The Road to the Cloud:

Five Practical Steps Oracle EBS

®

Professionals Can Take Today

—
White Paper
TABLE OF CONTENTS

3 Ready or Not – The Cloud is Coming

4 Assess Custom Code

5 Map and Document Business Processes

6 Upgrade to Oracle Version 12.2

7 Go Back to Standard

8 Patch on Schedule

9 Follow the Road to the Cloud

2 The Road to the Cloud: Five Practical Steps Oracle EBS Professionals Can Take Today
®
 Ready or Not
The Cloud is Coming
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock somewhere, you know that
Oracle is aiming for the cloud.

However, cloud adoption varies by organization. Small and medium size

businesses are rushing to the cloud, but enterprises are more cautious.
According to Oracle, more than half of the Oracle ERP cloud customers are
SMBs. The cloud offers SMBs flexibility and scalability while allowing them
to work with a nimble IT staff, letting Oracle take care of the heavy lifting.

But enterprises are different. A recent report by Gartner states:

Legacy ERP customizations that addressed gaps in

functionality may inhibit the effectiveness of moving
to a cloud ERP solution, delaying the expected
realization of benefits.

Enterprises are still struggling with understanding how to make the

massive - and risky - move to the cloud. ERP systems at large companies
are vast, complicated, and deeply entrenched in an organization’s
infrastructure. Enterprise migrations take time. Migration is disruptive.

Despite these challenges, enterprises know that they have to get ready
for the impending cloud.

According to Diginomica, information technology leaders are feeling

the pressure to move systems to the cloud... The cloud is capturing
the imagination, and increasingly the budget, of not only technology
organizations but everyone who believes in the potential of cost effective
and agile IT.

To help you prepare, here are five best practices to get you started on
your journey to the cloud.

3 The Road to the Cloud: Five Practical Steps Oracle EBS Professionals Can Take Today
®
CHAPTER 1

Assess Custom Code

Oracle implementations are traditionally messy. Custom code lies
around unused, lost in history, and all over the place.

Start mapping your custom code today. Take an inventory of what’s

available, what’s in use, and what hasn’t been touched in years.

According to Panaya’s analysis of over 3,000 Oracle landscapes, 70%

of the EBS implementations have over 30% of code left unused.
RDx_Oracle_De... TEST ASSETS

Small Medium Large VeryLarge

0 1,500 4,000 10,000
Number of Analyzed Objects

Analyzed Objects
See Objects List
Origin All Show Object Type Group By Usage Level

Discoverer Report

View

Package

Framework File

Profile

Fast Formula

Concurrent Program

Function

XMLP Template

Procedure

Concurrent Report

Trigger

XMLP Data Definition

Object Type

Concurrent XML Publisher

Framework Function

Form

Form Extensions

Concurrent Host

Workflow

Alert

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500 5000 5500 6000 6500 7000 7500 8000 8500 9000 9500 10 000 10 500 11 000 11 500 12...

In Use Not In Use Unknown

View your Oracle Object Usage using Panaya Release Dynamix

®

4 The Road to the Cloud: Five Practical Steps Oracle EBS Professionals Can Take Today ®
CHAPTER 2

Map and Document

Business Processes
A lot of changes have happened over the past few years within your
system. So start with mapping your existing business processes.

Why? On average, 70% of customers have coverage for only 20% of

their business processes. Once you have a catalog of your existing
business processes than you can validate that each and every
process is covered by the cloud migration. You then have visibility
about what needs to be done and what needs to be adjusted.

This is a lengthy process. It can take several months. However, you can
get started immediately with Panaya’s Oracle EBS Health Assessment
and, within two days, you can get a high level overview of your Oracle
EBS system.

5 The Road to the Cloud: Five Practical Steps Oracle EBS Professionals Can Take Today
®
CHAPTER 3

Upgrade to Oracle
Version 12.2
Panaya has analyzed thousands of projects for our Oracle EBS
customers. We are seeing the beginning of the next Oracle
upgrade wave.

