How to make the most of your ULA

A ULA represents a major investment by any organization, so it’s important you maximize the value you get from it. It’s sadly all too common to see businesses buy a ULA and then sit on their hands, rather than proactively using the new opportunities to drive innovation and business success. The first thing you should be doing after signing your ULA is putting a deployment plan in place, covering the duration of the ULA. What are you going to be installing, and when? As part of this plan, publicise the opportunities to your technology teams, so that as many of them make use of the products under the ULA as possible. At the same time, however, you need to maintain centralized control over the use of Oracle. Software asset management (SAM) tools are extremely valuable here. The main reason for doing this is that the ULA is only for specific products. If other Oracle software gets deployed, you won’t be compliant, which will have consequences when you’re next audited by Oracle.

Avoid the common ULA pitfalls

The terms of ULAs are very specific, and it’s easy to do something that puts you out of compliance. We’ve already mentioned the obvious one, which is deploying products that aren’t covered by your ULA. Database options often fall into this category. The second one we see is where organizations deploy Oracle software in regions that aren’t covered by the ULA. Read your ULA conditions carefully to understand what geographies it covers. Thirdly, take care when deploying software to subsidiary organizations. Again, the ULA will be very specific about this, so make sure the subsidiary is listed as a legal entity in your ULA, or you won’t be in compliance. And fourth, if your business undergoes a merger, acquisition or divestment, you need to look very carefully at what this means for your ULA. This is a particularly complex area, and a Cintra Oracle licensing specialist can advise on this specific topic if it applies to you.

Coming up for renewal or exit?

As you approach the end of your ULA, Oracle will run what’s called a ‘certification’ of your current license usage. This is the same as a conventional license audit, and looks at what Oracle products you currently have deployed. If Oracle finds you’ve deployed software that isn’t covered by your ULA, you’ll get billed for this, or potentially pushed towards a new ULA that does include those products.

The key, when this certification comes around, is to understand your license position. Cintra offers a proactive and independent license review, six months ahead of your ULA end date. We also have detailed expertise around ULA contract terms – which is important, given no two ULAs are the same. Having these combined insights ensures you clearly understand your license situation when it comes to exit or renewal, meaning you’ll be in a stronger position to make a decision on the best next step.

If you’re thinking about exiting your ULA, the footprint you have at the point of exit is important. Oracle will grant you perpetual licenses for all the ULA-licensed products you have deployed. Moreover, your annual support bill for these licenses will remain as it was under the ULA, regardless of how many processors you’ve deployed.