Crafting the Business Case for Upgrading Your JD Edwards E… upgrading and... · Crafting the...

Crafting the Business Case for Upgrading Your JD Edwards EnterpriseOne System An Oracle White Paper June 2006

PURPOSE STATEMENT

This document provides an overview of considerations when planning an upgrade to your JD Edwards EnterpriseOne system to any currently available release.

This document is intended for information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. It is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described for Oracle’s products remains at the sole discretion of Oracle. Updates and enhancements are provided in accordance with Oracle’s Technical Support Policies at:

www.oracle.com/support/collateral/oracle-technical-support-policies.pdf

Crafting the Business Case for Upgrading Your JD Edwards EnterpriseOne System Page i

Crafting the Business Case for Upgrading Your JD Edwards EnterpriseOne System

EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW.................................................................................................... 1 SHOULD YOU UPGRADE?................................................................................................. 2 EVALUATING KEY CRITERIA......................................................................................... 2

Application Functionality .................................................................................................... 3 Technological Considerations............................................................................................. 3 Testing, Usability, and Performance .................................................................................. 3

Testing .............................................................................................................................. 4 User Experience (Usability) ........................................................................................... 4 Performance..................................................................................................................... 4

Managing Change ................................................................................................................. 5 Consulting and Education Services.................................................................................... 5 Hardware................................................................................................................................ 5 Support Policy Review ......................................................................................................... 5

IDENTIFYING BUSINESS VALUE................................................................................... 6 Release Considerations ........................................................................................................ 7

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Release 8.9 ...................................................................... 7 JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Release 8.10.................................................................... 8 JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Release 8.11.................................................................... 9 JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Release 8.12.................................................................. 10

Technological Considerations........................................................................................... 11 Client Architecture ........................................................................................................ 11 Service Oriented Architecture ..................................................................................... 12 Middleware: Application Servers and Portals........................................................... 12 Middleware: Fusion Middleware ................................................................................. 13 Reporting........................................................................................................................ 13 Unicode Support ........................................................................................................... 14 Platform Options .......................................................................................................... 15 Hardware and Operating System Options................................................................. 15 Database Options.......................................................................................................... 15

ORACLE FUSION................................................................................................................. 16 Component 1: Fusion Architecture ................................................................................. 16 Component 2: Fusion Middleware................................................................................... 16 Component 3: Fusion Applications ................................................................................. 16 Upgrade Paths to Oracle Fusion ...................................................................................... 16

MAKING A DECISION ...................................................................................................... 17 Approach 1: Financial Evaluation Spreadsheet .............................................................. 17 Approach 2: Pro and Con Analysis .................................................................................. 18 Approach 3: Strategic Map................................................................................................ 18

NEXT STEPS AND OTHER RESOURCES.................................................................... 19 Upgrades Section of Customer Connection ................................................................... 19 Product Documentation.................................................................................................... 19 Printed Materials ................................................................................................................. 19

REFERENCED DOCUMENTS......................................................................................... 19 ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS............................................................................ 20 GLOSSARY ............................................................................................................................. 20

Crafting the Business Case for Upgrading Your JD Edwards EnterpriseOne System Page 1

Crafting the Business Case for Upgrading Your JD Edwards EnterpriseOne System

EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW Oracle’s JD Edwards product line has evolved over time, and although some things like technology and business problems have changed and evolved, our commitment to our customers and to creating the best possible products has not changed.

The JD Edwards EnterpriseOne product has expanded significantly over the past few years. This expansion included over 800 product enhancements and 18 new products through several major releases. With the announcement of Applications Unlimited, Oracle has communicated our plan to continue to enhance EnterpriseOne even after the delivery of Oracle Fusion applications.1

With these enhancement plans and strategies in place, there are many compelling reasons to consider upgrading your software. Upgrading not only provides you with access to new functionality, it also ensures that you are working on the latest technology platforms, have access to the best user experience possible, and will be fully supported on your release. Although many JD Edwards EnterpriseOne customers are evaluating upgrades, for some customers the right business decision is to stay on their current release. This purpose of this paper is to help you make an informed decision that appropriately benefits your organization.

The volume of enhancements in the product line over the last few years means that a brief white paper can only scratch the surface. This document will mention the major areas to consider for your upgrade and highlight major areas of investment for specific EnterpriseOne releases. It also details specific information concerning support policies and release dates, and suggests ways to make a decision about your specific situation. There is also a short discussion of Oracle Fusion applications.

In addition, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne has traditionally afforded you a number of choices in technical infrastructure. Oracle intends to continue to make these choices available, and to continue to provide support for these per our support policy. As a JD Edwards EnterpriseOne customer, you should have a chance to see the value of Oracle’s technical solutions as optional additions to or replacements for your existing infrastructure.

1 More information on this announcement is available on our web site at:

www.oracle.com/applications/applications-unlimited.html

As a customer, you choose if and when to upgrade. The purpose of this paper is to

help you make an informed decision.


