Oracle Audit and Oracle Review – a short explanation

We understand that it could be a bit of a blurr when you think about an Oracle audit and Oracle review. The purpose of this blog is to briefly explain to you what this exactly is and a how it works. If you or your company decides to install an Oracle software program you automatically agree with the terms and conditions of Oracle’s license agreement. In the past, this was called an OLSA (Oracle License & Services Agreement). Nowadays, the OLSA is replaced by the OMA (Oracle Master Agreement). Both agreements explain under which terms and conditions you can use the software of Oracle. Something that not many Oracle software uses directly know, is that these licenses also allow Oracle to perform Oracle audits.

Who does perform the Oracle audits?

The department of Oracle which performs the audits is LMS (License Management Services). They perform these audits in name of the Oracle Corporation. During these audits, LSM gets help from external parties. So, they do not perform the audits all by themselves. These external parties are LMS-partners which perform audits commissioned by Oracle LMS.

How an Oracle audit works

At the very first moment, you will receive a letter from Oracle. This says that you are invited for an audit and from this point, the audit starts already. During the Oracle audit, you will be asked to fill in an Excel sheet (by this we mean an Oracle Server Worksheet or OSW) with the details of the IT-infrastructure of your company. It is also possible that Oracle asks you to run scripts on your Oracle servers or run scripts/fulfill tasks on different software programs. Herewith, this results in an overview and log files. This overview and these files, you must send to Oracle to analyze. After Oracle analyzing the documents, you will receive a report. Oracle will state your company’s compliance status with this report.

You might wonder what happens if you ignore the invitation of a license review or license audit. Well, then Oracle give this case to their License Management Services department or legal department of Oracle. Not cooperating with an Oracle Audit, could be seen as violation of the license contract. It could be possible to be suit after this.

The real difference, or not?

Nice all this basic information, but then there is one question left: what is the exact difference between an Oracle audit and an Oracle review? To be honest: there is no real difference between these two. In fact, both expressions do have the same meaning. The only difference between them is the name. The License Management Departments of Oracle calls Oracle audit an Oracle License Review instead. Their reason for doing this, is that they find it sound friendlier.