You may be one of Oracle Applications customers pondering an internal question on future direction for your E-Business Suite investment. Upgrade to newer release on premise or go to Cloud? Oracle Cloud or third-party Cloud?
Here are some points to consider when making these decisions:
E-Business Suite – On Premise:
Oracle had stated many times in the past they were dedicated to Applications Unlimited concept and they still are. It was Oracle’s pledge to continue upgrading, supporting and innovating their flagship EBS applications.
At some point Oracle concentrated their effort on building Fusion applications (with delayed release: announced in 2005, but finally offered in 2011) built on Oracle’s EBS with a few other application platforms incorporated from acquisitions (JD Edwards, PeopleSoft and Siebel), which were meant to become “best of class” applications encompassing best features from each group and eventually replace EBS applications.
This concept did not resonate with the majority of client base and Oracle noticed. Oracle has continued with its development effort focused on core EBS applications on premise (with Applications Unlimited pledge) while developing and improving Fusion Cloud solutions.
As 11.2 and 12.1 EBS releases are currently in Extended Support, Oracle named 12.2 a “Continuous Innovation Release” with a promise to offer Premier Support for this release at least until 2030. Updates can be applied to this release “continuously” without a requirement of any major upgrades. This means once you upgrade your EBS applications to 12.2 release you do not need to worry about the additional expense of Extended Support for the next 10 years, or the need to perform a major upgrade which can be disruptive to your business.
E-Business Suite – In the Cloud:
Most E-Business Suite ERP customers like Oracle applications for the ease of customization and flexibility, however, Oracle SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions meant to replace core EBS applications are very different from their on-premise equivalents.
They have different features and do not allow for majority of customizations the clients are used to having with on-premise solutions (though it varies by the specific application). Oracle has developed a number of successful Fusion Cloud Services that allow for major customizations, and are more robust than their on-premise equivalents, like EPM (Enterprise Performance Management), previously called Enterprise Planning and Budgeting solution, based on Hyperion applications.
So who is the core EBS SaaS solution (ERP) for then? It would be most useful for first time Oracle clients who can start using EBS applications in the cloud and don’t need many customizations or modifications.
Recently Oracle concentrated their effort on improving a much narrower set of ERP E-Business Suite solutions in the Cloud, while bundling them together to create fewer but more robust solutions, and to potentially promote adoption of less popular Fusion Cloud Services that Clients would have access to within each bundle.
The most adequate route for existing EBS customers who have been heavily customizing their core Oracle applications (especially ERP applications) throughout the years is a “lift and shift” approach. Oracle states that their applications work best on their own hardware platform, and recommends a “lift and shift” to OCI (Oracle Cloud Infrastructure) which are PaaS and IaaS solutions. Customers have other third-party platforms to choose from as well, like AWS and Azure.
There are certain differences between these platforms in the way you would plan and pay for your actual usage, as well as the methodology of Oracle license counting when you move your underlying Oracle technology licenses, for database and middleware, to the cloud.
Please contact Miro Consulting for further advisory that would be unique to your specific situation.