SHOULD YOU UPGRADE? Creating an upgrade strategy that maximizes the return on your EnterpriseOne investment is a critical and complex task. Over the next few years, you may choose to:

1. Remain on your existing release,

2. Upgrade to a more current release, and/or

3. Evaluate planned Fusion Applications as they become available.

Oracle does not have a blanket recommendation for all customers on how to evaluate these choices. Instead, our goal is to provide information that will help you craft the best strategy for your organization. This paper covers the following topics to help you create a well-informed and appropriate strategy for your organization:

Evaluating Key Criteria discusses potential value to you in future releases so you can weigh these against the cost of upgrading.

Identifying Business Value suggests areas to explore which may benefit your end user and IT business processes.

Oracle Fusion explains the components of Fusion and how Fusion may be included in your long term planning.

Making a Decision guides you through summarizing the data you have gathered and choosing the right strategy.

Oracle also recommends that you consult this document’s companion white paper, Upgrade Strategies for Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne.2

Use these topics to evaluate the benefits and costs of upgrading. Understanding these factors in your specific situation - including your competitive and financial realities, the role that technology and applications play in your business, the value you are currently receiving from your investment and more – will prepare you to make the right choice.

As you consider a long-term view of your investment and how to move forward, you should also consider the implications of Oracle Fusion. Fusion is evolving as a “path” to the future, rather than a “destination,” because Oracle plans on evolving your JD Edwards EnterpriseOne solution as Fusion technologies become available. Fusion is also discussed in more depth later in this paper.

EVALUATING KEY CRITERIA The best upgrade strategies for your organization must take into account the benefits and costs associated with upgrading. Here are some of the main considerations.

2 Available at www.oracle.com/support or contact your account representative for additional information.

Evaluate these considerations in your specific situation to choose the best path

for your organization.


Application Functionality As you consider an upgrade, begin by researching the business value in new application functionality.

For many customers, the business value created by new application features or modules is the primary justification for an upgrade. As you consider your upgrade strategies, begin by researching the business value available to you as a result of new application functionality.

Investment in JD Edwards EnterpriseOne continues at an aggressive pace. In fact, the past few years have seen more product enhancements and more improvements to the user experience than in any similar period in our history. Since Xe, we have released over 800 enhancements and 18 new products. These advances are summarized in this paper’s Identifying Business Value section to help you identify areas for further research.

For a more detailed discussion of these enhancements and the potential value they offer, please see the document Upgrade Value Proposition for Oracle JD Edwards OneWorld Xe to EnterpriseOne 12. This document is suitable for customers on all releases. You may also contact your account representative for additional information.

Technological Considerations Technical functionality is another great place to research potential business value for your organization. In parallel with JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.9, 8.10, 8.11, and 8.12, the Tools releases and additional technical products represent a broad range of capabilities to evaluate. Explore this area for potential end-user efficiencies, administrative productivity gains and new technical products to prepare you for the future.

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne application releases are tied to JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Tools releases, which provide the foundation on which the applications run. Most infrastructure components, such as servers and database software, are associated with the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Tools release. Table 1 shows the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne application releases and the corresponding JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Tools releases on which they can run.

More detailed discussion of the enhancements and potential value in these releases is available in the document Upgrade Value Proposition for Oracle JD Edwards OneWorld Xe to EnterpriseOne 12 as well as specific Tools Release Notes. These documents are suitable for customers on all releases.

Testing, Usability, and Performance In addition to functional and technological advances, we have invested in the quality, usability and performance of current versions of EnterpriseOne. Research these improvements for potential boosts to the efficiency and effectiveness of end users as well as a faster and smoother upgrade experience.


Table 1: Applications and Tools Release Matrix

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Tools Releases

JD Edwards EnterpriseOneApplication Release

8.9 SP1

8.9 SP2

8.93 8.94 8.95 8.96

EnterpriseOne 8.9

EnterpriseOne 8.10

EnterpriseOne 8.11

EnterpriseOne 8.11 SP1

EnterpriseOne 8.12

Testing

Our automated regression suite now contains more than 5,500 test cases. By creating this automation, we are able to test more efficiently with better coverage, and in addition we free up our software quality engineers to perform more value-added testing. We are investing in this area to ensure that each new release of JD Edwards EnterpriseOne is better than the last.

User Experience (Usability)

Our dedicated User Experience team is focused on making our applications easier to use. We redesigned applications such as Sales Order Entry to optimize user task completion rates; entering a sales order is now 31 percent faster. The efforts are not limited, however, to existing applications. Extensive work has also been done on new applications, including those in the demand flow manufacturing and CRM areas. We have also created significant JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Tools enhancements, including hot key support, improved data entry, and immediate user feedback.

Performance

Our development process now includes performance testing and tuning as a critical part of creating products. We give engineers feedback early in the development cycle to ensure that they have the time to address problems, and we have a suite of tools to help them. In addition, we have focused performance efforts on the most-used online applications and batch jobs. Members of the Performance and Benchmarking team have been assigned to functional areas to drive key improvements. For example, shipping an order (shipment confirmation) with integration to transportation management now 53 percent faster than before this effort. Batch jobs are also going to be enhanced; the work-order processing job has been improved by 52 percent.


