Written by
Tom Atwood
VP, JDE Global Strategy & Alliances
We're encountering numerous challenges with on-premises operations such as staffing shortages, significant capital expenditures, and a lack of disaster recovery capabilities or flexibility to customers. Reacting to infrastructure requests is slow, requiring hardware provisioning and leading to shipping and supply chain issues. Customers are expressing a desire for cloud-first strategies, often coinciding with the need for hardware refresh cycles.
For many, aging hardware systems nearing end-of-life prompt evaluations: is it more sensible to refresh that hardware on-prem or move to a cloud footprint? Additionally, upgrading JD Edwards (JDE) often aligns well with a migration to the cloud. Moreover, many clients are already familiar with managed services, augmenting their on-prem staff with expertise from other providers, making the transition to the cloud less daunting than it may have been previously.
Why move to the cloud? There are several compelling reasons:
To Reduce Cost
While cost reduction is often discussed, the decision to transition isn't solely about financial savings. It's driven by pragmatic business considerations – the desire to divest from managing an on-premises Data Center.
To Address Security Concerns
Security is a significant concern and has become part of an overall strategy. Leveraging the built-in security of the cloud makes sense, with security controls offering network isolation and encryption. From a Disaster Recovery perspective, some clients are setting up environments in the cloud.
To Cope With Talent Shortages
Talent and staffing shortages are a growing reality in the legacy sector. Augmentations with managed services are a common response in the JDE ecosystem and allow IT to support the business strategically.
To Scale
One of the most striking advantages of the cloud is scalability. Capacity can be adjusted as needed, avoiding paying for underutilized hardware. Additionally, the diversity of cloud services offers integrated native solutions built for the cloud. Proof of concept and test environments can be put in place and removed as needed.
Why Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)?
For JD Edwards customers, OCI is a natural progression. Oracle offers tools and scripts to expedite hardware provisioning for upgrades and deployments. OCI provides Infrastructure-as-a-service and Platform-as-a-service options, offering elasticity to accommodate business growth or changes.
Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS)
With IaaS, new instances can be swiftly and effortlessly provisioned. The ease of upgrades depends on the JDE Enterprise One (E1) release. This flexibility allows infrastructure footprint adjustments to match business growth or contraction, or even divestments.
Platform-as-a-service (PaaS)
PaaS is commonly used for database cloud services. Transitioning to the cloud opens possibilities like implementing an autonomous database, offering integration features and additional services. Organizations have the option to select infrastructure, platform, or a combination of both services, along with Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) options for integrating HCM or CRM with their JD Edwards system.
Unique SLAs for Oracle, such as Performance SLA and Advance Block Storage SLA, should be considered in the decision-making process. It's important to note that many providers suggest maintaining a perpetual license for JD Edwards to access upgrades for tools releases and release upgrades.
From a cloud infrastructure perspective, OCI offers global reach, providing significant advantages for your enterprise. As your business expands into multiple regions, OCI offers different availability zones with built-in fault tolerance. This resilience is invaluable for disaster recovery and ensuring business continuity.
What are the Cloud Migration Options?
The first path – Lift-and-Shift
This approach involves transferring existing on-premises infrastructure to the cloud, retaining the same hardware and operating systems. Not all platforms are compatible, necessitating planning for certain systems.
The Second Path – Migrate-to-cloud-as-part-of-an-Upgrade
This approach combines system upgrades with cloud migration, offering benefits such as access to new features and easier provisioning. It's an opportunity to get back on support if you've been off it.
Types of Cloud Migration for JD Edwards through an Upgrade
- Upgrade On-premises and Migrate to the Cloud
Considerations like disk space, machines, support, and the new release are vital. You may need to add disk or provision servers. Since you're duplicating testing and go-live cycles, you'll need to ensure everything works on-prem before migrating to the cloud.
- Migrate to the Cloud and then Upgrade
This approach involves migrating to the cloud first, then upgrading. It has a longer timeline and requires a throwaway environment in the cloud.
- Upgrade during Migration to Cloud
Requires only one cycle of User Acceptance Testing and go-live. On-premises environment can be used as-is until go-live and affords easy fallback scenarios.
The Third Path – Migrating to Oracle Fusion Cloud
The third approach is the most transformational, given that it is an application and platform migration. This would mean moving the entire JDE footprint to a different solution set.
The Role of a Partner
As you embark on this journey, one consideration you may want to explore is consulting with a third party. They can guide you through your strategy and assist you in navigating the options available for transitioning to the cloud.
As mentioned earlier, options include installation on bare metal or move-and-improve, re-hosting, and similar approaches.
Business Impact of Migrating JD Edwards to OCI
- Your business can leverage unique benefits available only in the cloud setup, such as load balancing and autonomous databases.
- You have the option to maintain the solution in vanilla mode or make necessary tweaks as required.
- You retain all your customizations, configurations, and data.
- Cloud adoption brings significant reporting advantages, including out-of-the-box reporting capabilities. This typically represents the quickest path, completed within three months, contingent upon factors such as your overall footprint, integrations, and third-party products.
- Once the software system is in place, Oracle will handle everything else from an infrastructure standpoint. Objects and data are copied and transformed, followed by User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and final sign-off.
