Oracle licensing compliance is important

This might include the extra-cost Database Diagnostic Pack that covers access to AWR (Automatic Workload Repository) and ADDM (Automatic Database Diagnostic Monitor) or the extra-cost Database Tuning Pack that is required if you access the SQL Tuning Advisor PL/SQL Packages located in $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin.

The Oracle documentation notes that there are some tables that do not require a license to query (as audited in the dba_feature_usage_statistics table).

"All data dictionary views beginning with the prefix DBA_HIST_ are part of this pack, along with their underlying tables.The only exception are the views: DBA_HIST_SNAPSHOT, DBA_HIST_DATABASE_INSTANCE, DBA_HIST_SNAP_ERROR, DBA_HIST_SEG_STAT, DBA_HIST_SEG_STAT_OBJ, and DBA_HIST_UNDOSTAT. They can be used without the Diagnostic Pack license."

Oracle has auditing to tell if you have been querying the Oracle10g Automated Session History views, an extra-cost option according to sources at Oracle.

Oracle has several views to tell if you have been using specific extra cost Oracle features.

• DBA_FEATURE_USAGE_STATISTICS 

• DBA_HIGH_WATER_MARK_STATISTICS

If we look at the source for the DBA_FEATURE_USAGE_STATISTICS view we see that it is composed from three WRI$ tables, wri$_dbu_usage_sample, wri$_dbu_feature_usage and wri$_dbu_feature_metadata.

select 
   samp.dbid, 
   fu.name, 
   samp.version, 
   detected_usages, 
   total_samples,

    decode(to_char(last_usage_date, 'MM/DD/YYYY, HH:MI:SS'),

         NULL, 'FALSE',

         to_char(last_sample_date, 'MM/DD/YYYY, HH:MI:SS'), 'TRUE',

         'FALSE')

    currently_used, 
   first_usage_date, 
   last_usage_date, 
   aux_count,

    feature_info, 

   last_sample_date, 

   last_sample_period,

   sample_interval, 

   mt.description

 from 

   wri$_dbu_usage_sample     samp, 

   wri$_dbu_feature_usage    fu,

   wri$_dbu_feature_metadata mt

 where

  samp.dbid    = fu.dbid and

  samp.version = fu.version and

  fu.name      = mt.name and

  fu.name not like '_DBFUS_TEST%' and  /* filter out test features */

  bitand(mt.usg_det_method, 4) != 4    /* filter out disabled features */

For more details on how Oracle tracks extra cost feature usage, see the dba_feature_usage_statistics table.