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I'll give a little bit of perspective. I spent my first 10 years as a CNC for a public company. I have moved on to the consulting world and currently work as a CNC remotely managing multiple customers. I have a mixed bag, half of my customer host their own systems. I remote on to their systems. The other half have us host their systems in our cloud.
We host AS400 and windows based customers. It's up to the customer to decide which platform fits their needs. The cloud sounds scary, it's not. We set up a new domain. The domain is hosted in our data center, and is trusted by our domain and the customer's domain. From the customer perspective, just think of it as moving your jde servers into a different data center. You can have all the same integrations that you have today. Your servers would be 100% isolated from any other customers that your partner supports.
For some customers, we host their systems, they manage. For most, we host and manage their systems. Assuming your profile is accurate, you'll be migrating off of XE to the cloud. You'll want to have your partner setup a new 9.1 system. You'll do all the same project stuff that you would normally do, except the system will be in a different data center.
Cloud computing for JDE has come in its own. As a team, we have monthly meeting to talk about new customers coming into the pipeline. I am amazed that almost all of the net new or upgrade customers that we sign are also signing up for cloud based hosting. Cloud based JDE is no longer a fringe solution. It's here, it's growing, and it makes good economic sense.
You can go a couple different ways on pricing. You can transfer over your existing licenses to the new hosted servers. Or, another model is SAS (Software as a Service). In the SAS model, you are paying per head. You have 3000 users, you pay X dollars per head. Your vendor provides the hardware, support and licenses. Or, go the more traditional model. X dollars for hardware, X dollars for support, X dollars for licenses, and so on. Whatever makes most sense.
For myself, I'm based in the US and handle US and Canadian based customers. There are a number of very good business partners and managed service partners in North America and I have friends and respected colleagues all over North America. I would look for a good business partner located close to whatever part of the world your company is in. Check in with Oracle, they can provide you with a list of business partners to look at. The other thing to look at is the Oracle 100 day upgrade. Ask your Oracle rep about the next time one of those seminars is being offered. A 100 day upgrade is not hype. Find the right partner and you can be transitioned from XE to 9.1 in a matter of months. Not to push my company (I'm a tech guy, not a sales guy), but take a look at our site for more information on hosting and quick upgrades. (
www.syntax.com) That will give you a jumpstart. A good next step is to have a chat with your Oracle rep. Oracle works through business partners for upgrades, so don't worry them trying to sell you their services. It's an interesting journey, good luck with your investigation.
- Gregg Larkin
Senior Technical Consultant, Syntax
