# Oracle Database Health and Licensing Checklist

**Database / estate:** _______________  **DBA owner:** _______________  **Date:** _______
**Version and edition:** _______________  **Supported until:** _______

## 1. Licensing — the part that becomes expensive quietly

- [ ] Edition recorded (Standard / Enterprise) and matched against features actually in use
- [ ] **Enterprise-only options and packs checked** — partitioning, advanced compression, advanced
      security, diagnostics and tuning packs
- [ ] Feature usage evidence gathered from the database itself, not from memory
- [ ] Licensing metric understood (processor vs named user) and counted correctly
- [ ] **Virtualisation and cluster boundaries reviewed** — how the vendor counts cores in your
      hypervisor is a contractual question, not a technical one
- [ ] Cloud deployments checked against the relevant licensing policy
- [ ] Standby and test environments accounted for
- [ ] Contracts and entitlement records located and readable

🔴 The classic finding is a diagnostics or tuning pack used casually through a monitoring tool on a
database licensed without it, for years. Usage accrues silently and surfaces in an audit as a
back-dated bill. Check what is *enabled* as well as what is *installed*, and get a specialist
opinion before an audit rather than during one — this checklist is not legal or contractual advice.

**Features in use that require a separate licence:** _______________

## 2. Backup and recovery

- [ ] Backup strategy documented — full, incremental, archive log
- [ ] Archive log mode appropriate to the recovery requirement
- [ ] Backups stored off the database host
- [ ] Backup integrity verified, not just reported as successful
- [ ] **Restore tested on ____ — took ____**
- [ ] Point-in-time recovery tested, not assumed
- [ ] Recovery objectives (RPO/RTO) written down and achievable
- [ ] Retention meets any regulatory requirement

A backup that has never been restored is a belief. Fill in the dates.

## 3. Availability

- [ ] Standby or replication configured where the requirement justifies it
- [ ] **Failover tested**, with the time recorded
- [ ] Failback path documented
- [ ] Application behaviour during failover understood — connection handling, in-flight
      transactions
- [ ] Single points of failure identified

## 4. Performance

- [ ] Baseline captured while performance is acceptable, so degradation is detectable
- [ ] Top resource-consuming statements reviewed
- [ ] Statistics gathering scheduled and verified as running
- [ ] Index usage reviewed — unused indexes cost writes and storage
- [ ] Tablespace growth trended, with headroom
- [ ] Automated jobs reviewed for overlap with peak load

**Note:** several diagnostic and tuning capabilities require separately licensed packs. Confirm
entitlement before using them; see §1.

## 5. Patching and support

- [ ] Current version's support status known, with the end date
- [ ] Quarterly patch process defined and actually followed
- [ ] Last patch applied: _______
- [ ] Test environment patched first
- [ ] Downtime window agreed with the business

## 6. Security

- [ ] Default and sample accounts removed or locked
- [ ] Privileged access reviewed and time-bound where possible
- [ ] Application accounts hold least privilege, not DBA
- [ ] Auditing enabled to a level someone reviews
- [ ] Encryption at rest and in transit decided, with licensing implications checked
- [ ] Database not reachable from untrusted networks
- [ ] Production data in non-production environments masked or removed

## 7. Operations

- [ ] Alerting on space, errors and job failures, routed to a person
- [ ] Runbook for the three most likely failures
- [ ] More than one person can perform a recovery
- [ ] Configuration and scripts in version control

## Sign-off

| | Name | Date |
|---|---|---|
| DBA | | |
| Licensing reviewed by | | |
| Business owner | | |