Oracle licensing explained (by my bro)

I work for a company that sells software. Our flagship product is the Database. Licensing a database is a little complicated (as perceived by our customers!). This is how it's done.

We take the hardware specs of the server on which is database is to be installed i.e. number of processors, number of cores & the brand of CPU. The calculation is done as follows:

(number of processors) x (number of cores) x (licensing factors)

where,
1. factors depend on the brand of CPU i.e. Intel, AMD, UltraSPARC etc.
2. user minimums & number of sockets to be taken into consideration depending on the database edition.

Last week, my brother (who heads the Infrastructure and DCO Division at Panasonic) wanted some Oracle database licensing options for a new project he is undertaking. I explained the licensing model to him and how the calculation is done.

Yesterday on our way to work, we had the following conversation:

Me: Hey, what about those database licenses you inquired about?
Bro: Oh yes, do you know how Oracle is licensed on virtual servers?
Me: Hmm...I'll have to look that up. Haven't come across any such requirements yet.
Bro: Yeah. Let me know. Probably, we'll need to take the square root of the inverse of the processors, then take factors and integrate it and take the third derivative of the limit of the function at infinity, differentiate it and do a Fourier transform of that!!!!!

LOL

Edited to add: If anyone has any questions on Oracle licensing, please leave a comment on my other blog: http://logicalobscurity.wordpress.com. Thanks.

Mallu Discount

We coined this new term yesterday. No offense to all the mallus out there but just couldn't help ourselves. Come stay in the gulf and you'll know what I mean.

Anyways, we (me and Amit) went to watch Ghajini last night. Decent-to-good movie I'd say despite the whole world going gaga over the movie and Aamer's performance. Why I say this is because of the so-called 'Mallu Discount' factor. So what is Mallu Discount?

Mallu Discount is nothing but the South factor. Let me explain. Indian cinema defies logic - all genres inclusive. Even the most realistic of movies seem to make no sense at times. There are exceptions but I am speaking of the vast overwhelming majority. Singing & dancing around trees, fight scenes, romance, acting (read: overacting), larger-than-life characters, item numbers, cleavage & finally climax (no, not that one!) - these are all the essential elements of Indian movies. Put this all together and you have a masala bollywood flick. Multiply this by a factor of 10 and you have a masala 'south' movie (Pot-bellied actors added to the list!). This south factor is what I call 'The Mallu Discount".

So while watching Aamer pull off some absolutely nonsensical stunts last night, I turned to Amit and frustratingly remarked, "Kya horaha hai yeh sab? Kuch bhi kya!" (What's all this? Anything?) And in his typical quick wit he replies, "Chod na yaar. South ki picture ka remake hai. Mallu discount de de!" (Let it be. Remake of a South movie. Give some mallu discount!).

We both burst out laughing. The movie suddenly became more tolerable to the extent that I ended up saying to my bro, who had tickets for the next show, that it was a decent movie. Definitely worth a watch.

Mallu discount helps.

BUSHoes

This incident had me in side-splitting laughter. At the end of 8 years in office, there couldn't have been a more better farewell for this joke of a president. Oh, why didn't the shoes hit him? Why! Why! Why!

"This is a farewell kiss, you dog. This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq." - This is what the Iraqi journalist, Muntadar al-Zeidi, yelled before insulting, arguably and laughingly, the most powerful man on the planet.

How does America react to this? Does it ban shoes in press conferences? Or will it now provide training on how to dodge shoes? Or, better yet, how to pick them up and throw it back? Didn't the SS expect this? Oh, they didn't?! Where is their ground-breaking, state of art intelligence now?

The president of America, the leader of the new world, commander-in-chief of the most powerful army in the world, all this and more. And this is the kind of treatment he gets?

There couldn't have been a more degrading, insulting, debasing, cheapening thing than this for the man. And thoroughly well deserved.

And a small note for Mr. Obama: Boy, you have some pretty lofty 'shoes' to fill in, eh? ;)

Tharki?

Someone dropped by at my blog with the following Google search query:

"wanted tharki girl in bangalore"

I just couldn't stop laughing. It made my day!!!

To the wise (read: desperate) guy or girl (really?): Sorry to disappoint you but this is not that type of a blog.