3 Things You Should Know When Migrating from Oracle On-premises to the Cloud
Planning: Compare and Strategize the Path Ahead
This blog will summarize the significant differences between Oracle's on-premises and Cloud software for organizations migrating from Oracle's EPM on-premises Planning and Essbase solutions to Oracle's EPM Cloud Planning, and will focus on three subjects: Hardware, Software, and User Interface (UI) differences.
In the on-premises world, the IT infrastructure is all maintained by the organization. Most likely, Finance and IT worked together to manage the environment. For on-premises systems, it also meant that every 2-5 years, the software and hardware would have to be upgraded - resulting in additional expense and potentially causing a disruption to the business. However, with Oracle’s Cloud environment, this goes away because Oracle is managing all the hardware infrastructure, and automatically updates the software regularly.
Hardware/Platform Differences
- Server hardware
- With Oracle’s EPM Cloud, there is no need for on-premises servers to run your applications. Note that there still is a need for an on-premises or a cloud-based server, that will be utilized for storing your backups, any EPM automations, and EPM integrations.
- Domain
- An on-premises solution requires you to use your own domain for software installation and configuration. With Oracle’s cloud offering (SaaS), the domain is provided with the software installed and configured.
- Backups
- With the on-promises environment, you were required to create and manage your backup and archival procedures. Oracle Cloud Services provides backup services out of the box; however, archival processes will need to be addressed to follow your organization’s policy.
- Database
- In the on-premises environment, you installed your database, but during the Oracle Cloud Service provisioning, the database is configured for you.
- Load Balancing
- In the on-premises environment, you would have set up and maintained the load balancer utilizing Oracle’s HTTP Server services. However, with the Cloud Services, this is provided by the built in Oracle Traffic Director.
Software/Application Differences
- In the on-premises environment, there is a direct “Essbase” connector in Smart View while the Cloud uses the “Planning” connector. There are some differences between the two connectors.
- Aliases are handled differently; Planning only interprets the active alias table
- Member name AND alias cannot be selected using the Planning connector (functionality has been on the roadmap)
- The Planning adapter returns the relationally stored comments, e.g., Smart Lists, whereas the Essbase adapter returns only the numeric values from Essbase
- Free Form Planning is available with the Enterprise Edition of Oracle’s EPM Cloud. This allows you to import an Essbase application which is particularly useful when moving to the Cloud.
- The Cloud has dashboards built in with more features continuously being released.
- Smart Forms are available in the Cloud. Smart Forms allows you to create a Planning Form in Smart View, including Excel formulas. Once the Form is completed, it can be saved back to the Planning instance and the Excel formulas are then converted to Planning Form calculations.
- Groovy is available in the Cloud. Groovy allow you to design complex rules. For example, rules to prevent users from saving data on forms if the data value is above a predefined threshold.
- In the on-premises environment, Essbase Administration Services (EAS) was used to manage the Essbase environment for such things as security filters and business rules. While EAS is unavailable in the Cloud, most of these functions are still provided. Dimensions can be managed using the Smart View Planning Dimension Editor, or the Planning Interface. Additionally, dimension-level security is also performed in the Planning Interface. Other tools such as Calculation Manager, FR Reporting Studio, and Data Management can be accessed via the Planning Interface.
- EPM Automate is a powerful tool used in Oracle’s EPM Cloud environment. EPM Automate enables users to perform tasks remotely. This also allows the scripts to be automated and executed using a scheduler. With an EPM Automate script, you can download the daily maintenance backup to create local or archived backups of your artifacts and data.
User Interface (UI) differences
- Planning Forms now have an updated look in the cloud
- Dashboards have replaced Composite Forms
- The menu (commonly referred to as the accordion) on the left side of the screen has been removed from the Cloud application
- Business Rules
- Business Rules can now be executed from the editor
- When testing and troubleshooting a Business Rule within the editor, you have access to a log file. One item to highlight is that this file breaks down the run-time for each block of code
Potential Challenges and Things to Watch Out For:
- The out-of-box on-prem Capex and Workforce modules are not supported in the Cloud; however, these applications can be migrated to the Cloud as custom applications with no loss of functionality
- Anything implemented directly on the Essbase side of the Planning app will be handled differently in the Cloud, e.g., anything created/maintained in EAS
- Essbase partitions are not supported in the Cloud; however, there are options available to replace the functionality
Still in a dilemma and want to look at the bigger picture? We recommend you visit our Cloud vs. No Cloud blog for more information.
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