Microsoft and Oracle have some critical end of life dates quickly approaching.  Any customers running on the platforms listed below should begin to prepare for these upcoming support changes.  Contact us today to discuss how these support policy changes might affect your Financial Close, Budgeting and Reporting systems.

 

Important Software EOL (End of Life) Dates

The following list represents products reaching end of support in the next year. For a comprehensive list of Microsoft products and their lifecycle policy timelines, please search the Microsoft Lifecycle Product Database.

• Microsoft Windows 2008 Server – January 2020
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 – July 2019
• Microsoft Office 2010 – October 2020

Lifetime Support dates for EPM System release 11.1.2.x have been extended.  The new, extended dates are publicly available in the newly published Lifetime Support Policy: Oracle Fusion Middleware Products.

• 11.2.4.x – December 2020, extended support to December 2021

 

11.2.x Release Date & Rumours

• 11.2.x – To be released September 2019, end of life date of December 2030
• Oracle has moved the Essbase development work out of EPM and into the Oracle Database development team.
• When EPM 11.2 comes out, Essbase will initially remain 11.1.2.4 technology under the covers: we won’t be getting the new Sandbox features introduced with Essbase 12 in on-premises OBI12 / cloud OAC.
• OAC will no longer have Essbase bundled with it, effective immediately for all new customer-managed OAC implementations. Essbase “12c” will have to be installed separately as a standalone instance, and then Essbase cubes would need to be migrated from the old Essbase instance into a new standalone Essbase 12c instance.
• A new Essbase, Essbase 19c, is under development for 11.2. It is expected to come out sometime next year.  Essbase 19c will be for on-premises only.
• 11.1.2.4 on-premises Essbase patch development has apparently stopped and will not continue.
• It is rumoured that 11.2 will first come out for Windows only, perhaps as early as Sept 2019 (SAFE HARBOR APPLIES), and a Linux version will not come out until Q1 or Q2 2020 (SAFE HARBOR APPLIES).

 

11.2.x Discontinued Features

• Hyperion Financial Management
  • Financial Management Analytics
  • Essbase Analytics Link for HFM
  • Quantitative Management and Reporting for Solvency
• Hyperion Planning
  • Hyperion Strategic Finance (HSF)
  • Simplified User Interface (SUI)
  • Workforce Planning
  • Capital Expense Planning
  • Project Financial Planning
  • Offline Planning
• Hyperion BI +
  • Interactive Reporting (IR)
  • Production Reporting (SQR)
  • Web Analysis (WA)
• Other
  • Disclosure Management
  • EPM Mobile

 

This means that staying on-premises is still a choice that will continue to be fully supported until 2030 with some conditions. If you make this decision, you will continue to miss out on the constant product enhancements available in the EPM cloud solution. This also can be as expensive of an option as the cloud solution, because you will incur further costs such as hardware and software upgrades and patches for both the EPM applications and the associated third-party components (e.g., Oracle and Microsoft SQL databases).

To determine the best path forward, owners should figure out the costs both from a short-term and long-term perspective, as well as comparing the difference in functionality between the two offerings.

Need help defining your EPM solutions roadmap?   Contact our team at [email protected] for more information

 

Disclaimers:

1. Safe Harbour applies. Some of Oracle’s comments are directional in nature and may change in the future.