Panorama: Do I need Diagnostics Pack and Tuning Pack license to use Panorama?

This post describes how Panorama allows usage without violating Oracle's license conditions if you don't have Diagnostics Pack and Tuning Pack license.

You can run Panorama with access on original AWR/ASH (which requires EE and Diagnostics Pack) or with access on Panorama's own sampled history data which doesn't require EE and Diagnostics Pack. Before accessing AWR/ASH-data Panorama asks you which mode you want to use. Several functions of Panorama require one of the following:
  • Enterprise Edition and Diagnostics Pack licensed or
  • Use Panorama's own data sampled by Panorama-Sampler instead

Panorama's function "SQL monitor" is available only if you've licensed Oracle's "Tuning Pack".

Accessing restricted dictionary data (like AWR) with Panorama has preconditions to ensure compliance with Oracle's license conditions:

  • After connecting to a database with Panorama you have to acknowledge at first one of the four options:
    • you have a valid license for Diagnostics Pack and Tuning Pack
    • you have a valid license for Diagnostics Pack but not for Tuning Pack
    • you will use Panorama's own sampled data and therefore don't need license for Diagnostics Pack and Tuning Pack
    • you don't have license for Diagnostics Pack and Tuning Pack and there's no data generated by Panorama-Sampler
  • The selection is initialized according to your database's init-Parameter 'control_management_pack_access'
  •  Choosing Diagnostics Pack or Tuning Pack is available for Enterprise Edition only
  • If you don't confirm existing license for Diagnostics Pack or Tuning Pack than each function call in Panorama leads to an error message if it would request Oracle's original AWR-data or packages restricted by this licenses
  • If you choose Panorama-Sampler data instead of Diagnostics Pack than Panorama will transparently use it's own sampled data instead of original AWR data, so you don't need license for Diagnostics Pack.
  • Access on AWR-tables not already covered by similar Panorama-Sampler data will also lead to error message even if you've chosen Panorama-Sampler

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