Managing Change As you consider your choices, it is important to understand how you want to manage change for your organization. Generally speaking, you have the option to spread change across incremental steps, or to use a ‘big bang’ approach. For example, customers on Xe can upgrade to a more current version of EnterpriseOne, and then consider a subsequent move to Fusion. These customers will be exposing their end users to a web client, and their IT staffs to an internet-based architecture using middleware. Xe customers choosing to stay on Xe and consider Fusion Applications as they become available will see a more dramatic change if they move to Fusion directly.

Consider your company’s ability to handle change and whether it would be better to move incrementally or with a ‘big bang’ approach. While the business value available to you should always be the driving force in creating an upgrade strategy, it is important to weigh the costs and effects of change in creating a comprehensive plan.

Consulting and Education Services The costs of the various upgrade strategies you are evaluating must also be understood in order to make a well-informed decision. Analyzing the services costs with your services provider (whether it be a partner or Oracle) and your Oracle representative will help you efficiently understand this side of the equation.

Training for your end users and administrative staff can be accomplished as part of the consulting service, with classroom courses or with a combination of both approaches. This cost should be included in your evaluation.

Hardware When you are considering an upgrade, it is important to get updated hardware sizing information for your potential target release. This should take into account additional modules or functionality to be used, the option of converting to Unicode, the size of the new release itself and architecture and infrastructure changes.

Support Policy Review In addition to uncovering the benefits and costs of upgrading, you want to ensure you have the right levels of support through your entire project, including your current and target releases. Below is a summary of our Support Policy. For a more detailed discussion of these enhancements and the potential value they offer, please see the Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Support Policy.3

Oracle’s current support policy for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne is the best in the industry. This support policy includes:

New patches, fixes, security alerts, and upgrade scripts for five years from

3 Available at www.oracle.com/support or contact your account representative for additional information.

Both ‘big bang’ and incremental approaches are viable strategies; carefully

choose the right one for your organization..


general availability: These are easily accessible online. The availability of these items helps ensure that your systems run smoothly and reduces the risk of costly downtime.

Upgrade scripts: You receive direct upgrade scripts to the latest release, enabling you to take advantage of the most current capabilities. Note that upgrade script support will extend to the Premier Support retirement date of the release to which you are upgrading. For example, for customers upgrading from 8.9 to 8.11, the upgrade script will be supported until December 2009.

Tax, legal, and regulatory updates for six years from general availability: We will make commercially reasonable efforts to provide available tax, legal, and related regulatory updates for up to six years from the release date of the software you have licensed, ensuring a solid return on your software investment.

Sustaining support: You have access to the Global Support Center for problem solving and technical expertise, case management, self-service support tools, existing fixes and updates, existing tips and techniques, and available workarounds for the life of your software license.

Table 2. JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Update Matrix

Release GA Date

Updates, Fixes,Security Alerts, Upgrade Scripts

Tax, Legal and

Regulatory Extended

Support Ends

Sustaining Support

Ends

EnterpriseOne Xe2 Sep 2000 Dec 2013 Dec 2013 N/O1 Indefinite

EnterpriseOne 82 Jun 2002 Dec 2013 Dec 2013 N/O1 Indefinite

EnterpriseOne 8.9 Sep 2003 Sep 2008 Sep 2009 N/O1 Indefinite

EnterpriseOne 8.10 Jun 2004 Jun 2009 Jun 2010 N/O1 Indefinite

EnterpriseOne 8.113,4 Dec 2004 Dec 2009 Dec 2010 Dec 2012 Indefinite

EnterpriseOne 8.123 Apr 2006 Apr 2011 Apr 2012 Apr 2014 Indefinite

Table 2 Notes: (1) N/O = Not Offered (2) JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Xe and 8 will receive Premier Support until 2013. (3) JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.11 and 8.12 will each have a direct path to Oracle Fusion Applications. (4) The support timeframes for the 8.11 release also includes release 8.11 SP1.

Table 2 shows support retirement dates, which are based on the date your software release became generally available. In many cases, there will be compelling business reasons to upgrade before the retirement date. If you have not begun planning beforehand, you will generally want to begin planning your upgrade approximately 18 months before the upgrade scripts retirement date for the release to which you are planning to upgrade, to ensure that you have time to evaluate your options. Although each upgrade scenario is unique, this timeframe will help prevent any gaps in support coverage and provide you with the maximum amount of time on each release.


IDENTIFYING BUSINESS VALUE With so many enhancements and products added to the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne product line in the last few years, you will want to get enough information to understand which advances can benefit your business, and where to get more detailed information. The sections below highlight major areas of investment so you can look further. The document Upgrade Value Proposition for Oracle JD Edwards OneWorld Xe to EnterpriseOne 12 is a great place to get more details.4

Please note that information about two releases before 8.11 (JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.9 and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.10) is included to provide information about the functionality added to JD Edwards EnterpriseOne with each release, and is not intended as a recommendation that you upgrade to those older versions of the software.

Release Considerations

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Release 8.9

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.9 focused heavily on enhancements to our Supply Chain Management (SCM) products, and it also included enhancements to the Financial Management (FM), Human Capital Management (HCM) and Asset Lifecycle Management (ALM) product areas. These enhancements are available for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.9 and later releases. In total, this release included over 350 enhancements.

