ITworld.com - Oracle outlines new multicore pricing policy

ITworld.com - Oracle outlines new multicore pricing policy: "Pricing for software run on servers based on Intel Corp. or Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s (AMD's) chips will be determined by multiplying the number of processor cores in a server by 0.5, Oracle said. Therefore, an Oracle database running on Hewlett-Packard Co.'s DL585 with four dual-core AMD Opteron processors would require four licenses, or eight total processing cores multiplied by 0.5.

Sun Microsystems Inc.'s new T1 processor, formerly known as Niagara, was assigned a 0.25 multiplier. Niagara processors have up to eight separate processor cores, with each core capable of processing four threads. New servers with the chip have only one processor, but the eight-core version of the processor will only require two licenses, Oracle said. "