Migrating to Oracle Cloud ERP vs. upgrading Oracle EBS

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Migrating to Oracle Cloud ERP vs. upgrading Oracle EBS

September 8, 2022

Sohaib Zaidi

Since Oracle has ended Premier Support for EBS customers on version 12.1 and below, enterprises now face a tough choice: they must either take on a years-long migration to Oracle Cloud, or upgrade their EBS to version 12.2, which requires a quarter or longer to complete.

What does this mean if you’re still using EBS 12.1? The loss of Premier Support means you won’t receive the following:

New updates, fixes, security alerts, data fixes, and critical patch updates
New tax, legal, and regulatory updates
New upgrade scripts
Certification for new third-party products and versions
Certification for new Oracle products

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Download the E-book: Testing Strategy for Migration from Oracle EBS to Oracle Cloud

With most enterprises realizing they can’t continue to stay on EBS 12.1, this blog will highlight key differences between Oracle EBS Version 12.2 and Oracle Cloud ERP to help you make a more informed decision for your organization. This blog will also discuss how automated testing can make both Oracle Cloud migrations and EBS upgrades easier, and specifically, how Opkey helps ensure both types of projects are completed on-time and under-budget.

^{Oracle Cloud ERP}

Oracle Cloud ERP is available as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and it allows enterprises to scale and grow as their business develops and expands. Sometimes referred to as Oracle Fusion Cloud, it offers multiple modules on the same platform, without requiring an initial upfront investment in hardware, servers, IT teams and infrastructure. Oracle hosts and maintains all of the IT infrastructure while you migrate to Oracle Cloud ERP per your business requirements, and you can access it through your computer's internet connection.

^{Oracle EBS}

Oracle EBS is an on-premise suite of enterprise apps that helps customers to maintain global business, expedite decision-making, lower costs, and increase business performance. Oracle EBS was launched in February 2007, and has solutions for Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Human Capital Management (HCM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Supply Chain Management (SCM). The latest EBS version is 12.2.

^{Should my ERP move to Oracle Cloud ERP?}

A recent HubSpot survey indicates that nearly 70% of organizations opt for cloud-based ERP systems over on-premise systems due to their agility, ease of installation, and minimal IT infrastructure. Legacy ERP systems frustrate their customers because they move too slowly, lack day-to-day business insights, and are too technically complex for the realities and customer expectations of today’s digital world.

With Oracle publicly stating that the Cloud is their future, and with them pushing new customers to implement Cloud instead of on-premise solutions, migrating to Oracle Cloud ERP is a more sustainable option for organizations looking toward the future. If you’re not ready for a migration, there are still benefits to upgrading your Oracle EBS infrastructure. We’ll compare both options in the below chart:

A comparison: Oracle Cloud ERP vs. Oracle EBS

Parameter	Oracle Cloud ERP	Oracle EBS
Total Cost of Ownership	Full migration takes approximately 3 years. This requires millions of dollars for data migration, consulting, and testing services. While the upfront cost is substantial, over time, cost should decline, as Oracle maintains all IT infrastructure,	Similar cost of hardware and servers as EBS 12.1 because the infrastructure is still the same. That being said, upgrading to EBS 12.2 Requires increased CPU. In the short term, upgrading to 12.2 is less expensive than migrating to Oracle Cloud, but in the long-term, its TCO is higher.
Accessibility	Real-time accessibility from anywhere via the internet and on multiple devices. It supports multiple users as a SaaS solution.	More limited due to the nature of on-premise software. EBS is licensed per computer/ workstation.
System Upgrades	Oracle Cloud ERP has four quarterly updates per year.	Oracle EBS typically has major updates released every 3 to 5 years and critical patch updates as needed during the year.
Architecture	Built on adaptive cloud-based technology, Oracle Cloud ERP has modular architecture. This allows for more control, and more customization around areas like financials, resource allocation, and logistics.	Upgrades must be done across the full ERP system as opposed to smaller modular updates. Customers can integrate their EBS with SaaS applications, but IT teams must be heavily involved to design and build integrations.
System performance	Oracle promises 99.5% uptime for its Cloud customers.	An in-house IT department must support the system; there are greater risks of system downtime. Oracle phases out support levels over time.
Integrations	Supports sophisticated integrations between programs and business workflows. Allows storage of large quantities of data online.	EBS systems are highly configured to each unique business need, meaning integrations are not easy in Oracle EBS. Data can’t be easily shared because it’s stored on your on-prem servers.
Ability for Change	Most enterprises migrate to the cloud to provide greater agility and adaptability to changing market conditions for their business processes.	Most enterprises upgrade to 12.2 to keep business processes as is, or slowly adapt to change.

