It’s Oracle Open World week in San Francisco. and it is time for announcements of course.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
What has been announced?
Today at OOW 2019, Jenny Tsai-Smith and Dominic Giles announced in their talk that the non-CDB architecture will be desupported from Oracle 21c on. But VERY IMPORTANT, from Oracle 19c on you can have 3 user-created pluggable databases of any type without a Multitenant license. As soon as you have need for 4 or more PDBs within one container database, you will need a Multitenant license.
License Guide
You can find the update regarding 3 PDBs already in the Oracle 19c License Guide:
This makes moving to the CDB architecture much more attractive.
Just to be clear (as the headline of the post already tells you):
This is valid from Oracle 19c on, and does not apply to previous releases such as 18c or 12.1.0.2.
And in addition, I personally would recommend to set the parameter MAX_PDBS=3
if you don’t have a Multitenant license yet.
Clarification:
As there were questions whether the PDB$SEED would count as one of the 3 PDBs, we clarified the license guide as you can see in my updated screenshot above. It says now “3 user-created PDBs”.
Desupport of the non-CDB architecture
You won’t find this information in the Oracle 19c documentation. It will appear most likely in the Oracle 21c docs. But there were pictures taken in Jenny’s and Dominic‘s talk.
–Mike
Thanks Mike, good news – especially about the 3 PDBs. Do you have to be on Oracle 19c to “escape” the Multitenant options or does it also apply to lower version?
Hi Jeannette,
this is a 19c license update – hence your assumption is correct, you need to be on oracle 19c to benefit from it.
Cheers,
Mike
Hi Mike,
Do I understand you correctly that the 3 PDBs licensing term is new and that the licensing is somehow not carved in stone? Is there any chance that Oracle will review their removal of the RAC in SE, which is a big downer.
Best,
Andreas
Andreas,
I don’t understand your question.
It is in the license guide – hence, public/official.
And it applies to SE2 as well.
Cheers,
Mike
Hi Mike,
Thank you for your answer. Yes I know that’s in the 19 licensing guide, but I wasn’t aware of the possibility of a “license update”, so I hoped that there will also be one in which Oracle reconsiders removing RAC from SE2 – of course and unfortunately wishful thinking. From all the bummers from Oracle in the last years, this was the biggest one.
Best,
Andreas
Hi Andreas,
we sometimes do “positive” license updates – but the RAC/SE2 topic is something which just came in with the release of 19c. And I seriously can’t say anything regarding this change.
Cheers,
Mike
Hi Andreas,
You can use RAC on SE till version 18c and announced removal of RAC from 19c SE license is still true. There is no new information about the removal of the restriction on RAC usage by SE in 19c.
Thanks
Lukas
Thank you Lukas, that was my question.
… up to 3 PDBs …
It is not clear if that means SeedPDB+2xUserPDBs or 3xUserPDBs and SeedPDB does not count…
The seed never counts.
Cheers,
Mike
With all my respect, the 12c and 18c licensing terms states clear that “one *user-created* PDB” is allowed without multitenant license. In the 19c docu the words “user-created” have been removed. The Multitenant Overview clearly says that the seed is the Oracle-Supplied PDB: “All PDBs are user-created with the CREATE PLUGGABLE DATABASE statement except for PDB$SEED, which is Oracle-supplied”. Is there any documentation link that confirms that “The seed never counts” or words like “Because Mike Dietrich said so in the internet” are sufficient for the LMS guys?
Then please reach out to LMS.
I see your concern and I don’t write the license documentation.
If your logic would apply, than you wouldn’t have even a single PDB before that. Simply compare:
https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/18/dblic/Licensing-Information.html#GUID-0F9EB85D-4610-4EDF-89C2-4916A0E7AC87
with
https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/19/dblic/Licensing-Information.html#GUID-0F9EB85D-4610-4EDF-89C2-4916A0E7AC87
In your reading, there would have had to be “2” instead of “1” in the first row of the table where it says “SE = 1” in 18c, and “SE = 3” in 19c.
I think this is self-explaining but when you need an official clarification, please check with either your LMS contact or get in touch with your Oracle sales rep.
Hope this helps – cheers,
Mike
So finally i have some time to check this announcements on 19.3.
The result is a big error from dbca on DB SE2 with only one PDB.
[FATAL] [DBT-11506] Creation of more than one PDB requires Enterprise Edition license.
Sure – I think this is VERY expected as 19.3 had no idea about this change. It got released in April 2019 – whereas the license change and announcement came in October 2019.
Can you please try to apply 19.5.0 at first, and then try it again? And let me know if you get the same error?
