B.lay Webinar: Oracle Audits - Are you ready for your next audit?

Presentation by b.lay's License management expert: Richard Spithoven.

End-users are typically not ready for an Oracle audit. Either since
a) end-users are not even aware of the fact that they are under License Audit since Oracle send them a request to do a License or Business Review
b) end-users think that they are covered since they have an Oracle Verified Tool in place
c) end-users underestimating the level of detail that is required in order to manage the complexity related to Oracle software licenses

Once such a License Audit is announced for the Oracle Database, Application server, Weblogic, SOA Suite, Siebel, JD Edwards, E-Business Suite or PeopleSoft programs is started, end-users should consider a number of things before starting with the audit. These considerations should include what (confidential) data is required to be collected during the audit and for what reason? How will the data be collected and can the collected data leave your premises? Which results are shared when and with whom from the vendors’s organization? What is the performance impact of the Oracle Audit Tools proposed? What will the vendor do with the audit, where will it be stored and who can access the collected data?

At the same time, end-user organizations should not be afraid about an audit from Oracle (or any other software vendor) and should focus on the best defense strategy: take the control yourselves! This can be achieved by performing regulated internal license audits in which the real entitlements (including all the terms and conditions of the related documentation like the program documentation) are compared with the real deployment and usage of the different software programs. End-users should prioritize software license management at C-level, in which the appropriate budget is made available for dedicated specialists/resources to manage the software assets in a proper way. From a management perspective its even rather strange that the average end-user does not have a dedicated (large enough) budget available for the management of assets which typically contributes to 50-70% of the total IT costs within an end-user organization