05 Nov 19 Part 2: Why is it difficult to perform a license review?

Why is it difficult to perform a license review?

So, you understand what a license review is and why you need to perform one.

The next question is, what makes them so difficult to perform?

Conducting a license review can be challenging because license usage at the user level is difficult to quantify. In other words, it is hard to figure out exactly who has access to what and then to translate that into license usage.

Data Volume

First off, if you attempt to review your license usage manually, you are going to struggle, even with a relatively small user base.

The reason is down to data volume.

As you probably know, Oracle EBS is a very large and complex suite of enterprise applications with many modules and 10’s of thousands of functions and concurrent programs. These functions and concurrent programs are accessed via complex hierarchical menu structures that are spread across hundreds (possibly thousands) of responsibilities and roles.

To determine who has access to what involves you analyzing every single function and concurrent program a user has access to.

Once you have your list of who can do what, you then need to somehow translate this into license usage. This is done via the Oracle EBS module; so each function and concurrent program should be associated with an Oracle EBS module and will (from a licensing perspective) fall into a “license bucket”. A license bucket might be “Financials” or “Purchasing” or “Inventory” for example (each bucket may consist of one or more Oracle EBS modules).

The Missing Link

All of this up to this point is already quite complex, but here comes the real problem.  Over 80% of the functions in Oracle EBS (as of 12.2.9) are not associated with an Oracle EBS module; this in effect, makes it near impossible to perform a license review because even with your analysis of who can do what, you have no easy way to translate this into license usage.

You should also take custom functions and concurrent programs into account.  You will need to map these to the applications they access so they can be considered in your license requirements.

Introducing CS*License

This is where CS*License comes into the picture. Here are a few highlights…

• Figures out exactly who can do what (for both functions and concurrent programs).
• Fills in the gaps in terms of the missing module mappings.
• Lets you configure your license buckets to match your license agreement.
• Enables you to perform a thorough and accurate license review.
• It provides the ability to perform a license review as often as is needed.
• Help clean up the system to ensure there are no users with access to unlicensed functionality.

Ultimately, CS*License helps reduce the risk of a costly license audit.

Want to know how we can help you perform a license review for Oracle EBS? Get in touch today and ask us about CS*License.

Want a quick overview of CS*License, check out the video below…

Next Time & Early Access

The final article in this series is “License reviews – an ongoing requirement“.

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