Enhancement areas include:

4 This document can be found at the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Upgrade web site at www.peoplesoft.com/corp/en/iou/upgrade/e1_upgrd_resources.jsp. In addition, release-specific documentation is also available from this site.

Profit management

Product variants

Price management

Promotions foundation

Lot control

Cross-docking

Dual units of measure

New engineer-to-order (ETO) capabilities

Configurator (configured items processing)

Order-to-cash

Unicode

Supply chain planning

Employee Self-Service

HCM data edits and data quality

Key benefits include the ability to:

Analyze profitability by customer, product, or project

Streamline the order-to-cash cycle

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Release 8.9 included numerous enhancements that are

also included in later releases.


Reduce inventory

Improve revenues via up-selling capabilities

Reduce supply chain costs

Increase customer satisfaction

Better manage multimode manufacturing projects

Consolidate view of global operations across multiple language sets

Use standardized XML-based supply chain planning integration

The enhancements to SCM, FM, and ALM are ideally suited to the consumer goods, industrial manufacturing, life sciences, and wholesale distribution industries. These new capabilities can help enhance your ability to manage cycle times, reduce inventories, and improve sales and customer satisfaction.


With the release of JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.10, we further enhanced the already robust functionality for the demand-driven enterprise. The new applications and capabilities support lean principles that help reduce costs, increase revenue, and optimize asset utilization.

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.10 improves supplier relationship management, supply chain management, human capital management, customer relationship management, financial management, and asset lifecycle management. These enhancements are available in JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.10 and later releases.

Highlights of this release include

Demand Scheduling Execution, a new offering designed to enhance collaboration for release accounting environments

Customer self-service enhancements that help lower costs while improving service

Enhanced logistics management to provide a sound foundation for data collection, upon which new radio frequency identification (RFID) logistics tactics can be developed

Improved cash and expense management

Financial and human capital management enhancements aimed at simplifying legislative and regulatory compliance

Important new equipment cost analysis and condition-based monitoring capabilities for improving performance of capital assets

Significant improvements to subcontract management to increase user efficiency

More sophisticated tool, crew, and machine representation to increase the accuracy of supply chain plans and schedules

Introduction of the new eRecruit module

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Release 8.10 included numerous enhancements and is

the last release available that supports traditional client/server architecture.


Across the product line, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.10 also increases employee productivity with overall enhancements for ease of use. The focus is on providing an enhanced total ownership experience for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne.


JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.11 is our first release designed exclusively for the Web and includes more than 250 product enhancements including new functionality designed for manufacturers in consumer goods, industrial manufacturing, life sciences, asset intensive industries, and also for those businesses in project-based services industries. Oracle plans to include the enhancements available in JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.11 in future planned releases.

The new release delivers the following breakthrough solutions:

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Customer Relationship Management: The first enterprise CRM solution to incorporate manufacturing-specific business processes for sales and after-sales service interactions, including lead and opportunity management, consensus-based forecasting, real-time order promising, and case and service management. The solution also embeds customer-facing processes with back-office operations to deliver consistent customer information across the enterprise.

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Demand Flow® Manufacturing: Formalized, patented approaches for designing production lines, managing material replenishment, and staffing manufacturing production lines based on production volume and skill levels. The solution leverages licensed technology from JCIT International.

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne RFID Processor: Builds on our existing outbound RFID solution that enables suppliers to meet their customers’ RFID requirements for each ship-to location. The new RFID Processor, designed for processing inbound and outbound RFID shipments, provides manufacturing professionals with immediate visibility into inventory—whether it is in-transit, in a warehouse, or at the manufacturing plant.

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Sales and Operations Planning: Provides a single analysis workspace for sales, manufacturing, operations, and financial decision-making. As a result, companies can create multiple what-if scenarios to effectively select the best supply and demand options.

Project and service industry customers benefit from the most significant enhancements to core project management applications since the debut of OneWorld. Performance-based labor forecasting enables earned value analysis by self-performing firms. Pay-when-paid capabilities will help those that rely on subcontracting. The JD Edwards EnterpriseOne solution for government contractors includes expanded capabilities for burdening and retroactive rate adjustments.

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.11 also includes numerous total ownership experience enhancements. Some of the highlights include:

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Release 8.11 included numerous enhancements and is

built on an internet-based architecture.


Performance gains in installation, reducing the duration by 38 percent in our testing

Streamlining of key user tasks, reducing completion time by 28 percent in our testing

Pathcode cloning, creating efficiency in creating new environments and reducing installation and upgrade time by 25 to 40 percent.

Automation of some manual steps in ESU application.

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.11, and Tools 8.95, includes the first certification of Fusion Middleware with the product line. In addition to continued support and certification for WebSphere, this offers choice to customers looking to adopt technologies and/or begin to understand products that will be become increasingly important with Fusion applications.


