Strategies for Oracle Java Licensing and Support Post 2019
Update January 2023 – As of 24 January 2023, Oracle changed the way that it charges customers for using Oracle Java SE: they no longer sell it in the Processor and Named User Plus metrics. Instead, it is ONLY available under the Oracle Java SE Universal Subscription on the basis of Employees – i.e. all your employees plus those of your outsourcers providing support to your business. For more information, please review this page.
Java underpins a wide variety of enterprise software, particularly on the server side, and has historically been considered ‘free’ by businesses.
Upcoming changes to the way Oracle Java is licensed and supported will begin to have an impact with the release of Java 11 in September 2018, and will affect Java 8 from January 2019. This will have an impact on any organisation that currently relies on an up-to-date Oracle Java Virtual Machine in any production capacity.
This, in turn, will affect how organisations choose to architect and deploy technologies based on the Java language, both packaged and bespoke solutions. If you have considered previously that Java was free to use and free to deploy, the following whitepaper aims to help you to understand how Java licensing is changing.
The following guide explores the key considerations and options for the future licensing and support of Java, covering four crucial areas for enterprise organisations to be aware of:
- Changes to how Oracle are supporting Java
- Java Licensing – Why a license may now be required when it has not been to date.
- Oracle Options – Description of the commercial offering, and that which will remain free.
- Other Options – Non-Oracle Java support and patching.
Version 1 has many years of specialist expertise and experience managing Java installations for our customers. As an independent advisor, we recommend that all organisations using Java should carry out an urgent survey of their Java usage, cataloguing the version number in use, its purpose, and the infrastructure upon which it runs. Learn more about our independent SAM services.