Oracle Core Factor Table: How Processor Selection Determines Your Oracle Licence Cost

What the Oracle Core Factor Table Is and How It Works

The Oracle Processor Core Factor Table is an official Oracle document that assigns a decimal multiplier — the "core factor" — to every processor type on the market. When Oracle software is licensed on a processor basis, the number of processor licences required is calculated as: Total Physical Cores × Core Factor, rounded up to the nearest whole number.

The core factor reflects Oracle's assessment of the relative computing power of each processor type. Intel and AMD x86 processors are assigned a core factor of 0.5, reflecting Oracle's view that two cores of Intel or AMD compute are equivalent to one Oracle processor licence. IBM POWER processors carry a core factor of 1.0, meaning every physical POWER core requires a full Oracle processor licence. Sun SPARC processors historically carried factors ranging from 0.25 to 1.0 depending on the generation.

The practical consequence: a database server with 64 AMD EPYC cores requires 32 Oracle processor licences (64 × 0.5 = 32). The same workload on a 64-core IBM POWER9 server requires 64 Oracle processor licences (64 × 1.0 = 64) — double the licence count, double the licence cost, and double the annual support fees.

Oracle publishes the Core Factor Table as a PDF on the Oracle website and updates it periodically as new processor families are released. The current version of the table applies to all Oracle software licensed on a processor basis, including Oracle Database Enterprise Edition, Oracle WebLogic Server, Oracle Middleware products, and Oracle Communications software. The table does not apply to Named User Plus licensed products — those are counted by users or devices, not by processor cores.

Core Factors for Major Processor Families

The core factor landscape has become significantly more straightforward than it was a decade ago, when factors varied widely across processor generations. The current pattern for the major processor families is:

The January 2026 update to the Core Factor Table added multiple Intel Xeon 69xxP, 67xxE, 67xxP, 65xxP, 63xxP variants (including B-suffix models) and X55xx, E54xx, X54xx, X34xx, and 51xx series processors, all with a core factor of 0.5. This brings the entire current Intel Xeon server portfolio into the 0.5 core factor category for Oracle licensing purposes.

The May 2025 update added 5th generation AMD EPYC 9xx5, 9xx5F, and 9xx5P processors at 0.5, along with expanded coverage of 4th generation EPYC (9xx4F, 9xx4P) and 3rd generation EPYC (7xx3P). AMD EPYC's consistent 0.5 core factor across all current server generations makes it the most licensing-efficient commodity server platform for Oracle workloads.

How Core Factors Are Applied in Practice

The core factor calculation applies to all physical CPU cores on all servers running Oracle software, regardless of whether all cores are actively processing Oracle workloads at any given time. Oracle's licensing rules require licences for all cores on all processors in any server running Oracle software — there is no concept of licensing only the cores actively used by Oracle unless Oracle-approved hard partitioning is implemented.

The Standard Calculation

For a server with two AMD EPYC 9754 processors (128 cores each), the total physical core count is 256. At a core factor of 0.5, the Oracle processor licence requirement is 256 × 0.5 = 128 licences. At Oracle Database Enterprise Edition list price of $47,500 per processor licence, 128 licences represents $6,080,000 at list — before discounts and before annual support fees of 22 percent of net licence value.

For the equivalent workload on IBM POWER10, achieving the same compute capacity with a comparable core count of 256 POWER10 cores at a factor of 1.0 requires 256 Oracle processor licences — $12,160,000 at list, double the AMD option. The differential persists in perpetuity through annual support fees: 22 percent of the higher licence value means permanently higher support obligations.

Applying Core Factors to Multi-Socket Servers

Modern enterprise servers are typically multi-socket: two, four, or eight CPU sockets, each populated with a processor. The core factor applies to all cores across all populated sockets. A four-socket server with Intel Xeon processors carrying 32 cores each totals 128 physical cores. At 0.5 core factor, 64 Oracle processor licences are required for that server.

A common compliance error is counting Oracle processor licences based on socket count rather than core count. Before the multi-core era, Oracle processor licences mapped to physical sockets. With modern processors having 16 to 192 cores per socket, socket-based counting dramatically understates the actual licence requirement. Oracle's LMS audit scripts report physical core counts, not socket counts, and LMS auditors consistently identify socket-counting errors as a major compliance gap category.

Core Factors in Virtualised Environments

The interaction between core factors and virtualisation is one of the most consequential — and most frequently misunderstood — aspects of Oracle processor licensing.

Oracle's Default Virtualisation Rule

Oracle's standard licensing rule for virtualised environments (VMware, KVM, Hyper-V, and other non-Oracle virtualisation platforms) is that all physical cores in every physical server in the cluster where Oracle software runs must be counted, regardless of how many virtual CPUs are allocated to Oracle VMs. This rule applies the core factor to the entire physical cluster — not just the cores allocated to Oracle workloads.