With the release of JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.12, we have included enhanced business functionality, greater usability and performance and driven down the cost of ownership of EnterpriseOne. The 8.12 release also offers new strategic software modules, one with broad market benefit and three with deep vertical functionality. Oracle plans to include the enhancements in 8.12 in future planned releases.

Highlights of this release include:

Operational Sourcing to manage procurement from the request for a proposal through supplier selection and award. Buyers can access real-time, accurate and complete information for direct, indirect and services procurement.

Grower Management, Grower Pricing and Payment, and Blend Management to address the production and supply management needs of the food and beverage industry

HCM enhancements to improve the capture, viewing, validation, payment and reporting of leave information in addition to improvements in eRecruit, payroll, and the introduction of employee scheduling and more

Demand Scheduling Execution to enable the process of ordering, tracking, packaging and shipping parts for a series of sequenced requests from an OEM, particularly for automotive suppliers.

Advanced Pricing enhancements to support new pricing strategies and improved price management capabilities, retaining customers by giving them the right price at the right time. Provides new ways to calculate prices, view and manage pricing set up information, and accelerate price resolution to meet customer demands.

Activities Homepage and direct access to transactions related to an activity to improve usability and efficiency in managing calendar entries and tasks. By ensuring sales and service representatives can effectively manage their discussions, meetings, and follow up tasks you prevent sales opportunities

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Release 8.12 continues to deliver new industry

functionality with three Food and Beverage Producers modules. Also included is a

new any industry application for Operational Sourcing and enhancements

to Advanced Pricing and HCM


from falling through the cracks and improve customer loyalty by keeping focus on resolving important service issues.

Across the product line, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.12 also increases employee productivity through improved performance in critical applications like Advanced Pricing, usability enhancements such as icons in grids, and improved auditing and security reporting.

Technical enhancements also drive down the cost of managing EnterpriseOne. For example, many administrative applications have been redeployed at HTML client applications, reducing dependence on expensive fat client environments. Another example is platform independent metadata, which simplifies tasks such as package build and web server deployment.

For customers looking to adopt technologies that will become increasing important in the future, or who have evolving technology needs, 8.12 and Tools 8.96 extends certification to new areas of Fusion Middleware as well as the latest WebSphere components. For example, customers can take advantage of the Fusion report-formatting tool (XML Publisher) today with Tools 8.96.

Technological Considerations In addition to functional enhancements, the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne product line has also added many technological advances over the last few years. As a starting point to understand the potential value available to you from technological advances consider the following topics:

Client architecture

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)

Middleware: Application Servers and Portals

Middleware: Fusion Middleware

Reporting (Crystal and XML Publisher)

Unicode

Platform options (hardware, operating systems, databases)

Client Architecture

Over the past several years, internet-based applications have made great progress in improving user experience. The JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Web client provides the same rich functionality as that of a Windows client, but at a fraction of the cost to deploy and maintain. This architecture also lends itself to collaboration between supply chain partners. The cost savings are significant because the solution does not require any client software to be installed on the end user’s machine (other than a Web browser). This reduces hardware, software, and maintenance costs. Fewer servers also mean easier upgrades and administration. If one of your goals is to minimize deployment costs, the Web client might be the right solution. The Web client is especially attractive to companies with multiple, geographically dispersed locations.

Technology by itself may not be a driving factor, but it may be a contributing factor

to the business case for upgrading.


All JD Edwards EnterpriseOne releases after JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Xe support the Web client, and we have made a significant effort to improve the Web client over the past few years. JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.11 was our first release to exclusively support the Web client, optimizing the end user experience for the Web.

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne supports the most popular Web browsers, including Internet Explorer, Safari for the MacOS, and Mozilla on Linux environments. The EnterpriseOne Web client also supports SSL transmissions, thereby ensuring secure encrypted transactions. Because the intuitive Web browser interface is so frequently used and familiar to users, it requires less training, reduces help desk calls, and lowers your support costs.

Service Oriented Architecture

Integrating your applications is a key capability in your systems strategy. Most organizations running EnterpriseOne connect this system to multiple other products. In addition to the robust selection of integration options that EnterpriseOne already offers, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.11 and 8.12 provide the option of using a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA).

Many organizations are adopting the concept of a SOA as a means to a flexible and cost effective integration strategy. One of the cornerstones of SOA is the ability to produce and consume business services based on web service standards. Starting with JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Tools release 8.95 our robust selection of integration options has been expanded to include a new tool call Web Services Gateway (WSG). Web Services Gateway enhances our current toolset to provide native Web Service capabilities. This native web services capabilities coupled with JD Edwards published Integration Points (IP) gives you the ability to leverage the benefits of SOA.

All customers upgrading to JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.11 and 8.12 receive licenses for Web Services Gateway and Integration Points that provide native Web services capability for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne. By providing Web service functionality as part of the base offering, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne enables you to integrate a heterogeneous IT environment in a standards-based manner. These capabilities can increase your flexibility and decrease the cost of creating and maintaining integrations.

Further, customers upgrading to JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.11 and 8.12 can expand their SOA implementation with the use of the Oracle BPEL PM product for creating process orchestrated business processes.