‍^{How Opkey’s automated testing solution enables seamless Oracle Cloud ERP migrations}‍

Continuous testing: To ensure your Oracle Cloud ERP migration runs smoothly, you need to test continuously throughout the migration process, and Opkey is built for continuous testing. Continuous testing allows users to find bugs right as they occur, and resolve them before they get into the later stages of the Oracle Cloud ERP release. This is important because bugs found early in a migration cost roughly 4x less to fix than bugs found later.

End-to-end testing: Opkey’s automated testing platform also enables end-to-end testing, which is key for Oracle migrations. Oracle Cloud ERP processes integrate heavily with custom and third-party applications, as outputs from Oracle Cloud become inputs for other applications, and vice-versa. With Opkey’s end-to-end capabilities, full business processes can be tested across applications and technologies, ensuring that these processes will continue to work post go-live. Furthermore, because these complex tests can be executed in parallel via virtual machines, test speed is increased by 10x when compared to manual testing, and there is far less room for human error.

No-code testing: It’s also important that business users, who know their processes best, are involved with migration testing. Opkey’s no-code platform empowers these users to create and scale test automation. These business users can call on Opkey’s 5,000+ pre-built, automated Oracle tests to supplement their test library, and fill in the gaps with Opkey’s simple drag-and-drop test builder. Additionally, Opkey’s migration impact analysis feature clearly shows “as-is” business processes before the migration, as well as changes in their “to-be” processes in their new Oracle Cloud environment. This allows users to focus their testing on the processes with the biggest expected changes.

Built-in project management: Opkey also provides easy-to-understand dashboards that enable businesses to easily keep track of each aspect of testing. Through these dashboards, users can assign tasks, track progress, and communicate about specific tests. Reporting is automated for easy compliance and traceability.

Seamless Oracle Cloud updates: Once the migration is completed, Opkey ensures that all customers can certify their quarterly updates in just 3 days, through update-specific impact analysis–which tells you what in your Oracle applications will change with each update–and self-healing scripts–which enables users to fix broken tests with the click of a button. Opkey also offers a managed Oracle Cloud Certification as a service, where we fully take the burden of testing off your team’s hands. Oracle has mandatory quarterly updates with small changes that could break a test.

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Read Opkey's practical guide to testing Oracle Cloud updates

‍‍^{How Opkey enables quick EBS upgrades}‍

Upgrade-specific impact analysis: There are many functional and technical changes between 12.1 & 12.2, and it is challenging and time-consuming to address the changes reactively. Opkey's impact analysis report provides a complete view of impacted business flows & customizations, and recommends test cases based on the new upgraded version. This will guide test plan development by showing what will be most impacted with the upgrade, and what needs to be tested first.

‍End-to-end testing: An EBS environment runs hundreds of business processes, which touch multiple applications in Oracle EBS and reach outside the EBS to custom and third-party applications. End-to-end testing is required to ensure these key integrations and business processes continue working after an EBS upgrade. Opkey alerts users if middleware, custom, or 3rd party applications are at risk, ensuring that if your Oracle EBS changes, your full business processes do not break.

‍Automated CEMLI retrofit: Since you need to perform CEMLI retrofit in order to perform regression testing after the upgrade, Opkey’s drag-and-drop approach allows business users and manual testers to retrofit the test cases with minimal effort. Leveraging pre-built objects can be done easily without requiring any programming knowledge.Test data management: Getting the right data to test an end-to-end EBS process is an ongoing struggle for testers. Opkey solves this problem with an automated test data management solution that ensures the right test data is always available for automated testing.

‍Automatic test data management: Getting the right data to test an end-to-end EBS process is an ongoing struggle for testers. Opkey solves this problem with an automated test data management solution that ensures the right test data is always available for automated testing.

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‍Read more: Opkey’s testing strategy for upgrading to EBS 12.2.

‍^Conclusion

Oracle EBS customers on version 12.1 have two options now that Premier Support has ended for the current version: they can begin the multi-year upgrade to Oracle Cloud, which will keep their enterprise agile for the foreseeable future with regular updates to their ERP software, or upgrade their EBS system to Version 12.2. Both projects require a robust testing program, and introducing test automation is vital to ensuring these projects are complete on time and under budget. Opkey’s test automation platform supports each of these plans with unique features, pre-built tests, and a user friendly platform.