https://www.businessinsider.com/oracle-customer-explains-audit-threats-2015-9
https://scottandscottllp.com/oracle_audit_tactics_draw_media_attention-aspx/
Here's what we heard from this Oracle customer, who requested anonymity because his employer didn't authorize him to talk to the press.
The customer says his bad experience began when he got a baffling audit letter from Oracle asking them to give Oracle an accounting of every computer server running software from another software company, VMware.
"In hindsight, I should have involved our legal team immediately, since they were requesting information that had nothing to do with Oracle," says the person who shared this story with us.
Oracle has a business need to audit customers. Oracle makes it easy for admins to turn on new features or add more users, and then pay for that increased usage later. That system involves an "audit." All big enterprise software companies have a similar process.
But in this case, the customer hasn't added more usage of its Oracle database.
Oracle told the customer it wanted more money because the company was running Oracle software on servers that use VMware software.
The logic? The VMware software allows servers to cluster together so that applications, like the Oracle database, can move to any server. Customers love this. It means they can make sure their database never goes down, even if there's a problem with one server's hardware.
In Oracle's mind, using VMware like this means a customer could potentially move the database to another server. Therefore, the company should pay Oracle for every server that runs VMware, regardless of whether that server is actually being used to run Oracle's database.
That way of calculating would require the company to pay Oracle a lot more money — not just once, but every year.
And Oracle could demand more money every time the company bought a new server and put VMware on it, even if VMware was used for apps that have nothing to do with Oracle.
Oracle's contract doesn't clearly require that
The odd thing is, Oracle's contract doesn't say that companies have to pay Oracle for every VMware server they own, experts say.
But that doesn't stop Oracle from instigating such audits.
Oracle/VMware customers have been complaining about this situation for years.
VMware has written white papers on it. There's a whole industry of software-licensing consultants to help customers deal with such situations. These consultants run seminars to warn VMware/Oracle customers about it.
The one company that has reportedly been mum on how to correctly set up VMware with Oracle to make sure everything is licensed correctly is Oracle.
"Throughout the audit we pressed Oracle for a document that gave specific guidelines and expectations for Oracle customers on VMware," the Oracle customer told us. "We got two answers. One, that the VMware guidelines were an internal policy and that it was not written, and two, that it was a written internal policy that is not available to customers ... I was told that it would be too much effort for Oracle to maintain such a document."
This customer — admittedly angry at Oracle — has a different theory.
By not spelling out the VMware licensing requirements, Oracle can more easily "persuade those less knowledgeable about licensing" to pay Oracle more money, the customer speculates.
By the way, we looked and couldn't easily find a document on Oracle's website that explained VMware licensing, either.