Oracle Database AMIs

An easy way to Bring Your Own License (BYOL) to AWS and start running the Oracle Database is to utilize the AWS Marketplace AMIs.  There are six AMIs for Oracle 12c and 11g.  Standard Edition One, Standard Edition and Enterprise Edition versions are available for both 12c and 11g. All these Marketplace AMIs, use PIOPS with a provisioning of 500 IOPS.  The OS system is Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5. The AWS Marketplace AMIs can be found here:

https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/search/results/ref=sp_navgno_search_box?page=1&searchTerms=oraclempbyol

Oracle on AWS costs of Oracle on AWS and licensing management

Here are two common questions in regards to Oracle pricing and licensing on AWS:

1. How can they determine the pricing for an instance launched from an Oracle AMI e.g. https://aws.amazon.com/amis/oracle-database-11g-release-2-11-2-0-1-enterprise-edition-64-bit?

The bottom line: The pricing are the standard EC2, data out traffic, and storage + cost of Oracle licenses (or no cost of Oracle licenses if they have their own)

2. How do they manage BYOL or using unused licenses in practical terms? (afaik they have to BYOL for Oracle on EC2)

The bottom line : It is up to the customer to make sure they are not violating Oracle licensing policies.

Oracle licensing on AWS

Oracle licenses portability and support on AWS is a bit different between Oracle on EC2 and Oracle on RDS.  However, with both models you can Bring Your Own Licenses (BYOL). With RDS, you have the option of BYOL (Bring Your Own License) or License Included.  With Oracle on EC2, you can only BYOL. All Oracle licenses are portable to AWS as indicated here: http://aws.amazon.com/oracle/.   More details on how your Oracle licenses work on AWS can be found here: http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/pricing/cloud-licensing-070579.pdf.  The Oracle FAQ has more details on working with Oracle on AWS: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/cloud/faq-098970.html#Oracle_AWS.