Why Upgrading Hyperion On-premises Is Harder Than You Think

Many businesses felt a wave of relief wash over them as Oracle announced that it will support Hyperion on-premises through 2030 for their newest version 11.2 with the release taking place in 2019.

Oracle will even continue to provide standard support and take defect reports. When problems are fixed, users will have access to a patch on the website.

However, Hyperion 11.1.2.3 support continues for only a few more weeks, until May 2018. This means that users won’t have access to support for certified third-party software and Patch Set Exceptions. Users can still get technical support and troubleshooting, but it won’t be a priority for Oracle.

Upgrading your Oracle Hyperion on-premises is a necessary but expensive and labor-intensive fix – and our customers and partners are feeling a sense of urgency with its fast-approaching expiration date. Before you make the decision to upgrade, it’s important to understand how much of your team’s time and effort will go into upgrading Hyperion on-premises, and whether you have the bandwidth to sacrifice it.

For example, if you’ve decided to upgrade your Oracle Hyperion on-premises system, you’ll need a complete inventory of every application running on the current database. Each app must be individually evaluated to make sure it’s compatible with the upgraded database.

To avoid problems down the road with crucial systems, a load test and regression test for each app should be included in the plan to upgrade the system. A careful review of depreciated features within each app and a plan to address those problems is also important to the continuing functionality of the entire system. It may be necessary to rewrite applications with significant depreciation. They will also need to be tested by end users to evaluate their viability.

It’s important to carefully evaluate on-premises options as well as managed application hosting options. Oracle wants customers to migrate to their cloud-based EPM applications of course, but with similar challenges as the on-premises version, it may not be the ideal choice in every scenario.

For companies who want to leverage cloud services as part of their comprehensive IT plan, the challenge of being on an older database during migration to the cloud often causes unpleasant hang-ups.

For those using Windows Server 2008, support from Microsoft ends January 14, 2020. An end to support means an increase in security vulnerabilities. Without a supported operating system, businesses don’t have access to protection for their data, vendor support or reliable application use.

Some businesses upgrade in-place with the intent of solving any compatibility problems with apps before they migrate to the cloud. There’s no universally correct answer, but companies who intend to move to the cloud at some point in the future should keep their database platform up to date. Most database technology receives support from cloud providers only for the most current version of the software.

For most businesses, a complete database upgrade is a huge undertaking. It’s impossible to forecast the unavoidable series of delays for end users that impact how effectively they can perform their jobs. Resolving problems in the migration process requires a specific set of skills that many talented managers can learn as needed. The problem with the process lies in a company’s assumption that the process will be quick and easy.

For some, it’s simpler and even less expensive to use a professional SQL server upgrade approach.