Oracle Hyperion, part of Oracle’s Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) suite, includes products such as Hyperion Planning, Oracle Essbase, and Hyperion Financial Management (HFM), among others.
These can be licensed by both Named User Plus and Processor, and Oracle also sells them in bundled suites.
This section covers how the major Hyperion components are licensed, the minimum requirements, and examples of bundling and packaging (for example, how Hyperion Planning includes Essbase usage rights).
Key Licensing Metrics: Named User Plus vs Processor
Most Hyperion on-premises products use the same two metrics as Oracle Database or Middleware:
- Named User Plus (NUP): A per-individual license. Each person who uses the Hyperion software, directly or indirectly, needs a license. Often, there is a minimum number of NUP per processor for these products (commonly 25 NUP per processor). This model works well if you have a defined set of users, for example, 50 finance planners for Hyperion Planning.
- Processor: This allows unlimited users and is based on the server cores. For some Hyperion products, particularly Essbase, which can serve as an analysis engine for many users, a processor license is convenient if user counts are high or difficult to track. Oracle’s core factor table applies here as well. Many Hyperion products require a minimum of 4 Processor licenses if you choose the processor metric, meaning even if you deploy on a 2-core server, Oracle often still requires at least four processor licenses.
- Minimums: As noted, Oracle’s standard minimum for Hyperion (per price list) is 25 NUP or 4 Processors for most products. That means even a small deployment must buy at least 25 NUP licenses. If you have fewer users, you’re still paying for 25. Or if you want to use processors, a minimum of 4 (which might cover a large server anyway). Oracle uses these minimums to ensure a baseline revenue since Hyperion is often mission-critical.
- Support for mixing metrics: Generally, you would choose one metric per product (you can’t mix NUP and Processor for the same installation). But you could license one environment by NUP and another by Processor, if they are separate (though unusual).
Licensing of Specific Hyperion Products
Oracle Essbase: Essbase is a multi-dimensional database (OLAP engine) often used under the covers of Planning or on its own. It can be licensed standalone as Essbase Plus. Essbase Plus licensing:
- Offers both NUP and Processor. For example, Essbase Plus might list at around $2,900 per Named User Plus (with approximately $638 in annual support) and around $138,000 per Processor (with approximately $ 30,000 in support). These price points (illustrative) suggest that Essbase is expensive per core but can handle a large number of users, whereas it is affordable per user if you have a small team.
- If used standalone as a reporting cube for many users, Processor licensing is common. If used for a single department’s analytics, Named User is fine.
- WebLogic requirement: Essbase uses a Java middle tier for certain services. Oracle includes a restricted-use WebLogic Server Standard Edition with Essbase to support those Java components. You don’t need to buy WebLogic separately for Essbase, but that WebLogic must only be used for Essbase’s application logic (no deploying other apps on it).
Hyperion Planning is an application for budgeting and forecasting that uses Essbase as its database. Planning is typically licensed by Named Users (planners). For instance, you might license 50 Named Users for Hyperion Planning, which would allow 50 planners to input budgets. Oracle often sells Hyperion Planning Plus, which includes Essbase Plus as its underlying component.
- Planning Plus Bundle: If you license Hyperion Planning Plus, Oracle entitles you to use Essbase Plus for planning purposes. In license terms: “The Hyperion Planning Plus program includes a limited use license for Oracle Essbase Plus…”. This means you don’t have to separately license Essbase for the cubes that are part of Planning – it’s bundled. However, Essbase can only be used to support Planning applications, not for arbitrary standalone cubes.
- Planning (and its Essbase) follows the same NUP or Processor. Typically, Planning is user-centric (a known set of finance users), so companies use NUP. If Planning is extended to hundreds of department managers for input, ensure you have NUP for all, or switch to processors if easier.
- Planning also has a minimum of 25 NUP or a four-proc rule.
Hyperion Financial Management (HFM): HFM (financial consolidation) is usually user-based as well. A small corporate finance team often does consolidation, so Named User licensing is common. Like Planning, Oracle often requires a minimum of 25 NUP. If HFM is deployed globally to many finance users for reporting, you may want to consider a processor. However, user counts are generally moderate.
- Oracle might also license HFM by other metrics in historical contracts (such as the number of legal entities), but currently it’s NUP/proc.