In a VMware cluster with 10 servers, each with two Intel Xeon processors at 32 cores each, the total physical core count is 640. Even if Oracle is running on only one virtual machine with 4 vCPUs allocated, Oracle's standard rule requires 640 × 0.5 = 320 processor licences. The core factor reduces the number, but the cluster-wide counting requirement dramatically expands the scope.

Oracle-Approved Hard Partitioning

The only way to limit Oracle processor licence counting to a subset of physical cores in a virtualised environment is through Oracle-approved hard partitioning. Oracle's policy document on partitioning defines which technologies qualify as hard partitioning: LPAR (IBM AIX), Solaris Zones with resource management, Oracle VM Server for SPARC (OVM/T), and a small number of others. VMware, KVM, and Hyper-V are explicitly not recognised as hard partitioning — Oracle does not accept that vCPU allocation in these environments limits the licence requirement.

IBM LPAR on POWER platforms does qualify as Oracle-approved hard partitioning. This creates an interesting calculus for organisations choosing between AMD/Intel (0.5 core factor, no hard partitioning acceptance) and IBM POWER (1.0 core factor, hard partitioning accepted). In mixed Oracle/non-Oracle workload environments on IBM POWER, LPAR-based hard partitioning can limit Oracle licences to the LPAR allocated core count rather than all POWER cores in the server — potentially making IBM POWER competitive with AMD/Intel despite the higher core factor.

Core Factor Impact on Support Fees

The core factor's impact on Oracle licence cost compounds through annual support fees. Oracle support is priced at 22 percent of the net licence value annually, increasing by 8 percent per year. A lower core factor reduces the initial processor licence count, which reduces the net licence value, which reduces the base support fee — and all subsequent annual 8 percent increases are applied to a lower base.

For an organisation that purchases 200 Oracle Database EE processor licences on AMD EPYC instead of 400 licences that IBM POWER would have required for the same deployment, the initial licence cost saving at a negotiated $20,000 net per licence is $4 million. The initial annual support saving is 22 percent of $4 million, or $880,000. At 8 percent annual support increases, the cumulative support saving from year one through year ten exceeds $12 million on top of the initial licence saving.

Processor selection is therefore not purely a hardware and operational decision — it is a long-term Oracle commercial decision with consequences that compound for the lifetime of the Oracle deployment.

Strategic Implications: Hardware Refresh as an Oracle Cost Reduction Tool

Organisations running Oracle Database on IBM POWER or older Intel processors that do not carry a 0.5 core factor should evaluate hardware refresh not only on a hardware cost and performance basis but on the Oracle licence and support cost implications.

Migrating from IBM POWER to AMD EPYC

For an organisation running Oracle Database on IBM POWER with 100 processor licences (100 physical POWER cores × 1.0 factor = 100 licences), migrating to AMD EPYC servers can maintain the same Oracle licence count while doubling the available physical core capacity (200 AMD cores × 0.5 = 100 licences). Or, for the same compute capacity with 100 AMD cores, the same 100 physical cores now require only 50 Oracle processor licences — a 50 percent licence reduction.

The immediate support saving at 22 percent of the net licence value for the saved 50 licences is substantial. If the 50 freed licences represent $1 million in net licence value, the annual support saving is $220,000 — potentially recovering the hardware migration cost within two to three years, while the Oracle support savings continue indefinitely.

Processor Family Upgrades Within Intel and AMD

Upgrading within the Intel or AMD ecosystem does not change the core factor (all modern Intel Xeon and AMD EPYC processors carry 0.5), but newer processor generations deliver significantly more cores per socket than older generations. An eight-core-per-socket Intel Xeon from 2015 required 4 Oracle processor licences per socket. A 32-core-per-socket Intel Xeon from 2024 requires 16 licences per socket. Platform consolidation — running the same Oracle workloads on fewer but more powerful servers — may reduce total physical core count and therefore total Oracle processor licence requirements.

The licence count impact of platform consolidation must be modelled carefully. Reducing from 10 servers at 16 cores each (160 cores × 0.5 = 80 licences) to 4 servers at 48 cores each (192 cores × 0.5 = 96 licences) increases the Oracle licence requirement despite reducing the server count. Consolidation-driven licence count increases are a common unplanned Oracle cost increase that infrastructure teams miss when evaluating data centre consolidation projects.

Core Factor Table Updates and Keeping Current

Oracle updates the Core Factor Table when new processor families are released by Intel, AMD, IBM, and other manufacturers. The update process is typically triggered by processor release cycles, not on a fixed schedule. Organisations that purchase servers with newly released processors before Oracle has published the corresponding core factor face uncertainty — they should treat the new processor's factor as 1.0 until Oracle publishes the official entry.

Oracle's published Core Factor Table is the definitive reference. The table is available on Oracle's website at the technology licensing document repository. Always verify processor core factors against the current published table, not against cached versions or third-party summaries that may not reflect the latest updates. An outdated core factor reference used for licence planning or compliance assessment can create either underestimated licence requirements (compliance risk) or overstated licence requirements (overpayment).