. Therefore, it can be very limiting to organisations using a plethora of databases from SaaS to Cloud.