DSP: Oracle CloudWorld: Modernising Enterprise Applications on OCI

I had the privilege to present at Oracle CloudWorld 2023 on the topic of Modernising Enterprise Applications in OCI. For those who couldn’t attend, I thought I would share some of the ideas from that session.

There are five key options for Application Modernisation: Rehost, Replatform, Rearchitect, Rebuild and Replace. When referring to Enterprise Applications, i.e. ERP Applications, we typically focus on the first three, Rehost, Replatform and Rearchitect. You can, of course, Replace, and this is a route to things like Fusion Apps, i.e. a SaaS Application Platform. DSP has a wealth of experience in Modernising Enterprise Applications into Oracle Cloud, and we have several case studies on EBS, IFS, Hyperion, Primavera and JDE, as shown below:

• PRIMEdge case study

• RPC UK case study

• Thungela case study

• Stonewater case study 

Through the DSP Cloud Transformation journey, each of those modernisation paradigms needs to be weighed up against the key dimensions of Business Value, Risk, Time to Value, Business Disruption and Cost of Change.

In our experience, the greatest benefits you can realise when moving to Cloud can be achieved through the Replatforming and Rearchitecting paradigm. The key reason for this is that those options enable you to utilise new Cloud services, which can speed up patching, ease standard administration tasks and even enhance your security posture.

A very simple example of this would be moving your Oracle Database to the Oracle Database Service, a PaaS platform. This would be an example of Replatforming. Let’s look at the dimensions highlighted above:

• Business Value
  • Enhance security posture through transparent data encryption (TDE)
  • Enhance security posture through the utilisation of Cloud Guard and Data Safe
  • Reduce the cost of DR by using ‘Pilot Light DR’ through point-and-click automation
  • Reduce administration costs of database tasks like provisioning and backups
    
    
• Risk
  • Low risk due to the interoperability of Oracle’s software either on-premises or in the Cloud 
    
    
• Time to Value
  • Business value achieved at the point of migration
  • Doesn’t impact migration plan or timescales 
    
    
• Cost of Change
  • Minimal cost of change
    
    
• Business Disruption
  • Business operating processes would need to be updated to manage the PaaS platform effectively, however once realised, then further efficiency could be achieved

One of the key points I wanted to stress at Oracle CloudWorld was for customers to lean into the innovation of the platform itself to realise more business benefits. Many customers who haven’t moved to the Cloud yet, have a baseline concern of “will it work?”.

I can guarantee that it would, but that concern of just getting it working effectively leaves a lot of cake on the table. It’s important that you are ambitious in the move to Cloud, as it’s not something you want to keep doing. If you are going to make the most of the business disruption in the effort that it takes to move to a Cloud platform, then you need to embrace all it can offer.

I really enjoy working with customers to discuss how the OCI platform can benefit organisations, and if you would like to discuss that, please feel free to get in touch or book a meeting.