Reporting and Other Tools: Hyperion Financial Reporting, the report design tool, and Smart View (an Excel plugin) are typically included with the main product licenses. Smart View can also be used if you have Essbase or Planning licenses.
The Oracle price list does show Financial Reporting as a licensable component, but it is often bundled into the Hyperion suites or EPM suites. For instance, Hyperion Financial Reporting was also priced per user or processor. However, if you purchased HFM or Planning, you received Financial Reporting rights for those users.
Check your licensing documentation: if Financial Reporting or Smart View are listed as separate line items, ensure they are licensed; otherwise, confirm that they are included with the product you have.
Hyperion Planning vs. Enterprise Planning Suite: Oracle has offered the “Enterprise Planning Suite,” which combines multiple EPM products (Planning, Essbase, Financial Reports, and possibly a slice of HFM) under one license metric.
If you have such a suite, it simplifies things because one user license covers multiple components. But Oracle nowadays encourages moving to Oracle EPM Cloud for all these (subscription). On-prem, be aware of your specific SKUs:
- For example, the BI Foundation Suite (although not EPM, it included Essbase and OBIEE together).
- Hyperion EPM Suite – Oracle at one point had an EPM bundle (for example, “Hyperion Planning, HFM, Essbase Plus, and Financial Reporting” all in one suite licensed per user). If you have that, you don’t count each component’s users separately – one license entitles a user to use all included components. This is helpful if the same user uses multiple EPM tools.
Minimum User Counts in Practice: Suppose you have a small deployment – 10 users of Hyperion Planning. Oracle’s contract says minimum 25 NUP, so you’ll pay for 25. That effectively gives you 15 “spare” user licenses.
You might use those to license some viewing users or give more people access to reports – since you’ve paid for them, consider whether expanding access adds value (without incurring additional costs).
However, don’t confuse this with sharing logins – you still need to assign unique user accounts, but you have the capacity for up to 25 named individuals.
Bundling and Packaging Examples
- Hyperion Planning Plus, including Essbase: As mentioned, if you license Planning Plus, you can use Essbase for your Planning cubes without separate Essbase licenses. If you then decide to build an independent Essbase cube for a different purpose (outside of Planning), strictly speaking, you would need additional Essbase licenses for that usage. Many customers inadvertently use Essbase (from Planning) for extra analytics and assume it’s covered – Oracle could flag that in the audit. It’s wise to either confine Essbase usage to Planning models or obtain Essbase licenses for anything beyond that.
- Oracle EPM Suites or Cloud: Oracle now offers EPM Cloud subscriptions that cover all these modules in a single SaaS price. For on-prem, though, they still maintain the component licensing. If considering a new purchase, compare the cost of on-prem licenses + support vs. an EPM Cloud subscriptio,n which might include Planning, Consolidation, Reporting, etc., in one fee. The decision may hinge on whether you prefer CapEx or OpEx and if you’re okay with using the cloud.
- Dual-use of Essbase via BI: If you also own Oracle BI (OBIEE/OAS), note that OBIEE’s license used to include the right to an Essbase instance for OLAP (as part of “BI Foundation Suite”). So, if you have BI Foundation Suite and Hyperion, you might have overlapping Essbase rights. However, keep the contexts separate: Essbase included with BI can be used for BI analytical cubes, while Essbase included with Planning can be used for planning cubes. Oracle generally doesn’t double-charge if you have entitlements from different bundles, but you must use each entitlement in its proper scope.
Another bundling scenario:
- Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management (HPCM) might bundle Essbase or require it, depending on the version.
- Data Relationship Management (DRM) – part of EPM but licensed by record counts or users (it has its metric: number of records, and user minimums). In summary, know what each EPM product you use requires in terms of underlying technology and whether that tech is bundled or separate.
Recommendations
- Rightsize User vs Processor Licensing: Evaluate how many users use each Hyperion product:
- For Hyperion Planning or HFM, the user base is typically limited to the finance department, so Named User Plus is usually cost-effective. Count all planners or consolidation users. Add some buffer for future growth to avoid falling short.
- For Essbase used as a reporting cube for potentially hundreds of users (e.g., many people running retrievals via Smart View), consider Processor licensing. Do the math: if Essbase has 200 casual users, and 200 NUP costs more than the processor count, go with processors. Also, consider support costs in that equation.