Middleware: Application Servers and Portals

If you select the Web client, you will have options for your applications server and optional Portal components. JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.9 and later releases support multiple applications servers. We continue to support IBM’s WebSphere Application Server, and starting with our release of JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Tools 8.95 we also support Oracle Applications Server 10g. You can choose to operate your middleware directly on your enterprise server, adjusting your hardware


capacity accordingly, or you can expand your infrastructure to accommodate a separate applications server, which is the recommended method.

Oracle Application Server provides a scalable, secure, and comprehensive solution for enterprise applications, portals, and Web sites, providing complete business integration and full, service oriented architecture (SOA) lifecycle support. Oracle is committed to building business applications to support this next generation of technology. JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Tools 8.95 and 8.96 bring you one step closer to the future of applications technology and will help simplify your IT operations.

Middleware: Fusion Middleware

One of your options for adopting new technological products is to evaluate Fusion Middleware. In addition to the application server and portal components discussed above, Fusion Middleware contains a set of capabilities that can help you integrate business processes in different systems, increase your responsiveness and lower your administration costs. Fusion Middleware can be reviewed both for the business value it delivers today and for helping your organization learn new skills and technologies that will become increasing relevant as you move toward Fusion Applications. Key Fusion Middleware capabilities that EnterpriseOne has adopted in recent releases include:

Oracle Application Server, including Oracle Containers for J2EE (OC4J) and Oracle HTTP Server, which enable the EnterpriseOne Web client as discussed above

Oracle Portal, which enables a unified user experience to EnterpriseOne applications and other critical information that users need to execute their tasks effectively

Internet Directory and Single Sign-on, which allow secure yet transparent access to Oracle Portal, EnterpriseOne applications, and other applications that have adopted Oracle Single Sign-on

Oracle BPEL PM (Business Process Execution Language Process Manager), which enables enterprises to orchestrate and execute Web services and business processes within a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)

Oracle XML Publisher (discussed below)

Reporting

For many customers, custom reporting represents a significant investment. In addition to the existing capabilities in the EnterpriseOne toolset, we now offer Crystal products and an Oracle product called XML Publisher.

Crystal

Integration with the Crystal products is enabled beginning with EnterpriseOne Tools 8.94 and is compatible with EnterpriseOne 8.9, 8.10, 8.11, and 8.12. The


Crystal integration with EnterpriseOne is made up of two pieces of software: Crystal Reports for EnterpriseOne, and Crystal Enterprise for EnterpriseOne. Crystal Reports, targeted at developers, provides the ability to build end user reports with flexible and rich report formatting features such as charts, conditional highlights, and customized templates. Crystal Enterprise enables users to manage and distribute reporting content. It has centralized security with a single console for managing services and controlling data access, system performance,

XML Publisher

XML Publisher is integrated with EnterpriseOne Tools 8.96 and is compatible with EnterpriseOne 8.11 SP1 and 8.12. The integration of XML Publisher into EnterpriseOne provides another valuable tool giving customers increased reporting capabilities leveraging their investment in EnterpriseOne reports that are used to generate the XML that XML Publisher consumes. This new integration allows EnterpriseOne users to make pixel perfect documents by creating templates with tools they are already familiar with like Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat.

Unicode Support

Unicode refers to a computer-readable system for representing languages. For example, Unicode has a way for your computer to store and present to you the English words in this paragraph, as well as punctuation and special characters such as the dollar sign ($) and ampersand (&). There are hundreds of encoding systems that were created before Unicode; for example, the European Union alone requires the use of several encoding systems to cover all its languages. Unicode provides a unique number for every character, regardless of platform or language. Incorporating Unicode into client-server or multi-tiered applications and web sites offers significant cost savings over the use of legacy character sets.

The JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Tools have been converted to operate on Unicode-encoded characters, enabling configuration data as well as business data to be stored in the Unicode format.

Unicode Enables Database Instance Consolidation

Without support for Unicode, if your business data requires multiple character sets (for example English and Simplified Chinese), your implementation would have to carefully consider the implications of maintaining separate databases for each language. Unicode support allows these database instances to be consolidated and managed in a single instance, reducing the overall cost of maintenance.

Conversion to Unicode is optional, but it should be carefully considered. Unicode enables instance consolidation for global companies, which can dramatically reduce IT and business operations costs. By supporting multiple alphabets in the same database, you can move to all your JD Edwards EnterpriseOne instances onto one. However, there are other important aspects to consider. Although Unicode requires more disk space than a non-Unicode database, converting to Unicode improves overall system performance after your upgrade. Oracle recommends that all


customers convert to Unicode, because doing so provides the best system performance.

Platform Options

Since its inception, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne has been architected to operate across a wide range of hardware and operating system combinations. This platform neutrality allows JD Edwards EnterpriseOne to meet the requirements of a broad range of enterprises, from those whose primary driver is cost economy to those whose priorities are scalability and performance. JD Edwards EnterpriseOne continues to adopt the latest technologies from the industry in a way that remains transparent to the end users of the applications. In this way, IT departments can capitalize on platform enhancements to simplify operations, reduce cost, or boost performance without causing disruption to the business operations of the end users. Generally, the latest technology advancements will be adopted by the latest JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Tools releases; therefore, customers may find technology benefits that contribute to their business case for upgrading.

