The Case for Moving Oracle EBS to the Cloud

Whether you’re on Team Cloud or not, one thing is true: once you have decided to migrate to the cloud, you’ll be in good company. According to RightScale’s 2019 “State of the Cloud” report, 94 percent of companies now use cloud computing in some form or fashion.

 
The report also highlights some other key attributes of cloud implementations:

• 84 percent of companies use multiple clouds, including 58 percent that use a hybrid cloud strategy (combining both public and private clouds).
• On average, companies are running workloads in, and experimenting with, a total of five public and private clouds.
• Half of companies spend more than $1.2 million annually on the public cloud.

 
With so many organizations investing heavily in the cloud, what are the reasons you should utilize cloud platforms? The benefits of cloud platforms include:

• Lower costs: Cloud platforms use a cost model based on operating expenses rather than the capital expenses of on-premise IT. This is particularly convenient for small businesses and organizations that are reluctant to make a large upfront investment. For most use cases, the cost of deploying new capacity and replacing old hardware in the cloud is significantly less than managing your own data center.
• Reduced maintenance obligations: Performing routine support and maintenance tasks on your on-premise infrastructure can take up a great deal of time and effort, distracting your IT team from your core business functions. Migrating to the cloud allows you to take advantage of your provider and the additional support that comes with your licenses.
• Agility: Oracle has been clear that the future of EBS, and its other software offerings, lies firmly in the cloud. New features and bug fixes will be deployed to the cloud first, allowing you to stay up-to-date and quickly utilize these new capabilities. On-premise platforms could fall as many as 12 months behind on updates. In addition, for on-premise platforms, the IT team would typically be responsible for planning and executing the upgrade as well as applying patches and updates which often delays the uptake of new features.
• Convenience and ease of use: Data and applications in the cloud can be accessed from anywhere, at any time. This flexibility makes sharing and collaboration easier for employees who are working from home, off-site, commuting, or traveling. It also improves integrations to third party as well as external systems.
• Security and backups: While both options have their pros and cons in terms of security, the majority of IT professionals agree that your sensitive and confidential information is safer in the cloud than on your on-premise servers. Backing up data in the cloud also helps protect it from natural disasters and other physical catastrophes that can wreak havoc on an on-premise deployment.
• Elasticity: One of the key benefits of the cloud platform is the elasticity of the compute environment and being able to scale up or scale down as per the needs of the business. A common example is requiring extra capacity during peak business cycles which would normally result in over-configuring the environment in case of an on-premise system. Cloud platforms allow businesses to add capacity on-demand to ensure their business applications are optimized and can scale up quickly. During periods of reduced activity, the environment can be scaled down.

Does that mean everyone should jump on board as soon as possible? Not necessarily. Our data experts have outlined many reasons why an on-premise infrastructure or even a hybrid environment is simply a better decision for some companies.

But if you’ve decided cloud is the path you want to take, be sure to download our white paper, co-published with Cybernoor, “5 Must-Dos to Prepare for an Oracle EBS to Cloud Migration.” You’ll also learn about our complimentary  Zero Downtime Migration service.