Yuan Yao, An Oracle ACE's Blog

It is important to note that having a license for Oracle Database Enterprise Edition alone does not entitle you to use AWR (Automatic Workload Repository) and Active Session History (ASH). AWR and ASH are part of the Diagnostics and Tuning Pack, which are additional paid options on top of the Oracle Database Enterprise Edition. A separate license for the Diagnostics Pack or Tuning Pack is required to lawfully access AWR and ASH functionality. This includes any method of accessing AWR and ASH, whether through the Enterprise Manager Console, Desktop Widgets, command-line APIs, or direct access to the underlying data.

To control access to the Oracle Diagnostics Pack and Oracle Tuning Pack, Oracle provids an initialization parameter called CONTROL_MANAGEMENT_PACK_ACCESS. This parameter can be set to three possible values: DIAGNOSTIC+TUNING (the default value), DIAGNOSTIC, and NONE. When set to DIAGNOSTIC+TUNING, access to both the Diagnostics and Tuning Pack functionalities is allowed. Setting it to DIAGNOSTIC allows access only to the Diagnostics Pack functionalities. If it is set to NONE, access to both Diagnostics and Tuning Pack functionalities, including AWR and ASH, is disabled. Addtionally, if this parameter is set to NONE, queries against  V$ACTIVE_SESSION_HISTORY view will return no results, but this does not influence DBA_HIST_ACTIVE_SESS_HISTORY view.

Here is an illustration of how changing the CONTROL_MANAGEMENT_PACK_ACCESS parameter affects access to ASH data:

SQL> alter system set CONTROL_MANAGEMENT_PACK_ACCESS=NONE;

System altered.

SQL> select count(*) from  V$ACTIVE_SESSION_HISTORY;
  COUNT(*)
         0

SQL> select count(*) from DBA_HIST_ACTIVE_SESS_HISTORY;
  COUNT(*)
   1746612
         
SQL> alter system set CONTROL_MANAGEMENT_PACK_ACCESS=DIAGNOSTIC;

System altered.

SQL> select count(*) from  V$ACTIVE_SESSION_HISTORY;
  COUNT(*)
    515063

It is your responsibility to ensure that your Oracle Database environment is properly licensed to avoid compliance issues. Regularly reviewing and managing your database parameter settings can help ensure compliance with your license agreements.