Hyperion transition to Enterprise Performance Management(EPM) SaaS4PaaS

By 2025, cloud computing is expected to dominate the technological landscape.

The next ten years will require IT decision-makers to map their cloud roadmap. Oracle Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) Cloud is the express ticket to effective modernization for Hyperion customers, so assessing the migration options for Oracle EPM Cloud is vital.

Let's get started!

What's going to happen to current Hyperion customer nvestments?

Today, Oracle continues to invest in Hyperion on-premises by delivering innovation and update releases for clients using Hyperion applications to close their books, plan, and forecast, and report to stakeholders on time, with agility, and confidently.

For those clients who've decided to stay on Hyperion on-premises, Oracle continues to offer support and will protect client investments. For this to continue uninterrupted, Hyperion clients must upgrade to release 11.2, as Premier Support will end at the beginning of 2022. Of course, the other route to ensure Hyperion instances are productive and protected is to use Oracle EPM Cloud or Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).

As financial needs continue to evolve, Oracle EPM Cloud is not just a bookkeeping application; it's now a strategic advisory support system where financial applications collaborate to drive the business forward through insights and data-backed financial information.

The 20+ years of Hyperion as the gold standard of EPM on-premises have been reimagined in Oracle Cloud EPM to meet modern business demands, addressing the value-add needs of clients.

Migrating from Hyperion to Oracle EPM Cloud

Thousands of Hyperion clients have successfully migrated to Oracle EPM Cloud, benefiting from its agility and cross-function coordination. The COVID-19 crisis indeed evidenced how critical cloud adoption is as more and more teams are going fully remote, and clients need to embrace the cloud-enabled digital reality we are in now.

Oracle EPM Cloud adds significant value when discussing financial processes like consolidation, closing, planning, forecasting, etc. Oracle research shows that 85% of Cloud EPM customers confirmed they received more value by being in the cloud during the pandemic, citing an improved and more streamlined financial close as one of the highest benefits.

With many clients still contemplating their move to the cloud, remote, collaborative workforces are becoming more predominant in the business landscape. Many clients moved to Oracle EPM Cloud to optimize remote work environments and improve productivity and collaboration. Of course, others migrated to avoid infrastructure investments and the ability to tap into automated functionalities.

One of the critical challenges of those who have yet to migrate to the cloud is the need for integration between finance and operations. This pain point was brought to a bigger stage thanks to the pandemic, instilling a sense of urgency in finance professionals who now regard cloud-enabled technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning as vital.

Many Hyperion clients are still using manual processes, missing out on these modern Oracle Cloud EPM capabilities that yield better, more accurate results.

Oracle EPM Cloud Migration

For Oracle EPM Cloud subscriptions as a new OCI client, you get a designated Oracle specialist to provision the activation of your software. You will require an Oracle Cloud account to activate the order and service.

For clients already on Oracle Cloud who purchase additional Oracle EPM Cloud instances, they can expand or add to the order. Reorders for more subscriptions are supported using the classic or OCI infrastructure.

New Oracle EPM Cloud subscriptions are supported via OCI, which employs Oracle Identity Cloud Services as the go-to identity store. Remember that Oracle EPM Cloud is a component of OCI, which delivers highly available computing power and infrastructure to Oracle EPM Cloud. OCI wholly supports new Oracle EPM Cloud subscriptions from new users.

Some may still remember or reference Oracle Cloud Classic, the predecessor to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and some Oracle EPM Cloud clients are supported on Oracle Cloud Classic. Of course, Oracle is pushing all workloads to migrate to their next-generation cloud infrastructure, OCI, for superior performance and many more features at a lower cost than Oracle Cloud Classic.

Oracle EPM Cloud business processes operate the same regardless of the type of OCI in use; nevertheless, there are differences between Classic and OCI environments. For example, the URL format in Classic functionality identifies the instance name, identity domain, EPM Cloud family, data center region, and application context. In contrast, in OCI functionality, the URL identifies the instance name, Cloud Account name, EPM Cloud family, data center region, and an application context.

