Last thursday we had our webcast “Oracle Business Intelligence Apps: Upgrade or Move to the Cloud?” where we had Oracle ACE director and our BI practice director, Edelweiss Kammermann discussing the enterprise BI trends, Pros, and Cons of upgrading to OBIA 11g along with an overview of the different BI solutions on the Cloud with their respective demos. If you missed the live presentation or like to revisit it, you can always download the recording here.
At our Q&A section, we addressed the questions we received from the audience regarding upgrade options and OBIA migration components. Today we bring you the transcript:
Yes. Data Visualization Cloud is the Cloud version for data visualization desktop. Contrary to the Oracle approach for other on-premise options, Oracle does the changes in Data visualization desktop first, and then move it to the Cloud. Usually, it goes the other way around – Cloud first, on-premise later. But yes, it’s the same thing. In fact, Oracle just announced that the Cloud release set for this month will have the same features as the data visualization desktop released a few weeks ago.
You have four options to work with: data visualization desktop, data visualization cloud, the data visualization that is included in BI Cloud service as “visual analyzer” option, and in Oracle Analytics Cloud.
Is BI Apps extended support provided by Oracle or ITC?
The extended support is offered by Oracle. What ended in January 2008 is the premium support. It does not seem like Oracle will desupport your version, but they will charge more, about 20% more, for extended support. That is because as premium support ends, you either have to go to extended support or move to a newer version – and you can move to the newer version without any additional costs.
Do you know when OBI 12c will be available?
Well, it seems like it won’t. You see, I had the same question, and went to Oracle OpenWorld, presented, went into as many sessions as humanly possible, and was confused as to why there weren’t any announcements regarding BI Apps 12. However, I did get the chance to speak to the product manager of BI Apps specifically, and he said Oracle is not planning to release it in the short term because they are happy with the current content. I assume this is also related to their strong push to move everything and everyone to the Cloud. So we cannot expect the 12c version anytime soon, unfortunately.
What are the approaches for moving OBIA to Cloud when the source is on-prem?
The certified way to move to Cloud 7964 is a hybrid option. You need to keep your data in your local server, and what you move is your BI platform. So the BI platform is moved to the Cloud, and the Cloud is connected to your data in your local servers.
Recently I asked another product manager what happens if we want to move everything to the cloud. Obviously, they don’t have an Informatica cloud, as those belong to Informatica – despite it’s technically possible to move the Informatica server into Cloud infrastructure, it is not certified. That is why the only option we have so far for 7964 is the hybrid model I’ve just described.
Are there any options for customization of the model in the Cloud?
Remember that for 7964 you are not moving the ETL, DAC or Informatica, which remains in your local servers – so you can still modify whatever you want there. You can create a new analysis, new reports, modify existing ones… what we saw in the demo for Oracle Analytics cloud. It’s your environment and you can do whatever you want.
Is OBI Cloud a good option for BI Apps 11g?
Yes, for sure. For Oracle BI Apps 11g, you have three options: you can do a hybrid option as we discussed, you can have Oracle integration to move your data into the cloud instead of moving the data into your database locally, or you can move everything to the cloud with the Oracle integration platform cloud services.
If we upgrade to OBIA 11g, can we use the visual analyzer option?
No. BI 11g does not come with the visual analyzer. The first version that offers it is OBI 12c. But the good news is that you can move only the OBI part to OBI 12c because it’s certified. So if you want to work with OBI 11g, you can install in a different path OBI 12 (a certified environment) and use the visual analyzer. But, be aware that the Visual Analyzer option requires an extra license – it’s not included in the Oracle 12c pack.
Would you like to receive a free assessment of your OBIA upgrade options, as well as live demos of OBIA 11g or the Oracle BI Cloud solutions [OBICS/OACS/ODVC] along with a health check of your current OBIA?
If you’d like to request any of these options, please submit a contact us request or send an email to <xliao@itconvergence.com>