A tempest in a teapot - or...

There is some discussion about the "matching service levels" and "service requalification fees". Many news outlets titled with "Everything under HW support or nothing under HW support". I think all the fuss about this paper is a tempest in the teapot. In germany this dicussion made it to the big IT news portals Heise.de and Golem.de.

Many news outlets wrote about this. But i don't think that they've really read the document. I was really surprised about the conclusions many people made from this document. Because when i've read a document titled the same way, my conclusions were different. I'm still not really convinced that they have read the same document than i did, but they link to the same document i'm aware of.

I know, i wrote, that i didn't want to comment on this discussion, but given the BS that is distributed on many channels, i can't sit on my hands any longer.

Disclaimer

Just to make this clear, this thoughts are just made on the basis of almost 9 years at Sun hundreds to thousands of customer contacts and 5 Cebit booth weeks. It's not from the mind of Larry (ACCESS DENIED) nor it's reviewed by Oracle or Sun Legal nor it's from or based on some internal documents. Every i write from here on in this article may be wrong and just my interpretation - but well: i've just read the document!

Everything under support?

I think with this "everything under support rule"(will get to the scope of this rule later in this document) and the enforced support agreement (the requirement of a support contract for the commercial usage of Solaris 10 after 90 days), Oracle tries to dry down a distinct licensing violation swamp.

I know ... you all just use the patches for the systems you have a support agreement. However: Not everyone does this way, the licensed way. Some people had the idea of just putting the cheapest system under support and using the patches on all systems. At any of the last few CeBITs there were at least a few people telling me that they do it this way. Of course i wasn't able to get a business card from them, as they knew that this was a license violation.

Insurance

Service requalification fees look like an "incentive" to keep systems under support instead of the behavior to put system just under support when problems are imminent.

Support Service is something like an insurance. You pay an insurance company to protect you from a risk. For example a life insurance protects your loved ones from the risk that a bus hits you or a illness ends your life.

However the insurance company calculates the risk when it makes an offer to you. When you start to pay your insurance at 20 you have to pay a small amount of money, because in the first 20 years there is only a small risk of a natural death (okay, of course besides of driving like nuts as a natural form of death in the youth).

However when you say to your self "Well ... there is no risk of dying in the first 20 years, i will just start at 40 to pay for the insurance to safe some", you have obviously to pay more for the insurance when you try to procure the insurance as the risk is significantly higher. Everybody understands this.

It's the same for hardware. Hardware follows the bath tub curve. Most problems with hardware just occurs at the beginning of the lifetime and at the end. The beginning is covered by warranty. So you may get to the idea, just to cover your systems with an life insurance at the end of the lifetime. But that isn't the way an insurance works. That would be like procuring a legal costs insurance because you know that you want to sue a neighbour. Or a car insurance you procure because you sitting in a car, your brakes aren't working because you didn't maintain them the last 10 years and you are seeing a red traffic light in front of you.

So: Is it really that unreasonable to mandate a higher price in such a situation? To mandate a fee for the reinstantiation of service. Because you've used the system in the past. Because you've exposed the hardware to the wear and tear of the normal operation. Because you essentially wanted to outsmart the concept I do not really understand, why Heise.de is wondering that much about this reinstantiation fee.

What's behind this "Matching Service Level" thing?

I want to dig down into the "Matching Service Levels" thing. I want to cite the complete first paragraph:

When acquiring technical support, all hardware systems must be supported (e.g., Oracle Premier Support for Systems or Oracle Premier Support for Operating Systems) or unsupported. This requirement includes (i) all of your hardware systems running the Solaris Operating system release 10.9 or later and (ii) all of your hardware systems running the Enterprise Linux and Oracle VM operating system, and (iii) all hardware systems for which you have applied services received under a technical support contract for another hardware system (including sharing of updates, patches, fixes, security alerts, work-arounds, configuration/installation assistance or parts).

I will omit that OEL or OVM stuff. What is really in this paragraph? At first Systems running under Solaris 10 Update 8 or earlier are not subject to this requirement. At second my interpretation of the written word is: All systems running Solaris 10 Update 9 or higher have to be supported or unsupported in regard of the operating system. In the parentheses you will find the expression "Oracle Premier Support for Systems or Oracle Premier Support for Operating Systems". So it looks like you can choose if you just want the OS support or the HW+OS support. Furthermore there is an requirement to put all systems under support where you have applied services you've purchased for a different system (like the single support agreement for patch access mentioned before).

There isn't a condition like "When you have HW support, all systems need HW support" in this document. At least i didn't found it. They just have to be under some kind of support (OS only or OS+HW) as long they are included by the three groups mentioned in first paragraph of this part of the document. From my personal interpretation of the document, an Sun HW running Windows or Debian is totally exempted from this "everything under some kind of support" rule, as long as you don't put parts into the system you received under a support contract for another system.

To substantiate my point, i want to cite another rule mentioned in the "Matching Service Level" section:

If you have acquired your Enterprise Linux and Oracle VM support services under a separate Enterprise Linux and Oracle VM Services Agreement that hardware system is a covered hardware system under this matching service level policy.

The Enterprise Linux and Oracle VM Services Agreement doesn't contain HW support, however it's sufficient to count the system under the rule of "everything supported or not" as a supported system.

Conclusion

Some people try to postulate from this acts, that Oracle tries to squeeze out as much money as possible in the shortest, other think of a ploy do destroy Sun HW or Solaris. The end of Solaris. That's nonsense. Total BS.

I think, that those people haven't studied the paper. I think those conditions of Oracle aren't unreasonable when you really read the document and think a moment about it. However i think, that Oracle is significantly stricter in regard of providing services. And this document is a possible proof for this last assumption.