Wrapping up

The Oracle EPM Cloud migration is a means to access the solution packed with end-to-end features that strengthen the business processes you leverage for your mission-critical financial tasks, ensuring your organization remains agile, connected, and secure across multiple areas. Depending on whether you subscribe to the standard or enterprise cloud service, you'll see different offerings housed in a powerful, configurable suite of software modules designed to meet your organization's unique needs.

With the latest release of Oracle Hyperion 11.2 and the end of Premier Support for Hyperion 11.1.2.4 in December 2021, companies must decide between upgrading to EPM 11.2 or migrating to EPM Cloud.

This blog will provide key factors to consider when deciding between Oracle EPM Cloud and Hyperion On-Premise upgrade.

The EPM 11.2 Release Announcement

"Continuous Innovation" release model for Hyperion EPM 11.2, making Hyperion part of Oracle's Applications Unlimited. Applications Unlimited is Oracle's commitment to continuous innovation while also providing a commitment to offering Oracle Premier Support through at least 2030.

Primary Considerations about Upgrading to EPM 11.2 vs. Migrating to EPM Cloud

Considering that Oracle will continue to invest in Hyperion on-premise, companies should ponder, based on their current environment and business goals, the following aspects:

Data Security

Customers cannot manage/control data stored with Oracle for Cloud applications.

If your company's policies do not allow having your financial data stored on vendor's servers, you need to stay on-premise

Cost/Benefit Ratio in a Long-term Perspective

On-premise involves a higher initial investment to purchase software licenses, hardware, installation, and maintenance.

Cloud applications represent a lower initial investment. However, the fee with Oracle cloud products is per month per user. For smaller organizations with few users, this could represent some savings. However, large organizations with many users must crunch the numbers to see if they're saving money.

Adoption

Many users currently use on-premise applications with complex user-based reports like Smart View, 3rd party applications to generate customized reports, etc. In that case, it may be a significant change for users to get all their requests done using cloud applications. Decision-makers must consider if it is a challenge for users to adopt a new interface and way of working if they choose the cloud. Cloud functionalities may differ for the end-user compared to on-premise, but end-users have beneficial options to make their functions flexible using the cloud.

Quarterly Updates

Oracle performs monthly or quarterly product updates to cloud applications to automatically schedule the release cycle, add new features, and fix defects. In many ways, this is a significant benefit. However, this can be a negative for some companies, as the updates happen on short notice and could change. Features and functions just when you're getting used to them

Advantages of Upgrading to EPM 11.2

1. Premier support, at least till 2031, may extend
2. Uplift to FMW 12g release
3. Streamlines and simplifies infrastructure and architecture for the future
4. Replace Foundation services with a simpler RDBMS repository

Content migration for FR/Workspace to RDBMS repository

3rd party certifications

Server OS: Windows 2019, Windows Server 2016 (For 11.2.1)

Client OS: Windows 10, Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2016

RDBMS: Oracle 11.2.0.4+, Oracle 12.1.0.1+, Oracle 12.2.0.1, +Oracle 12.2, SQL Server 2016

JDK 1.8

Browser:

11.2: Internet Explorer 11.x, Firefox ESR

11.2.1: Internet Explorer 11.x, Firefox ESR, Google Chrome 80+, Microsoft Edge 80+

Edge, Chrome, Firefox

Performance improvements: SV, DB batch processing, etc.

Flash Player: Calculation Manager no longer requires Adobe Flash

Enhancements are delivered through a series of feature-bearing PSUs with a simple update process

Should you be Upgrading to EPM 11.2? You can choose one instead of another depending on your situation.?

FAQ Around Upgrading to EPM 11.2?

1. Q: What's new with EPM 11.2: updates to Oracle EPM solution? Oracle introduced several new features to the EPM 11.2 release, with many more to come in the future, but at the same time, discontinued some of the features available in previous versions.
2. Q: How's the upgrading EPM 11.2 process?"Out of Place" MigrationHigh-Level FlowInstall 11.2 on new hardware with the supported OS, prereqsUse LCM from 11.1.2.4 to migrate application(s), artifact(s), etc to 11.2A similar process to previous releasesPlease note that LCMs from 11.1.2.4 are only supported