IBM creates 24-core Power chip so customers can exploit Oracle database license

IIRC they did something related a long time ago when you could get a 8 CPU box which was physically restricted to 6 CPUs purely so that it didn't fit into the "can have 8 CPU" Oracle license. About 2/3rds of the servers we sold at the time probably went to run Oracle and it gave us a massive TCO (total cost of ownership) advantage compared with other vendors, especially as the POWER chips were faster than the competition too. When most of the cost is in the software, the choice of hardware can still make a big difference.

I remember the old joke about oracle pricing spreadsheets. Lots of sliders to adjust the parameters. But no matter what you did the price would always increase.

I think it’s less interesting that a bunch of people hate Oracle and more interesting that IBM is still making good chips.

I like the subtitle LOL: "Big Red doesn't charge more when users add cores, so Big Blue plans to triple the count. Because why not?"

I assume Oracle will just fix this the same way Microsoft did … newer on-prem version of SQL Server are licensed by pair of CPU cores.

Are there many customers running Oracle on POWER systems? My gut feeling would have been these are typically DB2 customers.

The last SUN/SPARC server I bought (maybe 5 years ago?) had the same thing going on. 1 cpu, huge number of cores. Sun was already owned by Oracle at this point, so I would guess they are not as concerned about IBM's move as you might imagine!

Serious question: Can someone explain to me why would someone still be using Oracle in 2022 when we have equally capable or even superior open source alternatives like PostgreSQL, which have none of these shenanigans? Maybe legacy software that would be expensive to rewrite?<p>I&#x27;m a backend developer and I regularly kickstart systems (and get to choose which components we are going to use in the stack) and I fail to grasp in what kind of project I&#x27;d need to be to even consider &quot;this might need us to bring Oracle to the table&quot;. Again, honest to goodness question, looking to learn. Is there some edge to Oracle compared to the FOSS stuff that I&#x27;m not aware?

Oracle&#x27;s real pricing model is to sell consulting services.

I hoped this would explain the anomaly in AMD EPYC 3rd gen Milan pricing for the 24 core &quot;F&quot; (frequency optimized) parts being cheaper than the 16 core ones, but I still can&#x27;t see any hint to the reason:<p><pre><code> model | cores | price | 73F3 | 16 | $3521 | 74F3 | 24 | $2900 | &lt;- cheapest 75F3 | 32 | $4860 | </code></pre> Same for 4th gen Genoa :<p><pre><code> model | cores | price | 9174F | 16 | $3850 | 9274F | 24 | $3060 | &lt;- cheapest 9374F | 32 | $4850 | </code></pre> The 24-core parts have the same number of CCDs, and thus same total L3 cache, and a higher turbo than the 32-core parts.

How does this exploit Oracle database licensing?<p>POWER has a 1x core multiple today (meaning, you have to license <i>every</i> core).<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.oracle.com&#x2F;assets&#x2F;processor-core-factor-table-070634.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.oracle.com&#x2F;assets&#x2F;processor-core-factor-table-07...</a><p>EDIT: Note, I just re-read the article. This is for the Standard Edition of the database, which basically has no extra features. I&#x27;ve never heard of anyone running Standard Edition except for doing local development.

„why create a powerful CPU for a low-end database? Big Blue still has not responded to our inquiry...“<p>Bahaha, savage :)

This reminds me of the QDI TwinMagic, an adapter that would let you use two CPUs in a single-socket motherboard: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hardware-one.com&#x2F;img1&#x2F;mb7.jpg" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hardware-one.com&#x2F;img1&#x2F;mb7.jpg</a>

Can someone say why the Power chips have seemed to not really gain traction outside of IBM? There was a moment a few years back where it seemed that Google might be getting behind the Power9 chips but then we heard very little outside of some press releases. [1]<p>I remember there was speculation that this was little more than ploy to use as a negotiation tactic with Intel. I&#x27;m not sure if that was true or not.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.computerworld.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;3052811&#x2F;ibms-power-chips-hit-the-big-time-at-google.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.computerworld.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;3052811&#x2F;ibms-power-chi...</a>

If the sell works well enough, Oracle will alter the licence terms.

Exploit is a really, really strong word. The way oracle refuses to acknowledge any software processor boundaries other than their own is more exploitative.<p>It&#x27;s been several years, but if I remember correctly if you wanted to run an Oracle DB on a 2vcpu VM you couldn&#x27;t just license 2 cores, you had to license every core on every hypervisor the VM could run on.<p>It basically means you have to get off oracle or buy oracle hardware. For large enterprises with old hardware running decades worth of business logic captured in stored procedures it&#x27;s becomes a rock and a hard place situation.

After AMD&#x27;s 96 core processor, a 24 core chip just doesn&#x27;t sound all that impressive. The article doesn&#x27;t address why you wouldn&#x27;t run Oracle on X86 with more cores.

Tomorrow&#x27;s headline: &quot;Oracle Changes Database SE2 Licensing Terms&quot;

&gt; why create a powerful CPU for a low-end database?<p>Oh Register, never change.

I&#x27;d rather prefer to use the IvorySQL open source Oracle compatible PostgreSQL distribution.

Yeah Oracle will just change license if that would in any way impact their bottom line

Just use Postgres lol

Remember when people used Oracle for databases? Pepperidge Farm remembers.