Case Study – Oracle Licensing Assessment – Middle Eastern Engineering Firm – Oracle Primavera, Database & WebLogic
Background: A major engineering and construction firm in Saudi Arabia relies on Oracle Primavera P6 for project portfolio management, supported by an Oracle Database and Oracle WebLogic Server.
Primavera helps manage large-scale infrastructure projects, but the firm had grown its usage rapidly (adding many new users and projects), raising concerns about license compliance and escalating support fees.
Our Oracle licensing assessment service was engaged to review their Primavera licensing.
Challenges: The assessment found several Primavera-specific compliance risks and cost drivers:
- User License Overruns: Primavera P6 is licensed per named user, and the firm had created accounts for a broad range of staff and contractors. The total number of users with access exceeded their purchased licenses by about 15%. Notably, many of these users were read-only or occasional users (e.g., executives viewing project dashboards), which the client assumed might not require a license; however, according to Oracle’s policy, even read-only Primavera users must be licensed. This misunderstanding resulted in a compliance gap, as the additional viewer accounts exceeded their licensed count.
- Restricted-Use Middleware: Oracle provides Primavera customers with a restricted-use license of WebLogic Server (Standard Edition) and Oracle BI Publisher for reports, intended for use exclusively with Primavera. The firm, however, had deployed an extra WebLogic instance on a separate server for a custom project management portal that pulled data from Primavera. This usage fell outside the allowed scope, technically requiring a full WebLogic license, which they didn’t have.
- High Support Costs: Oracle’s annual support fees for Primavera (and the underlying DB & middleware) were increasing year-over-year. Given the firm’s expansion, they were considering buying more licenses, which would further raise support costs by a significant amount (22% of license cost per year). They needed to curb this trajectory.
Solution: Our team’s license optimization strategy addressed compliance while minimizing new spend:
- User Access Review: We worked with the project management office to review who truly needed Primavera access. About 50 rarely used or read-only accounts were identified; for those, the firm decided to revoke their direct access and provide project information through periodic reports instead. By removing or reassigning these users, the active named users were brought back within the number of licenses owned. We also implemented a policy that requires any new Primavera user to have an existing user removed or a license procured to maintain usage control.
- Ensuring Proper Middleware Licensing: For the additional WebLogic server that was used for the custom portal, we helped the client evaluate alternatives. The solution was to migrate that portal to Tomcat (an open-source app server), since its functionality didn’t strictly require WebLogic features. This allowed them to shut down the extra WebLogic instance that was unlicensed. All remaining Oracle WebLogic usage was within the single instance included for Primavera’s own application server, ensuring compliance with the restricted-use terms. Oracle BI Publisher was only being used for Primavera reports, which were within the free usage rights – we verified this via Oracle’s restrictions documentation.
- Support Cost Optimization: We negotiated with Oracle a support recalibration based on the optimized license footprint. Since the client had proactively addressed compliance and was a key reference in the region, Oracle agreed to reset the support fee to reflect only the licenses actually in use. This removed the automatic upgrade that would have been included with additional licenses. Furthermore, we aligned the renewal dates of the database, WebLogic, and Primavera support contracts and secured a 3-year capped renewal (no price increase for three years), giving the client cost predictability.
Outcome: The engineering firm achieved full compliance with Oracle Primavera licensing without requiring the purchase of any new licenses. By controlling user counts and usage scope, the ~15% license deficit was eliminated entirely – every Primavera user and component in use is now properly licensed.
The risk of Oracle audit findings (like unlicensed read-only users or an extra WebLogic instance) is gone, and this was accomplished by adjusting usage rather than spending on licenses. In tandem, the firm achieved significant support savings (~15% annually) by eliminating unnecessary components and negotiating more favorable terms.
The support cost for Oracle software was reduced and locked in, whereas it would have risen substantially had they simply added licenses without optimization.
This case underscores that even for specialized products like Primavera, a combination of rightsizing usage and savvy negotiation can yield both compliance and cost benefits.
The firm can continue to leverage Primavera for its critical projects with confidence that it is fully licensed and that its Oracle spend is under control. (As Oracle’s auditing focus on indirect usage and integrations is known to be strict, the proactive steps taken here likely saved the client from potential penalties while also improving their IT budget outlook.)
References: The above case studies are based on composite real-world scenarios and outcomes. Supporting examples and similar successes have been documented by Oracle licensing specialists and consultancies, as cited.
These include cases of compliance risk mitigation and cost reduction support, as well as instances where strategic contract negotiations achieved significant savings compared to audit claims. Each study underscores the crucial importance of a comprehensive licensing assessment and an informed optimization strategy in effectively managing Oracle licensing.
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