To understand what an ASFU license is we must first define a few terms.
Oracle Independent Software Vendor (ISV)
An Oracle ISV is a 3rd party company, so a non Oracle company that provides services using Oracle technologies such as its Database software. To become recognised as an Oracle ISV the company must meet certain conditions with Oracle. These conditions include
- Application compatibility with Oracle Software
- Application testing for Oracle Standards
Oracle Partner Network (OPN)
The journey to becoming an Oracle ISV, requires that the company offering the application that uses Oracles technologies becomes a member of its partner network or OPN. The company builds a relationship with Oracle and details its application that will work with the Oracle based solutions. Oracle in return does provide certain benefits to assist the ISV. Some benefits ‘may’ include
- Reduced licensing on Non Production
Oracle Application Specific Full Use Licensing (ASFU)
ASFU license is a meant for Oracle ISV that is a member of the OPN.
The company in question would have created an application that uses Oracle, and that application is sold to customers bundled as one package which includes the Oracle component such as the database. This has a number of implications as well.
- The customer that buys the application does not deal with Oracle for Oracle related issues, they interact with the company that sells the application who in turn will work with Oracle to resolve issues if needed.
- There is usually a large discount off of the Oracle license list pricing for the Oracle ISV and in turn customer.
- There are big restrictions on how a customer can use and interact with the Oracle database, they may only use the application as intended to interact with the database and should not interact directly with the Oracle database as they are paying for the application not the database backend directly.