Cheers,
Mike
Hi Mike,
I confirm same error on 19.5.0
Thanks Daniele!
Daniele,
a patch is underway. You will be allowed to have 3 PDBs with SE2 as well – I will blog about it as soon as the patch is there.
Cheers,
Mike
Thanks Mike.
Thanks for the update. The important thing is that 3 PDBs are allowed.
See you soon in Rome.
Cheers,
DB
See you soon in Rome, Daniele!
Have a great weekend!
Mike
Hello Mike,
Can I have on same server more than one CDB with 3pdbs each of them and will be ok without license issues (Multitenant option)
Best Regards
Hi William,
of course you can. Just make sure that none of your CDBs has ever more than 3 user-created PDBs plugged in.
Cheers,
Mike
The documentation page has been updated to include the “user-created PDBS” language, I know there was some discussion earlier about clarifying that in the guide.
https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/19/dblic/Licensing-Information.html#GUID-0F9EB85D-4610-4EDF-89C2-4916A0E7AC87
Yes, we asked for this as people were unsure whether a PDB$SEED would count against THREE.
And THANKS a lot for the hint – I realize that I didn’t update the screenshot.
In addition, I added now a clarification and information that we changed the license guide to make it more clear 🙂
Thanks a lot!
Mike
Where is the patch ?
no hit on DBT-11506 on MOS en nothing in RU 19.6
Hi Erik,
not sure which error you mean – but you may read this if you search for the opportunity to have 3 PDBs with SE2 as well:
https://mikedietrichde.com/2020/01/29/can-you-have-more-than-1-pdb-with-standard-edition-2-se2/
Cheers,
Mike
Hi,
We use dbca for ‘self-service’, people without massive knowledge of the DB.
The goal is to minimize/exclude commandline actions..
So that is behind the question. We wait for that…
Erik,
please help me – I can’t still follow you.
You hit DBT-11506 – what does the error say?
And how is it related to “we use dbca for self service people”.
Thanks for a bit more explanation!
Cheers,
Mike
Hi,
It is a lot less complex than it might seem to be.
We have users that can create a pluggable via dbca. That is easy for us, and it automates a lot of functionality.
We hit the problem that dbca does not allow to create a second pluggable on a SE2 db. So my hope was/is that dbca get fixed and allows for 3 pluggables. A GUI is much more appreciated than commandline action.
For now we take care of the issue via scripting.
So no real problem anymore, only a missing ‘easy’ feature to allow users to create a pluggable via a gui.
Hi Erik,
now I’ve got you. Have you tried this in 19.6 as well?
Does DBCA in SE2 not allow you to create an additional PDB?
Then let me check as this is an important information. I haven’t tried this. And I can check when this will be fixed.
Cheers,
Mike
Hi,
19.6 on Windows does have the problem
Thanks Erik!
Did you open an SR for this?
If not, please do so and send me the SR number. Than I can follow up with the responsible development manager.
Cheers,
Mike
Done
SR 3-22452207351
Hello Mike,
Today I got the the same error with Oracle 19.8 on AIX when using dbca to create a second Pluggable database in a Container database which already has one PDB :
DBT-11506: Creation of more than one PDB requires Enterprise Edition license.
Please use an SR to check this with Oracle Support.
Cheers,
Mike
Hi,
There are news about this bug?
I found only the workaround here https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/19/rnrdm/linux-platform-issues.html#GUID-E462F73F-E37B-4543-B55F-F5CD9543D417
there is a patch on the horizon?
Please check with Oracle Support for fixes.
Thanks,
Mike
Hi,
Oracle Support just confirmed to me that this is all a know Bug ( 30821297) and it is solved as of version 20.3
We are on 19.8 and they will see if they can backport the Bug to the 19.8 release
Hi Frank,
thanks for sharing the bug number. I checked it, and the fix is supposed to be included in the October 2020 (19.9.0) RU. I hope it gets included for Windows as well this time ..
Thanks for your update – kind regards,
Mike
Hi MIke,
Assume I have 19.14 Enterprise Edition, but do ‘not’ have the license for Multitenant option.
Now can I have one Application Root + 3 Application PDBs ?
The tricky part here is Appliction Root will have it’s own CON_ID (some value >2)
Hi,
please set MAX_PDBS=3 and try what it possible. I am almost certain that each application container counts as “1” PDB.
See also a similar question answered here on Ask Tom:
https://asktom.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=100:11:::::P11_QUESTION_ID:9545102700346143821
Cheers
Mike
Hi Mike,
Is proxy PDB count toward the max =3?
Thanks
Hi Wen,
yes, a proxy PDB counts as well as far as I am aware.
Cheers
Mike