Industry round-up: Snow available as SaaS, Oracle Support Rewards, Oracle vs NEC

ITAM News & Analysis

Industry round-up: Snow available as SaaS, Oracle Support Rewards, Oracle vs NEC

Snow now available via SaaS 

ITAM industry veteran Snow has quietly released a SaaS version of their offering. 

Snow writes: 

“Introducing Snow Atlas, the first integrated, cloud-native platform built to help organizations discover, monitor and optimize their technology investments both on-premises and in the cloud. The introduction of Snow Atlas establishes a new way to access Snow’s award-winning technologies and is accompanied by a significant increase in product investment.” 

Cutting through the cloud marketing jargon, it simply means they are offering their solutions via a SaaS model, on demand. Good for Snow in terms of getting new innovation out to market, and good for Snow customers and partners not having to manage Snow’s infrastructure. 

AJ Witt writes: 

“This is a very good move by Snow – packaging up existing services as a subscription offering, hosted by Snow themselves. Many customers will have been running instances hosted by Snow partners but Atlas simplifies that model, ensuring rapid access to new features and capabilities. I wrote earlier this year about the rise of the platforms and this, along with substantial investment in R&D, lays the groundwork for Snow’s future” 

Learn more: https://www.snowsoftware.com/company/news/snow-software-introduces-snow-atlas

Oracle Support Rewards

By Rich Gibbons.

In a further effort to increase their position as a serious contender in the IaaS space, Oracle have introduced Support Rewards which enable customers to offset on-premises support costs via Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) spend.

For every $1 consumed in OCI, Oracle will credit you with $0.25 (Oracle Unlimited License Agreement (ULA) customers will receive $0.33) which can then be used to reduce your on-premises support bill…potentially all the way to $0.

While this may well be positive for many organisations – particularly those planning to retain Oracle software but also looking to take advantage of the cloud – there are certain caveats to be aware of:

• It is based on cloud consumption not cloud spend
• It is only available for Universal Credits, not PAYG
• The following types of software are not included:
  1. Oracle SaaS
  2. Subscription products (Java, (some) MySQL)
  3. Oracle Linux
  4. Third party offerings (inc. Marketplace)

  It also appears that Oracle Applications such as E-Business Suite, Sibel, JD Edwards etc. will not be included in this program.

Further Reading

• Oracle announcement: https://blogs.oracle.com/cloud-infrastructure/post/announcing-oracle-support-rewards-making-it-even-easier-for-customers-to-use-oracle-cloud
• Oracle FAQ: https://www.oracle.com/cloud/rewards/faq/

Oracle v NEC

By Rich Gibbons.

Another Oracle licensing audit has hit the courts – this one for $7,000,000 – although it is a little different as it focuses on NEC Corporation of North America (NECAM) allegedly violating the terms of their OPN (Oracle Partner Network) agreement. NEC distribute Oracle Database and Options & Packs embedded within/alongside their own products – namely Integra-ID 5 – and Oracle claim they have been doing so in a way that breaches the rules of the various partner offerings available. There are three primary methods:

• ESL – Embedded Software License
• ASFU – Application Specific Full Use
• Full Use

Each of which set slightly different requirements around the relevant rights for the Oracle software and, consequently, command different license fees from the distributor to Oracle.

Upon auditing NECAM, Oracle found they had been paying the lower ESL fees but then allowing and enabling activities that were only permitted under the more expensive ASFU agreement. Furthermore, Oracle claim that where NECAMwere paying ASFU fees, in some cases they were allowing their customers to use the Oracle software with non-NECAM software – a right only granted by the most expensive Full Use rights. Finally, Oracle claim that NECAM’s on-premises environment was incorrectly licensed for Oracle Database and the Options and Packs.

Oracle state that NECAM have refused to provide additional information and haven’t paid the shortfall total – leading Oracle to terminate their membership in the OPN and launch the lawsuit. I wonder what, if any, implications this has for NECAM’s customers if their supplier is no longer eligible to distribute or support Oracle software under the OPN agreement.

Oracle v NECAM 2021

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