Oracle has announced that premier support for Oracle’s suite of on-premises Hyperion tools will end in 2030.
Most everyone in the EPM space is aware of Oracle’s push to the cloud, with several EPM cloud-based tools being released over several months/years. With many customers still reluctant to migrate to the cloud, Oracle’s solution is to release a new version in 2019, make changes the customers want, and extend support for that version for a little over a decade.
In this blog post, we’ll cover everything you need to know if you've missed Oracle's recent announcements explaining the future of their on-prem Hyperion suite.
Updates to the roadmap have been made since this blog post was published. To get the most up-to-date information, check out this blog post.
If you’re currently on 11.1.2.3 or 11.1.2.4, you’re probably wondering what this means for your support. For 11.1.2.3, defect fixing ended in March 2018. For those using 11.1.2.4, you have a little bit more time. Defect fixing, third party certification updates, and enhancements will be made until December 2020.
Though it might feel like a grim reaper is looming over your shoulder, threatening to take away support for your applications — that's not exactly what's happening. The great news here is that Oracle intends to listen to their current customers to understand what enhancements you want to see on your on-prem applications, according to Matt Bradley, Oracle’s VP of Product Development for EPM Applications. These enhancements will include near-term parity with cloud versions — so if you do decide to make your way up into the cloud, it will be a lot easier.
Though premier support is ending, Oracle's lowest level of support — sustaining support — will stick around indefinitely. To learn more about the types of support — premier, extended, and sustaining — check out Oracle's lifetime support page. And, to get a better understanding of the support timeline for various Oracle applications, check out this document.
You’ve probably guessed that the premier support ending in 2030 will be for Oracle’s next and last on-prem version — 11.2.
A common response to Oracle has been, “Why not go to version 12?”
A version 12 would imply a big release with a lot of changes and new features — this isn’t Oracle’s intention. Version 11.2 will look and feel a lot like 11.1.2.4. The intent of the new version is mostly to extend its lifetime and make enhancement that current customers want, Bradley said.
You’re probably wondering what new features and functionality 11.2 will have, but that hasn’t quite been decided. As mentioned above, Oracle wants your input and you will get a say in what is released. The best way to tell Oracle what you want changed or enhanced is to fill out a service request which will be reviewed and assessed by the product management team.
Rather than go through features and enhancements made in each release, Oracle outlined key highlights in the following categories: Current, Next, and Future. Some of “next” and “future” include features in 11.1.2.4 and 11.2. Currently, the line is a little fuzzy.
Current
Oracle Hyperion Planning
Oracle Hyperion Financial Management (HFM)
Data Relationship Management (DRM)
Financial Reports
Smart View
Next
Oracle Hyperion Planning
Oracle HFM
Profitability and Cost Management
Tax Provisioning
Financial Reports
Smart View
Future
Hyperion Planning
HFM
Tax Provisioning
DRM
Smart View
This news leaves you with many questions and decisions to make, but you have a lot of great new features and functions to look forward to. There are three routes you can take that will help your organization keep moving ahead with your EPM solution: