If you currently have the Oracle licensing rights required to run the programs and will not be introducing a new server for test purposes or new users, you will not need to acquire any new licensing to cover this planned testing phase.
If you currently have the Oracle licensing rights required to run the programs, but will be introducing a new server for these test purposes, you will need to calculate the licensing requirements around this new server for all programs that will be installed on or managing the server. Oracle requires licensing to actual usage quantities or minimum licensing requirements, whichever is greater. Typically test environments end up needing to be licensed at Oracle's standard minimum licensing requirements which can vary by program. Most common minimum licensing requirements are 25 Named User Plus licenses per Processor requiring a license for Database Enterprise Edition or any Options or Managers of Database Enterprise Edition and 10 Named User Plus licenses per Processor requiring license for Internet Application Server Enterprise Edition or WebLogic Server Enterprise Edition or any Options or Managers of WebLogic Server Enterprise Edition.
We had to make certain assumptions, as you can see, but each scenario has a slightly different outcome.
This was first published in August 2010