- Monitor Usage with Minimums in Mind: If you’ve purchased just the minimum 25 NUP for a product, keep an eye on your actual user count so it doesn’t exceed 25. It’s easy for Planning to start with 20 users and then, a year later, have 30 because more departments join the budgeting process. If you find you need, say, five more users above 25, you should procure additional licenses (Oracle sells in bundles. Usually, you’d buy at least another 25 in that case). Or negotiate an “excess use” coverage in your next true-up. Don’t just assume you can use more because you started at the minimum.
- Leverage Bundled Components: Take advantage of the components included with the products you licensed:
- If you have Planning, use the Essbase it provides for all your planning needs; there’s no need to buy a separate Essbase. But do not use that Essbase for non-planning purposes unless you have spare Essbase licenses.
- If you have HFM, you also get Financial Reporting to create statutory reports – use it; you shouldn’t need a separate OBIEE for that (HFM’s license covers its reporting tool).
- Smart View (Excel add-in) is free for licensed users of Essbase/Planning/HFM – distribute it widely to those users, as it doesn’t require separate licensing by itself.
- Segregate Environments if Metrics Differ: Sometimes, a dev/test environment may be licensed differently (although Oracle’s policy usually is that dev/test must be licensed the same way or count toward the totals). Oracle doesn’t offer free developer licenses for EPM, except for the OTN developer license, which is not intended for normal testing. So, include non-production in your license count. If you have 10 Planning users, those same 10 licenses cover them in dev and prod (no separate licenses needed for the same users). But if you, for example, have automated test scripts accessing the system, technically, each “non-human” access could be counted as a Named User in Oracle’s book. In practice, Oracle isn’t strict about QA service accounts as long as they mirror a human user license or do not exceed simultaneous multi-access beyond the user count.
- Understand Suite License if Applicable: If you have a legacy Hyperion bundle (such as “Hyperion Enterprise Suite” or “BI Foundation Suite”), understand which components are included and ensure you’re not double-licensing. For example, the BI Foundation Suite includes Essbase. If you also purchased Essbase standalone, you may be over-licensed. Maybe you can repurpose those or negotiate a merge of entitlements. Always clarify with Oracle if uncertain – show them your entitlements and usage, and ask if there’s overlap or if all usage is covered.
- EPM Cloud Consideration: Oracle’s strategic direction is focused on the Cloud EPM, including the Planning & Budgeting Cloud Service, Financial Consolidation Cloud, etc. If you find on-prem licensing too cumbersome or expensive (especially for wide deployments), check Oracle’s EPM Cloud pricing. Sometimes Oracle is willing to trade your on-prem licenses for cloud subscription credits. Cloud has the advantage of not counting database or server cores – you just pay per user per month. For example, Oracle Planning Cloud is often priced per user per month, covering all the necessary features. If you foresee scaling up to a significant number of users, the cloud might be more cost-effective or at least simpler to manage.
- Keep Documentation of License Grants: Save documents that detail the specific rights included. For instance, the Oracle Licensing Guide states, “Essbase Plus is included with Hyperion Planning Plus.” Similarly, the Price List footnote also mentions minimums. In an audit, if there’s a question, “you’re using Essbase but only have Planning licenses,” you can point to that language showing it’s a permitted usage as part of Planning. Also, keep your sales order that describes what “Planning Plus” includes – sometimes the ordering document will enumerate the components. This avoids debates on what you should have licensed separately.
- Audit Your EPM Users: Similar to other user-based licenses, periodically audit who has access to Hyperion applications. Remove users who no longer need access, especially if NUP licenses them – you don’t want to be left with unused user accounts. For Essbase, which a broader audience may use, ensure that if you gave access to 100 users but only have 50 licensed, you correct that by either reducing access or purchasing more licenses. Oracle’s LMS can request usage logs (like Essbase logins or Planning user security lists), so it’s straightforward for them to count active users. Ensure that the count matches your entitlements.
By carefully managing how you license and use Oracle’s Hyperion products – and taking advantage of bundled rights – you can optimize costs and stay compliant. The flexibility of user vs processor licensing and various suites is beneficial, but only if you deliberately match it to your usage patterns and keep track of the moving parts.
