Blue vs Red Stack!!!

[2nicholas]

Hi all,

My company is evaluating to upgrade JDE from Xe to E900. We are undecided whether to continue with our iSeries box.

Obviously, Oracle Sales team is encouraging us to switch to Red Stack so that we can benefit from ongoing Oracle new technology releases in the future.

If we are to continue on Blue track, will we be ended up unable to use some of the new features like BI Publisher etc. Are there any significant differences between both stacks?

I'm hopeful to hear second opinions from you guys out there. Any comments and feedback are much appreciated.

Rgds,

 

[Joel]

BI Publisher should work on an Iseries enterprise server as well. You need to be at a certain tools release to use some of these features and thus would probably have to upgrade your Iseries OS.

Since you are on Xe, I'm guessing you don't have any JAS servers. So what are they recommending, Windows, OAS, Oracle DB ?

- Joel

 

[2nicholas]

Joel,

Thks for sharing. They are proposing OAS for our JAS server. What is your recommendation that work best?

Sorry, i'm a bit new in latest E1 version. Need to pick up along the way.

Rgds,

 

[Joel]

Sounds like they are recommending a Purple stack, with an iSeries logic, database server and OAS on windows. Interestingly there is a presentation from Open world that states 60% customers on 8.98 tools release are on purple stack. Not sure how accurate that info is.

Both have nearly the same features and perform well when tuned correctly. OAS is very easy to administer and I personally have had a pleasent experience working with OAS.

If you search the JDEList forums or the internet you will get a lot of information on this topic.

- Joel

 

[DSauve]

Nicholas,

Keep in mind that OAS is a dead-end product -- at least the last I heard. It sounds like Oracle's direction is to favor their fairly recently-acquired WebLogic Server -- but that is currently only supported on Linux 64-bit. If you have Linux experience, I'd say WLS would be the way to go; if not, consider WebSphere. -- and this is coming from a customer running OAS (it's not a bad product, just a dead-end one).

 

[cmanderson]

I can give you an example of what Oracle has done with a a couple of products that depend on OAS with Oracle Fusion Middleware 10g.

Oracle Web Cache and Oracle Portal have been upgraded to release 11g. Note that these products are not yet in the certification matrix for EnterpriseOne, but I believe they are on target for future support.

With these new 11g versions, the OAS middleware has been replaced by WebLogic Server (WLS). In the case of Web Cache 11g, the management interface is virtually identical to the 10g version. If you didn't know that it was running on WLS instead of OAS, you'd most likely never suspect it, which is as it should be, and as you would likely expect.

It is my understanding that there is no requirement to license WLS separate from OAS if you are using these components, and the maintenance you pay will probably stay on the same trajectory if you've licensed OAS separately and use it for more than just EnterpriseOne (the Red Stack license is a limited use license...)

So it stands to reason that one possibility could be that if you implement OAS now (if you choose Red over Blue) and ultimately migrate to WLS, it would be with very little to no impact to the end user, and with very little to no impact on your bottom line from a maintenance perspective (but I can make you zero guaranty on that...it is just a hunch on my part). Obviously you would want to evaluate the architecture requirements for a WebLogic implementation in your environment versus OAS, but knowing what you do now it may make your life easier as you plan for these changes.

I haven't done a full evaluation of Portal 11g, but in my review of the documentation it looks very much the same as 10g, but with a few new features and of course WLS instead of OAS for the middleware layer. The only requisite component for Portal that stays behind on OAS 10g is the Single Sign-On (Oracle SSO) component.

 

[cncjunior1]

[ QUOTE ]
So it stands to reason that one possibility could be that if you implement OAS now (if you choose Red over Blue) and ultimately migrate to WLS, it would be with very little to no impact to the end user, and with very little to no impact on your bottom line from a maintenance perspective (but I can make you zero guaranty on that...it is just a hunch on my part).

[/ QUOTE ]

Charles,

It appears your hunch is correct. I came accross document ID 1076803.1 which states the following:

"WebLogic Server is included in the Technical Foundation part of EnterpriseOne.
If you are licensed for the Oracle Tech Foundation, you are eligible to use WebLogic Server or Oracle Application Server.

WebLogic Server is currently (i.e. March 2010) only supported on Linux.
With TR 8.98.3, it will be supported on Unix and Windows 2008."

 

[cmanderson]

[ QUOTE ]
It appears your hunch is correct. I came accross document ID 1076803.1

[/ QUOTE ]

Not quite. They haven't sorted it out yet, and it remains to be seen if they will. I spoke with someone in the know at the Collaborate conference this week and they indicated the document you referenced is in error.

 

[rhunt01]

Any ideas on when 8.98.3 will be released? We are implimenting E900 now with a go-live in mid August. We are a purple stack with Enterprise Server, logic, db on iSeries, and JAS on Windows 2008 64 bit with OAS.

I'm tempted to pursue WLS before go live but our OAS server was so easy to put up that we might wait a year for tools/WLS/Windows to all reach a steady state and then let a consultant spend a day bringing one on-line.

 

[DSauve]

Currently, 8.98.3 is due out on 05/10/10, with 8.98.3.1 due out on 05/17/10.

 

[Terry DeMoure]

We were told last week at COLLABORATE 10 Educational Breakout Session EO70940: Maximize your JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Investment with Tools and Technologies facilitated by Gary Grieshaber from Oracle that Tools Release 8.98.3 would not be released until October 2010 timeframe.

 

[DSauve]

I just went out to My Oracle Support and the Target GA date for Tools Release 8.98.3.0 is listed as 05/10/2010, with 8.98.3.1 on 05/17/2010.

 

[klwong]

And to add a little more credence to those dates, the MTRs have been updated with 8.98.3.0, including running OAS WebLogic on something other than Linux (they're allowing Windows 2008 64-bit).

They also list support for OS/400 V7R1 starting with 8.98.3.0.

 

[Terry DeMoure]

You two guys could most probably be correct. You know and I know that technology changes day-to-day. I was just reporting that October 2010 is what Gary Grieshaber with Oracle answered, when I asked him personally in his session at Collaborate 10 last week in Vegas, as to when Tools 8.98.3 would be released. The ESU that I have been spearheading for fixing the scripting problems associated with IE8 interoperability "flashing screen" issues is supposed to be included with this new Tools Release.

 

[jacksmccu]

8.98.4 is slated for release in Oct 2010, I am guessing Gary got his wires crossed. 8.98.3 is already in beta testing and should go to GA in the next couple of weeks.

 

[glen7x]

Last I heard, the strategy is gonna be new tools updates come out durin april / May time frame and tools update + app update during October, coinciding with Open world