The only thing that is constant is change. JD Edwards began with World, then moved on to Client Server, then introduced HTML client, and now there’s EnterpriseOne 9.2. Clayton Seeley, a Product Architect on the Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Development team, spoke at COLLABORATE 19 about how to streamline the process when upgrading to JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.2. He walked through the latest upgrade improvements that can help cut weeks off of your upgrade process. JD Edwards has automated the process of getting code current during an upgrade, which removes manual steps like applying ESUs, special instructions, and Tools releases.

Benefits of Upgrading and Staying Current

There are quite a few compelling reasons to upgrade and stay current, including:

• Realizing rewards: Gaining industry-specific enhancements and new functional modules
• Retaining resources: A modern user experience and increased user satisfaction
• Reaching remotely: Leveraging technologies like mobile applications and Internet of Things (IoT)
• Reacting rapidly: Digital transformation and the ability to leverage new technology faster
• Reducing risk: Technical debt, security updates, platform updates

Existing support timelines for World A9.4 have been extended to 2025, and support timelines for EnterpriseOne 9.2 have been extended until at least 2030. JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.2 is the destination release with extended premier support and innovations for your business. When you stay current on updates, you will have product innovation and new features in smaller updates, delivery on a more frequent basis, reduction of the necessity for costly and disruptive upgrades, and tools to help you adopt innovations and stay current.

Common Barriers to Upgrading

When JD Edwards looks at upgrades, they look at three different barriers that consumers tend to struggle with when justifying the cost of going to the new release. The barriers include:

1. Upgrades and updates that are manual and time-consuming
2. Customizations that are costly to retrofit
3. Not knowing what to test and how to overcome manual processes

Enablers for Upgrading to 9.2

Upgrades and updates can take anywhere from three months to twelve years depending on how many branches, languages, and regions are being upgraded. However, in 9.2, JD Edwards has developed a model of continuous delivery for new features, improved simplified upgrade, and made Table Conversion improvements. All of these enablers can help you cut down considerably on time when upgrading to EnterpriseOne 9.2.

Other enablers for upgrading to 9.2 include the personalization framework and customization helpers, which can aid in the customization retrofitting process. Object tracking and impact analysis are also available enablers that can assist with the tedious and manual testing process.

Managing your JD Edwards upgrades has always been about choice and control. With 9.2 there are numerous tools within the Extensibility Framework to assist throughout the change management life cycle. These tools can help you:

1. Know your system
2. Evaluate the impact
3. Adopt and manage

Tools like Object Usage Tracker, Custom Object Analyzer, and Application Configuration Analyzer can help you get to know your system better and prepare you for an update.

Tools like Change Assistant, Object Usage Tracker, Impact Analysis, and Application Configuration Analyzer can help you evaluate the impact an object or customization has on your system.

Finally, tools like Improved Simplified Upgrade, Update Deliverables, Change Assistant, Customization Workbench, and OATS framework can help you adopt and manage change within your system.

Simplified Upgrade

Simplified Upgrade is a JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Upgrade Initiative that brings higher value, lower cost, and lower risk. In a traditional upgrade method, the system would merge all modified objects. In the Simplified Upgrade Method, the system merges only objects modified in the 9.1 instance that also changed in 9.2. The Simplified Upgrade method lets you upgrade faster and leverage the latest innovations. It also has less merging of customizations, focuses testing on areas of change, allows the ability to control when to upgrade, and brings on less change.

One aspect of Simplified Upgrade is One-Click Provisioning. JD Edwards One-Click Provisioning is a simplified, automated provisioning of JD Edwards EnterpriseOne to Oracle Cloud. Oracle created this tool for a few reasons:

• Bring the benefits of Oracle Cloud to JD Edwards
• Leverage best practices for deploying JD Edwards
• Reduce time, skill, and complexity of deploying JD Edwards EnterpriseOne to Oracle Cloud
• Accelerate Lift and Shift of JD Edwards to Oracle Cloud

To utilize One Click Provisioning, you must create an Oracle account, design and configure infrastructure resources, use One-Click Provisioning to plan your deployment, and then click the deploy button.

Within the improved Simplified Upgrade, there are several key features that stand out, including:

• The One-Click Provisioned Instance as the base for the 9.2 upgrade
• Utility to Extract and Import source data
• Updates to Spec Merge Manifest and Change Table Process
• Support on OCI, OCI-C, and on-premises
• Availability for Oracle Red Stack and Microsoft Windows

Through the evolution from the traditional upgrade, to Simplified Upgrade, and then to Improved Simplified Upgrade, the amount of necessary time has significantly diminished. There is a lower cost, reduction of time spent, and lower risk. The cost is lowered due to automated provisioning of the target, fewer objects to retrofit, and no/minimal patching to get code current. Focusing on testing of areas of change and moving to Cloud and upgrading to 9.2 as a single process has enabled a reduction of time spent. There is a lower risk due to streamlined processes, less merging of customizations, and a retained source environment.

There are several key features of Simplified Upgrade on a One-Click Provisioned Target. Revisions have been made to the Environment Workbench, and OCMs are presumed to be already in place from One-Click. There is also a new generator for tables and indexes that is updated on Reference System, and Control Tables needed to be merged and required updating. Table conversions required updating of TC Schedule for the updates and a rebuild of TC schedule on Reference System.

Object Usage Tracking and Impact Analysis

Object Usage tracking will allow you to turn on tracking for three different object types—who, when, and what. It captures users that are accessing EnterpriseOne, objects being accessed by users, and loads of objects accessed on the system. Object Usage Tracking can include things such as object usage with frequency, versions usage, customizations not being used, monitoring employees usage, troubleshooting, system loads, and compliance.

Impact Analysis identifies customization used in your environment and objects used and frequency of usage for impacted objects.

Change Assistant and Customization Workbench

In EnterpriseOne 9.2, Change Assistant and Customization Workbench have also been updated. By using Change Assistant, the user is able to utilize a simplified deployment of UDO packages, bundle and apply multiple UDO packages at the same time, and generate a summary report of the deployment.  Customization Workbench has been enhanced to support all customized EnterpriseOne objects impacted by ESU.

Moving to 64-bit

There are several aspects to look at when considering the transition from 32-bit to 64-bit. First of all, 64-bit enables large amounts of random access memory (RAM) to be utilized more effectively. It is also a requirement for data-intensive applications, database management systems, technical and scientific applications, and high-performance servers.

Transitioning to 64-bit would enable future technology adoption, commercially viable platforms, more access to vendors as they are starting to deliver only on 64-bit components. It’s also important to note that the continuous code line for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne is 9.2. The main impact is the C business functions. There is no impact to spec based objects and minimal impact for Oracle-validated Integrations.

The following shows the impact and benefits of 64-bit:

Enabling 64-bit is completely optional to customers. It is only supported for EnterpriseOne 9.2 Applications release. It is optimal that a 64-bit conversion is performed post-upgrade.

For more on how to cut weeks out of your upgrade when you move to JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.2, check out Clayton’s presentation and additional Quest resources attached below.

Additional Resources

If you’re looking for more JD Edwards content, join us at INFOCUS 19, the premier deep-dive JD Edwards focused event of the year! The event will take place August 20-22 in Denver, Colorado. Register by July 23 to take advantage of Early Bird prices!