Oracle MySQL Database

Grey Matter is an Oracle Gold Partner with qualified staff that can provide pre-sales technical and licensing advice on Oracle Database 11g...

Found In: Database | Published: 17/01/2011 | Last Revision: 01/03/2011

Grey Matter is an Oracle Gold Partner with qualified staff that can provide pre-sales technical and licensing advice on Oracle Database 11g, Oracle MySQL and other third party tools to assist in the development, deployment and management of database systems. This guide provides an overview of Oracle MySQL licensing. For the Oracle Database 11g guide, please see here… MySQL Database was acquired by Oracle in Jan 2010 when they purchased Sun Microsystems. It was originally developed by the open source community and a free edition governed by the terms of the General Public License (GPL) has been widely adopted. The GPL requires that anyone modifying the MySQL code (for anything other than personal or internal use) or building applications based on MySQL code must also make their derived product available under the same GPL terms, which generally means 'free and openly available' source code. In recent years, MySQL has established itself as a reputable, enterprise class database which runs on numerous platforms including Linux, Windows, Mac OS, Solaris, HP-UX and IBM AIX. In common with Linux, commercial licensing options can be purchased to provide additional features and support for this level of deployment. A commercial license is also required should you want to modify MySQL and redistribute the result as non-free software, or for any other purpose that would violate the GPL agreement. Grey Matter is able to provide commercial licensing for MySQL and can advise customers requiring a licensing solution for their projects. We are also happy to discuss the legitimate use of free licenses although customers should always seek proper legal advice to ensure the finer detail of their deployment and commercial model is consistent with the terms of the GPL. Oracle is committed to the further development and support of MySQL. December 2010 saw the release of v5.5 that takes advantage of the new breed of multi-CPU and multi-core processors for improved performance. The new release also provides ACID compliance to ensure transactional integrity and enhanced replication failover and recovery purposes. The license options for this latest release are summarised below.

Free Editions

MySQL Community Edition is the free download distributed under the GPL license. It is supported by a large and active community of open source developers. MySQL Classic Edition is a high performance, zero administration embedded ISAM engine for use by ISVs, OEMs and VARs only.

Commercial Editions

There are four commercial editions; Classic (as mentioned above), Standard, Enterprise and Cluster Carrier Grade (CGC). The latter two contain Enterprise Monitor and Backup while CGC also adds Cluster Management. Some features such as MySQL Workbench are unique to these commercial editions. The licenses are priced ‘per server’ and allow you to use the software on a single, specified computer. A server is defined as the computer on which the programs are installed. There are two price bands; one for servers with 1-4 sockets and the other for servers with 5 or more sockets. A socket is defined as a slot that houses a chip (or a multi-chip module) which contains one or more cores. Regardless of the number of cores, each chip (or multi-chip module) counts as a single socket. The socket count is only used to determine the applicable price band, not the number of actual licenses required. The commercial editions are available either as an annual subscription or as a perpetual license with optional annual software updates and support. Perpetual: The free Classic Edition is also available as a perpetual license for use outside the terms of the GPL. Standard, Enterprise and Cluster Carrier Grade editions can also be purchased as a perpetual license. An annual software update and support subscription is also available to accompany perpetual licenses. Subscriptions: Standard, Enterprise and Cluster Carrier Grade editions (but not Classic) are also available on a subscription basis. The subscription provides the right to use the software and receive Oracle Software Update and Support for the term specified when ordering. The term can be one or three years. To discuss your requirements for Oracle MySQL, please contact a Grey Matter Oracle Licensing Specialist.