Navigating the Challenges of Oracle's Quarterly Cloud Fusion Updates
By: Paul Hassall , Platform Development Manager at More4apps
In the Oracle Cloud era, we encounter forced quarterly updates that promise new features and better security. However, they also bring risks, challenges, and disruptions for users.
This article explores the practical impacts of these updates and illustrates how More4apps can help alleviate associated challenges.
What are the Impacts?
File-Based Data Import Templates (FBDI)
The quarterly upgrades alter FBDI templates - including adding or removing columns - potentially causing issues with existing templates. Owing to their rigid nature, existing templates may no longer perform as anticipated or required.
Consequently, loading data can become problematic, requiring a thorough comparison of versions and reworking current processes to ensure the proper functionality of the updated template. This inevitably results in additional time and disruption to the business.
Disruptions and Downtime
Implementing upgrades is a time-consuming process, as it applies across all instances including test, development, and production.
This inevitably incurs downtime, temporarily halting staff, processes, and ongoing projects until the instance is fully operational again. Managing these scheduled upgrades requires additional planning, presenting challenges that vary based on your specific business requirements.
Documentation
As your company embraces the quarterly updates, the lack of comprehensive documentation introduces uncertainty. Imagine a crucial process undergoing an undocumented change, disrupting workflows and potentially introducing security vulnerabilities.
This lack of transparency complicates adaptation, diverting valuable time and resources from strategic objectives. While we may get new features and updates there will always be the fear of the unknown and taking on a quarterly upgrade can be a huge risk.
Testing
Testing the changes introduced by Oracle's quarterly Cloud Fusion updates is a pivotal yet intricate aspect that businesses must navigate cautiously. On one hand, the need to conduct thorough testing is obvious where documented, however, the challenge intensifies when businesses grapple with testing aspects that aren't immediately visible.
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Imagine changes to a purchasing team's processes that aren't easily spotted through the Oracle web forms or FBDI templates. Testing for these "invisible" changes becomes near impossible and any impacts may only appear when implemented into production.
Benefits
Oracle quarterly updates are vital to all businesses using Fusion Cloud. They provide the latest security patches and updates to ensure up-to-date security. While they do introduce complications we recommend that you always upgrade and be on the latest versions to be up to date with the latest security frameworks and features.
Why More4apps?
At More4apps, our commitment lies in offering a reliable platform, prioritizing a seamless user experience that operates effortlessly when you need it.
Our templates are crafted with backward compatibility in mind, for any changes like adding fields, for example, we ensure past versions will continue to function, mitigating potential risks and minimizing disruptions to your ongoing processes and projects.
More4apps conducts evaluations of both changes and new features released by Oracle, making them a part of our roadmaps and ensuring our tools not only align with the latest functionality but also possess the flexibility and resilience required to navigate any alterations.
Recognizing the certainty of change with quarterly upgrades, we are committed to transparent communication. We document impacts and directly inform you, ensuring your experience with our tools remains consistent amid Oracle's evolving updates.
??Click here to learn more about our solutions for Cloud and how they can enhance your user experience.
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