Hardware and Operating System Options

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne supports a broad range of hardware and operating systems, including Red Hat Linux, Microsoft Windows, UNIX (AIX, HP-UX, and Solaris), and IBM System i (formerly known as iSeries). Recent advancements in the production, availability, and cost of 64-bit processing have made this technology a very real option for even the most cost-conscious customers. Oracle intends that JD Edwards EnterpriseOne will continue to leverage its platform-neutral architecture to bring the benefits of platform technologies to its customers. As IT departments evaluate their infrastructure strategies to keep their hardware and operating systems current, they may require upgrades to later EnterpriseOne Tools releases to capitalize on these platform benefits.

Database Options

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne also supports a broad range of database management systems including Oracle Database, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM DB2 UDB, and DB2/400. Please note that the supported database version varies according to each release of JD Edwards EnterpriseOne. Oracle plans to maintain support for all of these database options for the life of the EnterpriseOne product.

If you are considering migrating databases as part of your upgrade strategy, it is a great time to evaluate the industry-leading Oracle Database 10g. Oracle Database 10g provides a secure and highly available database at a low total cost of ownership, and is supported starting with JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Tools 8.95.


ORACLE FUSION Oracle Fusion is a long-term commitment to providing our customers with access to the technologies, services, and resources that can revolutionize their business. There are three main components to Oracle Fusion:

Component 1: Fusion Architecture Oracle Fusion Architecture is a standards-based technology blueprint that details the linkage between enterprise applications, middleware and grid infrastructure technologies. Focusing on architectural integrity and openness for business applications and business information, Oracle Fusion Architecture defines the technology components required for Fusion Applications.5

Component 2: Fusion Middleware Oracle Fusion Middleware is a portfolio of leading, standards-based, and customer-proven software products that spans a range of tools and services including J2EE and developer tools, integration services, business intelligence, collaboration, and content management.

This comprehensive and well-integrated family of products offers complete support for development, deployment, and management of Service Oriented Architecture.6 Oracle Fusion Middleware's hot-pluggable architecture allows you to leverage your investments in any existing application, system, or technology. And because maximum uptime is good for business, the unbreakable qualities of Oracle Fusion Middleware's core technology minimize the disruption of planned or unplanned outages.7

Component 3: Fusion Applications Oracle Fusion Applications are planned to be a unified next generation of products integrating the “best of the best” software capabilities and business practices across Oracle’s portfolio. Oracle Fusion Applications are expected to revolutionize the way both developers and end-users will manage, adapt, and extend their business processes, business intelligence and systems management.8

Upgrade Paths to Oracle Fusion We plan to provide upgrade paths from JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Xe, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.11, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.12, and future releases of JD Edwards EnterpriseOne to Oracle Fusion. This approach should provide customers with ample time to review their options and adopt new technologies.

Oracle plans to make it be possible to move from any release of EnterpriseOne to Fusion depending on the requirements of your organization. In some cases, the upgrade might use an intermediate release, much as upgrades from B733.2 to 8.11

5 Visit Oracle.com: www.oracle.com/applications/fusion-architecture.html 6 Visit Oracle.com: www.oracle.com/technologies/soa/index.html 7 Visit Oracle.com: www.oracle.com/products/middleware/index.html 8 Visit Oracle.com: www.oracle.com/applications/fusion-white-papers.html


are done. In these situations, the upgrade plan is normally created to minimize the investment in the intermediate release.

MAKING A DECISION After researching the costs and benefits associated with upgrading your EnterpriseOne investment, you will want to aggregate the information to make a decision. Typically, choosing the release you will move to is a secondary concern. Consider making a decision about whether or not to upgrade first.

There are many ways to do this final evaluation, ranging from mathematical modeling to text summaries of the pros and cons. For your organization, create a business case or evaluation that best serves your business needs and decision style.

Following are some simple examples that may help you get started on your evaluation. From these ideas, you can create a hybrid or modified approach.

Approach 1: Financial Evaluation Spreadsheet One approach to deciding whether or not to upgrade is to assign dollar values to the costs and benefits you will experience, like the example in Table 3. This can be challenging for factors which are not easily quantified – for example, how do you estimate the cost of power users answering questions for other users, or the benefit of administrative staff being more efficient in their jobs? However, this approach can give you some indication of the financial impact and provide a basis for making a decision. In some cases, you may choose to calculate a return on investment (ROI) from this data.

Table 3. Financial Evaluation Matrix for Decision Process

Factor Cost Benefit Notes

Consulting $50,000 Bid from partner

Retiring 3rd Party Product

$65,000 Year 1; Cancel maintenance, stop administration due to new functionality

Automate new process

$30,000 Year 1; efficiencies from end users and less human error

Subtotals $50,000 $95,000

Advantage $45,000 Benefit after Year 1 (90% of cost)


Approach 2: Pro and Con Analysis A second approach, displayed in Table 4, is to evaluate your upgrade by listing the pros and cons of each potential strategy. You may rate, rank or score these to help you analyze the relative impact of each factor. You can then compare the lists to determine whether the pros or cons are most important to your business.

