This is a short blog post to give you my Apps DBA takeaway from Oracle OpenWorld 2011 in the context of Oracle Fusion Applications (new Oracle ERP/CRM/…+ product).
Initially in June/July this year as many of Oracle Apps DBAs I got very excited about the Fusion Applications technical availability on the eDelivery site. However getting some details I came to a realization that there are going to be very limited client hosted implementations in the coming year or so. Everything that I have heard during Oracle Open World just confirmed my current understanding.
The general messages about Fusion Applications are clear:
- Slow adoption (I am not an expert but it sounds like the existing Fusion Applications functionality just partially covers “old” applications).
- Coexistence with existing products – EBS, Peoplesoft, Siebel etc- Applications Unlimited (more licences ;).
- Oracle preferred hosting model is Applications in the Oracle cloud (Salesforce alike) or Oracle hosted implementations. IMHO: Oracle are not too excited to keep hardware and operations on the client’s premises.
- Hardware requirements are sky high. 6-8 hosts with 100-140 GB of RAM in total for a single sand box implementation :)
Unfortunately there is no way a technical enthusiast like myself would be able to install Fusion Applications in home laboratory to learn, learn, learn … blog, blog, blog. This was possible with EBS but is not possible with FApps unless a workstation prices with 140GB RAM will drop significantly (in fact you need to buy a server today as workstations don’t allow you to have that much memory) or you find a good sponsor ;).
This, at the same time, means that other products from Applications Unlimited group will stay around for awhile. I predict that many customers who hold off on their migration project waiting on the Oracle Fusion Applications will start migrating to the latest products releases now. As an example I know many Oracle e-Business Suite clients who stayed on 11i release with hopes that they will migrate to Applications Fusion directly. It is clear now that it isn’t going to happen. At least not in next 12-18 months. Those clients are starting migration projects to R12 now.
Just few more thoughts/observations:
- I wouldn’t be surprised to see Oracle releasing Oracle Fusion Applications Appliance (alike ODA). As it much easier to buy it prepackaged rather than spend weeks installing it from scratch.
- There are some interesting technical licencing prerequisites. On top of everything a client will need to buy a Fusion Application Management Pack for each Core involved in running FApps processes (e.g. 8 hosts x Core count in one host x FApps Mgmt Pack licence).
- As Oracle put a lot of “standalone” products into FApps we are going to have an interesting time troubleshooting, patching and getting all the products running together. As an example of a “standalone” product I can mention the following Oracle Identity Management, Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle Data Integrator, Oracle Secure Search etc.
I would like to be wrong with my current conclusions and look forward to the day I get involved in my first Oracle Fusion Applications implementation project.
Yury
8 Comments. Leave new
The devil is in the details. Thanks for highlighting the sky high hardware requirements. Maybe Oracle wants to adopt the salesforce.com or workday.com approach of having all customers hosted in Oracle’s data center.
This is exactly my feeling Mohan. It looks like Oracle would like to gain saleforce.com success. Time will show if they succeed ;)
Of course they want everyione in the cloud. It’s the only way they can justify the existence and cost of running this white elephant…
Noons! It looks like you just came with nickname for FApps :) Elephant in the cloud :)
>Hardware requirements are sky high
That is a *lot* of hardware !
>Those clients are starting migration projects to R12 now.
And we’ve been hearing about Fusion for a very long time now.
Hemant, thank you for your comment. Fusion Apps still may be a good product. At least there are a lot if excitement in the air from functional folks.
My point is that we (Apps DBA) may not be involved for some time. At least there wasn’t too many answers on questions that most of Apps DBA came with to OOW.
Hardware requirements was one of the most popular questions. I bet you will not find anything about it from Oracle as for now.
If I would be in the FApps tech architects team I would start working hard on consolidating things to reduce number of J2EE containers involved to reduce memory requirements.
Can anybody highlight the basic requirement in moving to Oracle Fusion from Oracle EBS R12.1.3
A lot of $$$ is the basic one :). The be serious there is no straight forward way to upgrade from EBS to Fusion. To me honest with you I don’t see many customers doing it in next 2-3 years. EBS will stay a mainstream for now.