The rising of the Standard Edition (#orclse2)


It was the second half of 2011 when the broader introduction of Standard Edition database security tooling was introduced in The Benelux. Dbvisit Standby was the tool and protecting data in Standard Edition databases was the deal.

I remember the first meetings vividly! The Standard Edition database? Many people had not heard of this edition or, more frighteningly, the ones that knew about it, ignored it. Standard Edition was not something to be taken seriously, let alone used to run your production system on.
Still this time marked the start of the silent (r)evolution and the rising of the Standard Edition.

Since those days many things have changed.
With the continued attention and drive for promoting Oracle Standard Edition (SE) database, the visibility of this edition has flourished.
Obviously the economic hardship of the last years have encouraged companies to review their IT budgets. The investment friendly character of SE have helped its growth, especially in such times.
During the second half of 2013 the first broader initiatives around SE started to become visible. One of the highlights of the SE uprise was the world premiere of the Standard Edition Round Table during Harmony 2014 in Helsinki Finland organized by Ann Sjökvist, Philippe Fierens and myself, the same people that lead the Standard Edition community today.

With the increased attention, worries also came. The Standard Edition and Standard Edition One editions had no cap on the number of cores per processor. This means that modern servers, running SE, equipped with huge amounts of processor cores, bring tremendous processing power at extremely low cost.
Signs of change became visible with the postponed release of Oracle database patch release 12.1.0.2.0 for SE.se2And now, in 2015, Standard Edition is a tool to distinguish yourself with. Many IT consultancy firms advertise their SE-expertise and have increased visibility in this respect. Many new initiatives have been fired up to help give Standard Edition the punch it needs for the even more serious jobs. News on Standard Edition is spread by a range of blog posts (like this one) as a result and UKOUG_Tech15 is even hosting a Standard Edition track! We have come a long way!!

And finally, with the release of Oracle Standard Edition Two, on the first of September 2015, the future of Oracle Standard Edition has been secured. The release of version 12.1.0.2.0 marks a new era for this Smart Edition.
Standard Edition Two retains many of the important advantages of Standard Edition and Standard Edition One while capping the processor core factor at a very usable level.

Yes, Oracle Standard Edition is a solid product in the Oracle stack and is still capable to help Oracle offer the most complete software operations stack, especially due to the development and deployment capabilities of APEX.
An unbeatable, endlessly scalable and super affordable solution on the market today.
We have come a long way to witness the rising of the Standard Edition!

And what about the changes?

  • Oracle Database Standard Edition 2 (SE2) will replace SE and SE1 from version 12.1.0.2 onward;
  • SE2 will have a limitation of maximum 2 socket systems and a total of 16 CPU threads*;
    • SE2 has Resource Manager hard coded to use no more than 16 CPU threads, which helps protect against noncompliance.
  • SE One and SE will no longer be available to purchase from November 10th, 2015;
  • Oracle is offering license migration scenarios from SE One and SE to SE2;
    1. SE One users pay a 20% increase in support for the migration.
    2. SE customers face no other cost increases for license or support*.
  • * Named user (NUP) minimums for SE2 are now 10 per server;
  • There are no changes in the use of visualization solutions;
  • 12.1.0.1 SE and SE1 customers will have 6 months of patching support once SE2 12.1.0.2 is released with quarterly patches still being available in October of 2015 and January of 2016.

Hope this helps!


6 thoughts on “The rising of the Standard Edition (#orclse2)

  1. Great article.

    Although the SE is great, for many companies the SE1 was good and robust enough. I might think some business wll run away form SE2 if they do not have SE1, choosing any other DB.

    Because the price of SE2 will jump as tiwice as SE1 is today.

    1. The “big problem” of SE and SE1 was the uncapped core-factor. This situation was IMHO really getting out of control and this is now fixed, securing some kind of future of Standard Edition.

      As I have not actually seen the SE2 pricing, therefor I cannot confirm it to be twice as high. The only thing I know is that current SE customers can migrate to SE2 without any cost and for SE1 to SE2, there is an (unconfirmed) fee of 20%.
      Moving away from Oracle is never a decision that should be made solely on this change (of pricing). Of this I am quite confident. There is so much more involved with such a switch and I still am convinced that the Oracle SE2-offering brings much more than other vendors can. A good understanding for this is required for such moves although, probably, some companies will see the introduction of SE2 as the legalization for making these choices.

      1. Hi Jan,

        Nice summary. I agree with your previous commenter. The text you have shown is confusing at least. It says no other cost for license or support BUT the SE license is currently based on 5 named users and if that changes to 10 then the license fee doubles and the support is 20% of the doubled license fee and not 20% of the original license fee so support would be 40% of the original license fee.

        Is the text you quote on migrating taken from Oracle or your text?

        I have been buying SE 1 licenses for around 8 – 10 years so this will be a big increase in price as I buy named user licenses. Currently Oracles on-line shop shows the price for SE2 as the same as SE so its 3 times the price of SE1. So for people like me using SE1 its a massive increase in price; unless I miss-understood it.

        Kind regareds

        Pete

        1. Hi Pete,

          Thank you for commenting.
          You have a valid point and this is something that I did not reckon with in my overview. Based on the fact that in the 15 years I have been buying SE1 licenses, I have always focused on processor licenses and have actively avoided NUPs. Furthermore, the text focused on the upgrade of the license rather than new licenses.

          If new SE2 license pricing now is the same as previously for SE, new licenses prices will indeed have been massively increased, which is a sad thing and which will hurt the Standard Edition position.

  2. Hi Jan,

    Thanks for posting my comment and also your reply. I use named user licenses in general and not processor count licenses BUT the issue is the same for processor count licensed. See https://shop.oracle.com/pls/ostore/product?p1=Database&p2=OracleDatabase&p3=&p4=&p5=&intcmp=ocom_database_oracledatabase which shows SE1 at 5.8K USD and SE at 17.5K USD and SE2 at the same 17.5K USD; this means because SE1 is not going to be available then users of SE1 are going to have the license cost increased by a factor of 3 and in essence the support by a factor of ??, i.e. 20% of the 3* SE1 license.

    This puts SE2 possibly out of the reach of very small shops who used SE1 quite happily for many years at a nice low cost. They will look to maybe migrate to MariaDB ( the new mySQL) but they lose support in doing so. Its a shame that now with SE1 people can use a robust professional supported database at a really reasonable cost and now its trippled plus 20% of the trippled support

    Kind regards

    Pete

    1. This then makes SE1 to SE2 NUP twice as bad as you not only go from 5 NUP minimum to 10 NUP minimum, but also from $180 per piece to $350 per piece.

      Existing licenses, which was the the target of the initial comment, can be upgraded by, what I have understood, 20% increase on the original support of SE1. Please do note that I have as yet been unable to get this verified.

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