Approach 3: Strategic Map A third approach to your decision is to look at the drivers for your strategy and list the main costs and benefits based on these drivers. For example, consider a company that is trying to accomplish two strategic objectives: Increasing employee productivity and decreasing external spend. This company might summarize the major costs and benefits affecting these objectives. Table 5 shows one example.

Table 5. Strategic Mapping of Decision Process

Strategic Driver

Impact of Upgrading

Positive or Negative Impact

Usability improvements +

End users spending time in validation - Increasing Employee Productivity

Consolidating user interfaces +

New training required -

Outside consulting needs - Decreasing External Spend Replacing third party system +

Table 4. Pro and Con Analysis for Decision Process

Pro Importance (Ranked 1-4)

Access to latest enhancements 3

Longer support timeframe 2

Easier administration 1

Con Importance (Ranked 1-4)

External cost 3

Internal change 2

Need to acquire web server skills 1


NEXT STEPS AND OTHER RESOURCES We invite you to contact your account representative to get further information about the future of Oracle Applications and our commitment to your success. Your representative can help you identify the upgrade path that will meet your needs now and in the future.

You might also want to examine the following additional resources for detailed information.

Upgrades Section of Customer Connection The Customer Connection Web site contains a wealth of information on upgrades including documentation, “net change” documents, presentations, minimal technical requirements (MTR) guidelines, and more.

To access the latest information on upgrades, from the Customer Connection home page:

(1) Select Implement, Optimize + Upgrade in the on the left bar

(2) Select Upgrade Guide

(3) Select JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Upgrade Information

Of particular value will be the Upgrade Value Proposition for Oracle JD Edwards OneWorld Xe to EnterpriseOne 12 paper found in the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Upgrade Resources section. This detailed paper outlines all the information you need to understand the enhancements and new products that were released from JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Xe and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.12.

Product Documentation Product documentation can also be found on the Customer Connection Web site. Once logged into the site:

(1) Select Support from the navigation bar on the left

(2) Select Documentation

This site provides detailed documentation for each of our releases.

Printed Materials There are several additional papers, presentations, and documents available regarding Oracle’s application strategy available from oracle.com.

REFERENCED DOCUMENTS (1) Upgrade Value Proposition for Oracle JD Edwards OneWorld Xe to EnterpriseOne

12 (June 2006)

(2) Upgrade Strategies for Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne

(3) Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Support Policy

(4) Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Minimal Technical Requirements


ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS ALM Asset Lifecycle Management

BPEL Business Process Execution Language (Oracle workflow technology)

BPEL PM Business Process Execution Language Process Manager

CRM Customer Relationship Management

DFM Demand Flow® Manufacturing

ETO Engineer-to-Order (part of SCM)

ESU Electronic Software Updates

FM Financial Management (formerly known as Financial Management Systems (FMS))

HCM Human Capital Management (includes human resources)

IP Integration Point

MTR Minimal Technical Requirements

OC4J Oracle Containers For J2EE

RFID Radio Frequency Identification

ROI Return on Investment

SOA Service Oriented Architecture

SCM Supply Chain Management (includes manufacturing for JD Edwards)

WSG Web Services Gateway

GLOSSARY

Electronic Software Update (ESU): A cumulative fix to problem reported on a specific JD Edwards EnterpriseOne application or report. Go Live: Point in time transition from implementation to production – first use of the system to run your business. Implementation: Period of installation, configuration, testing and general preparation to use the system Planner ESU: Enhancements or fixes to JD Edwards EnterpriseOne applications used during installation, upgrades, and updates. These are used to update the Deployment Server. Production: Period of using the system to manage your business. Tools Release Patch: A cumulative fix to a problem reported in JD Edwards EnterpriseOne foundation (System) code. Tools Release: All fixes available since the previous Tools Release was introduced. Tools Releases are aggregate packages of foundation (system) fixes. Update: All fixes available since the release was introduced. Updates are aggregate packages of application fixes. Upgrade: Period of implementing the new release, while staying in production for your existing release.

Crafting the Business Case for Upgrading Your JD Edwards EnterpriseOne System Original: January 2006 (Dan Stern) Original title: Finding Value in Upgrading Your JD Edwards EnterpriseOne System Revised: June 2006 (Dan Stern, editor Rudy Lukez) Oracle Corporation World Headquarters 500 Oracle Parkway Redwood Shores, CA 94065 U.S.A. Worldwide Inquiries: Phone: +1.650.506.7000 Fax: +1.650.506.7200 oracle.com Copyright © 2006, Oracle. All rights reserved. This document is provided for information purposes only and the contents hereof are subject to change without notice. This document is not warranted to be error-free, nor subject to any other warranties or conditions, whether expressed orally or implied in law, including implied warranties and conditions of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. We specifically disclaim any liability with respect to this document and no contractual obligations are formed either directly or indirectly by this document. This document may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, for any purpose, without our prior written permission. Oracle, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, Siebel, and Retek are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. This document is for informational purposes only and may not be incorporated into a contract or agreement.

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