Oracle EBS 12.2 offers a new and improved UI, mobile support,
online patching, as well as new business functionality. This is
a major step to enable organizations’ digital transformation.
Much of this functionality is similar to that provided by the
Oracle ERP cloud. Hence, upgrading to the latest release will
bring forward organizational readiness to the cloud transition.

Employees are sometimes resistant to the cloud. According to a report

from Strategy& (formerly Booz & Company), the global consulting team
at PwC, organizations “are likely to feel threatened by moving ERP
applications into the cloud.” They note that “moving ERP to the cloud
can create significant organizational disruptions that must be taken into
account when considering the options.”

Upgrading can reduce the cloud fear-factor. By staying continually

updated, employees’ learning curves will be easier, reducing internal
resistance.

After all, small jumps and continuous upgrades are far easier to handle
than a few, large leaps.

6 The Road to the Cloud: Five Practical Steps Oracle EBS Professionals Can Take Today
®
CHAPTER 4

Go Back to Standard
The heart of any ERP system is the organization’s customizations.
Organizations customize in order to align standard functionality with
their unique business needs.

As organization needs change, organizations customize more to

cover their requirements. In the short term, customizing is easier
than upgrading. However, business is dynamic and some of the most
important customizations today can become irrelevant tomorrow.
Technical debt builds. Those now obsolete customizations don’t go
anywhere.

One concern once you decide to move to the

cloud is what will happen with customizations.
Oracle positions the cloud as an application
with minimum customizations. As Larry Ellison
said “Think Extend, Not Change.” So, what
are you supposed to do with your existing
customizations?

Although Oracle doesn’t provide a

mechanism of automatically mapping
existing customization and capturing
the usage information (what is in use
Panaya indicates the level of ERP custom
and what you don’t use any more) code complexity
Panaya does.

Panaya provides an accurate picture of your existing customization

footprint, highlighting areas that you don’t use any more, and that can
be removed.

7 The Road to the Cloud: Five Practical Steps Oracle EBS Professionals Can Take Today
®
CHAPTER 5

Patch on Schedule
Security is critical. To address this, Oracle provides security patches on a
regular basis.

However, too many organizations are afraid that if they patch

something, something else will break.

Most Oracle EBS Clients don’t follow Oracle’s recommendation for on-
time security patches. Oracle’s CEO, Mark Hurd, admitted that “we know
our customers are a year behind on (security) patching.”

Oracle customers can see Oracle’s patching schedules and prepare for
Oracle’s critical quarterly patches.

By using Panaya to patch on schedule, organizations stay secure.

Security Patch Analysis

400

Days

350

Not Installed

300

250
Not Installed

200

150
Not Installed

100 116 Days To Install

50
Not Installed

0
Jan 2015 - 19873049 Apr 2015 - 20406628 Jul 2015 - 20406628 Oct 2015 - 20953340 Jan 2016 - 22133441

Panaya alerts you if you are missing critical security patches.

8 The Road to the Cloud: Five Practical Steps Oracle EBS Professionals Can Take Today
®
Follow the Road
to the Cloud
Be Cloud
Ready
Learn how Panaya helps
with each step on the road

Upgrade to
Oracle
Version 12.2

Patch on
Schedule

Assess
Custom
Code

Go Back
to Standard

Map and
Document
Business
Processes

9 The Road to the Cloud: Five Practical Steps Oracle EBS Professionals Can Take Today
®
THANK YOU
www.panaya.com

About Panaya | Panaya, an Infosys company, is the leader in SaaS-based change

automation and testing for SAP®, Oracle® and Salesforce. Panaya provides a cloud-based
solution to manage application changes, reducing the time, cost and risk associated with
any application change by 50%. Since 2008, 2,000 companies in 62 countries, including a
third of the Fortune 500, have been using Panaya to enable safe go-live for their business
critical applications.

10 The Road to the Cloud: Five Practical Steps Oracle EBS Professionals Can Take Today
®