Significant changes are coming to Oracle on-premises EPM. We can help you make the right choices.

There is an unavoidable reality brewing for companies still using on-premise Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management (EPM). The December 2021 end-of-support deadline is quickly approaching. According to Oracle’s support plan, you have until December 2021 to either:

  • Upgrade on-premise Oracle Hyperion to 11.2.x
  • Move to Oracle Cloud EPM

Either of these options must be considered carefully, and our consultants have discovered some tips and challenges that are not covered in the Oracle guidance that make this choice more complex than it looks.

So what is happening with Hyperion 11.1.x?

Oracle published a roadmap for supporting Oracle Hyperion EPM (on-premises) solutions, and the essential facts are:

  • The Premier Support for Oracle Hyperion 11.1.2.X ends in December 2021, and there is no option for extended support.
  • EPM 11.2 is the long-term support release for Oracle Hyperion EPM with Oracle Premier Support available through December 2031
  • Oracle Hyperion EPM 11.2 is now part of Oracle’s Continuous Innovation Program. This program means Oracle will be delivering ongoing applications and underlying technology stack updates for Hyperion 11.2 without requiring a significant upgrade. The updates will be cumulative and will combine bug fixes and new features into a consolidated patch set.

Oracle’s Continuous Innovation Roadmap

Oracle Continuous Innovation Roadmap

So if you have existing applications on 11.1.X, you will no longer receive product enhancements or updates after 2021. Our analysis shows that this is likely to lead to performance issues, reliability risks, or other complications such as:

  • server memory max-out
  • browser incompatibility
  • increased consolidation cycle time
  • non-compliance with audit requirements
  • possible incompatibility issues with future MS Office versions

Clients with complex Oracle Hyperion EPM estates will likely face many time-consuming and risk-inducing scenarios that can be avoided.

What is different about Hyperion 11.2?

There are some potentially problematic differences with 11.2 that need to be considered carefully.

First, it’s an out-of-place upgrade, meaning you need to install it onto new infrastructure. This can be in your data centre or a cloud, such as Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Gen 2.

If this is an option you’re interested in exploring, you can set up a free consultation to better understand this path.

A User Experience Change

With Hyperion 11.2, you will continue to use Workspace rather than the modern “Simplified User Interface”. If your team runs Hyperion Planning 11.1.2.4 or 11.2, you’ll experience a legacy look and feel. The EPM Cloud runs the new interface, which is where you find all the latest developments.

Oracle EPM Architect (EPMA) will not be included in Hyperion 11.2. 

EPMA will be replaced by DRM — called DRM for Hyperion EPM. However, this is a restricted version and will not include all features. Some notable misses include:

  • No reads and feeds from applications other than Hyperion EPM on-premises
  • No Data Relationship Governance
  • No DRM analytics

Further to this, we have found with recent migrations that DRM does not cover all aspects of EPMA, and additional development work is often needed to provide a like-for-like replacement. Validations and metadata exception reporting are key functionalities missing. Fortunately, we have filled these gaps with our Version 1 Cloudbridge solution, which is available on the Oracle Cloud Marketplace.

Discontinued features in Hyperion Planning 11.2

  • Hyperion Strategic Finance (HSF)
  • Crystal Ball (replaced by Predictive Planning)
  • Simplified User Interface
  • Workforce Planning
  • Capital Expense Planning
  • Project Financial Planning
  • Offline Planning

Discontinued features in Hyperion Financial Management (HFM)

  • Financial Management Analytics
  • Essbase Analytics Link for HFM
  • Quantitative Management and Reporting for Solvency

Discontinued features Hyperion BI+

  • Interactive Reporting (IR)
  • Production Reporting (SQR)
  • Web Analysis (WA)

Additional Discontinued Features

  • Disclosure Management
  • EPM Mobile

Moving to the latest release.

If you are running Oracle Hyperion EPM 11.1.2.X, you only have two viable choices:

  • Upgrade to Oracle EPM 11.2 (On-Premises)
  • Migrate to Oracle EPM cloud

If you decide to upgrade to Oracle EPM 11.2, you will have to be on 11.1.2.4 as only this has a supported upgrade path. For versions before 11.1.2.4, you will have to perform an “in-place” upgrade, first to 11.1.2.4 and then to 11.2.

Oracle EPM 11.2 is an out-of-place installation, which is essential to consider. This type of installation means the software needs to be installed on new hardware and is a technical upgrade rather than a more straightforward functional update. Oracle improves the underlying framework to support the more straightforward implementation of future patches and releases.

Upgrade to Oracle EPM 11.2 (On-Premises)

The extended support for 11.1.2.X ends in Dec 2021. Once you upgrade to Oracle Hyperion EPM 11.2.X, your support will automatically extend until Dec 2031.

An additional benefit of this upgrade is extended support for the underlying Windows (Oct 2023) / Linux (Mar 2021) operating systems, support for Oracle database servers (Mar 2022), and finally, different compatibility needs for end-users related to MS Office, OS, and Browsers.

Upgrading to Hyperion 11.2.X is a good option for organisations already on 11.1.2.4. This approach is especially true when there is a need to retain customisations and avoid potentially significant associated investments in hosting/hardware costs.

We recommend clients in this category:

  • Apply any outstanding updates/patches for 11.1.2.4.
  • Size your hardware sufficiently to meet the 11.2.X recommended sizing.
  • Perform a complete installation of Hyperion 11.2.X, and migrate to preserve all historical metadata and associated artifacts.

For clients on versions earlier than 11.1.2.4, additional factors should be assessed because the upgrade path to 11.2.X becomes more time-consuming with extra steps. Clients on 11.1.2.2 need to upgrade/apply Release Update Packages to version 11.1.2.4 and then migrate to 11.2.X.

Running 11.2 in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)

Oracle Hyperion Financial Planning and Hyperion Financial Management products are now fully certified to run on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is Oracle’s Generation 2 cloud platform. It’s designed to provide customers with the best-in-class security, reliability, SLAs, and powerful capabilities for large and complex deployments. Our analysis indicates that OCI is the optimal place to run Hyperion EPM. Oracle Cloud provides the best security, performance, and cost savings versus on-premises deployments or other cloud providers.

Migrate to Oracle EPM Cloud

Many of our clients have either moved to the Oracle EPM Cloud or are actively planning such a move. The chart below summarises many of the benefits Oracle EPM Cloud clients experience.

The Benefits of Oracle EPM Cloud

Benefits of moving to Oracle EPM Cloud

Next Steps

Our team has the experience and expertise to help you decide what is best for your scenario and how to get there. The clock is ticking on 11.1.X, so it’s crucial to take action now.

Contact us today to start your journey to the cloud.