Oracle LMS was renamed GLAS, Global Licensing and Advisory Services. It is the same measurement function under a friendlier title. After you certify a ULA, a GLAS contact tests your certified counts against deployment, and the evidence file you kept at exit is what answers it.
By the Meridian advisory team · Ex Oracle licensing analysts · Updated June 2026
They are the same function wearing two names. Oracle License Management Services, known for years as LMS, was rebranded as Global Licensing and Advisory Services, or GLAS. The word advisory in the new title is deliberate, and it is worth reading with care. The team positions itself as a partner that helps you understand your licensing, but its core work is unchanged: it measures what you have deployed and tests that against what you are entitled to own. For a ULA holder who has just certified, GLAS is the function most likely to ask you to stand behind the numbers in your certification letter. The label softened. The role did not.
Treat any GLAS contact as a measurement of your certified position, whatever it is called. The defence is the evidence file built at exit: the server lists, the tool output, and the documented methodology behind every certified number. Decide deliberately whether to run Oracle measurement scripts, because the output goes to Oracle and frames the discussion. A clean file answers most questions before scripts ever enter the conversation.
Certification is the moment a ULA converts from an unlimited deployment right into a fixed perpetual entitlement. You declare a set of counts, often in a letter signed by a senior executive, and from that point you own those quantities and no more. The first two years after certification are when interest in those counts tends to rise. The reason is structural rather than personal: the numbers are new, the deployment behind them is live and measurable, and any gap between what was certified and what is actually running is at its clearest. GLAS does not need to suspect wrongdoing to make contact. The certified position is simply a natural thing to verify, and the function exists to verify it.
A GLAS approach often arrives as an offer to help rather than a demand to comply. The tone can be collaborative, the language can be about optimisation and good housekeeping, and the request can be for a friendly look at your environment. None of that changes what is happening underneath. Information you share is information that measures your position, and a helpful conversation can become a commercial one quickly if the numbers do not line up. The right posture is courteous and prepared, not defensive and not naive. You answer from your own evidence, on your own terms, at a pace you control.
Not in form, and sometimes not in pressure, but in substance the question is the same. A formal audit is a contractual right exercised through a defined process, usually with notice and a defined scope. A GLAS review or advisory engagement can be lighter, voluntary in feel, and framed as guidance. The underlying inquiry is identical: does your deployment match your entitlement. Because the question is the same, the answer should be the same. Whether Oracle calls the contact a review, an advisory session, a health check, or an audit, your response rests on the certified counts and the evidence that supports them. Reading too much comfort into a soft label is a common and costly mistake. Reading too much threat into it wastes leverage. Calm preparation handles both.
| Contact type | How it feels | What it actually tests |
|---|---|---|
| Advisory or health check | Helpful, optional | Your certified counts versus live deployment |
| Licensing review | Routine, administrative | The same counts and the evidence behind them |
| Formal audit | Contractual, defined scope | The same counts, with a process attached |
This is a decision, not a reflex. Oracle measurement scripts, the data collection tooling GLAS may ask you to run, produce output that goes to Oracle and becomes the basis of the discussion. Running them is a choice with consequences, and the contract rarely compels it as an unconditional obligation. Before running anything, three questions deserve answers. First, what will the output show, and does it match the position you certified. Second, does your own evidence file already answer the question being asked, removing the need for fresh first party collection. Third, what does your agreement actually require, as opposed to what the request assumes. A buyer who has kept a strong evidence file is often able to answer fully from that record, which keeps control of the narrative on the buyer side. A buyer with thin evidence may feel pushed toward running scripts simply because there is nothing else to point to, which is exactly the weakness to avoid by preparing at exit.
The point is not to refuse cooperation. It is to cooperate from a position you understand. If running a script will confirm a clean position, doing so deliberately can close a matter quickly. If running it risks surfacing ambiguity that your own documentation handles better, leading with your evidence is the stronger path. The decision turns on what the output will reveal and what your contract says, which is why it should be made with advice rather than under time pressure on a call.
Consider a mid sized enterprise, figures indicative only, contacted by GLAS roughly a year after certifying. The approach was framed as an advisory review. Rather than running collection scripts on the first request, the organisation answered from its retained evidence file, presenting server inventories, tool output, and the counting methodology that produced its certified numbers. The questions were resolved from that record, the engagement closed without escalation to a formal audit, and no remediation arose. The work that made this possible had been done eighteen months earlier, at certification.
Everything above points to one asset. A GLAS contact is far easier to handle when the certified counts sit on a contemporaneous evidence file that explains them. That file holds the inventory of servers and instances, the discovery tool output that measured them, the processor counting and core factor working, and a written methodology that records the judgement calls and their reasoning. With it, you answer questions from documentation rather than from memory or fresh collection, and you keep the discussion narrow and factual. Without it, every question reopens the count itself, and the path of least resistance becomes running whatever Oracle asks. The evidence file is the difference between answering a review and being led through one.
A GLAS contact after certification is normal, and it is manageable when you prepared for it at exit. For the core defence, read defending your certified counts in an audit, and to understand the larger trap of treating a dispute as a reason to re enter an unlimited term, read settling through a new agreement and the re ULA trap. Our post certification audit guide is the pillar that frames the whole defence. When you want a read on how your evidence would hold up to a GLAS review, the next step is a confidential assessment.
They are the same function under different names. Oracle License Management Services, LMS, was rebranded as Global Licensing and Advisory Services, GLAS. The team that measures deployment and tests compliance is the one you may meet after certifying a ULA. The name on the email changed; the role did not.
Not always. A review or advisory contact can be softer than a formal audit, but it asks the same underlying question: does your deployment match what you are entitled to. Treat any GLAS contact as a measurement of your certified position. The evidence file that supported your certification is what answers it, whatever the contact is called.
It depends on your contract and your position. Running first party scripts is a choice with consequences, not an automatic obligation. The output goes to Oracle and frames the discussion. Before running anything, understand what it will show, whether your own evidence already answers the question, and what your agreement actually requires. This is a decision to make deliberately, with advice.