Cloud Computing!

Cloud adds value to JD Edwards Applications


  • Total voters
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Gov

Guest
Personally curious about this topic. Now a days, there is a lot of talk around word CLOUD for different purpose :). Any knowledge around some customer using JD Edwards enterprise one on Cloud and how they managed the customization of software as per their business requirements? I always surprise the value cloud computing brings in for a business which can not run with out customization.

Appreciate all your contribution in advance.

Thanks,
 
JDE Cloud is fundamentally different to something like salesforce.com or Workday. In reality JDE Cloud = JDE Hosted in the Cloud. How the hosting is carried out is up to the hosting provider in terms of how much access you get to the JDE system and what options they give. When looking at JDE in the cloud I'd be more inclined at looking purely at IAAS offerings that accommodate a number of an organisations systems. So it is about running JDE in AWS or Azure rather than SAAS.

Oracle has a different offering when it comes to ERP Cloud and the reality is that unless it is Oracle offering JDE Cloud in the true sense then it will never be competitive as a dedicated cloud platform.
 
The question shows a lack of understanding of the terms "cloud" and "applications".
JD Edwards as a service existed before the "cloud" was a thing.
Buying into JDE as a service where you can't modify it... as a developer, I've never worked for any company where that would have be even remotely acceptable, but as a developer, that may be just correlation.
"Cloud" as IAAS is all about cost and scalability of infrastructure, where it relates to JDE. The applications work the same with or without "cloud". Better or worse depends on the use case.

Personally, I find all this "cloud" stuff a bit fluffy. A lot of hype for not much substance. It has little to do with JDE, and is really about how the company wants to address its' infrastructure requirements.
 
ok - Cloud, as others have stated, is a term that has been completely abused as of late.

An easy, simple way to explain this is the difference between Microsoft Office and Google Docs. Microsoft Office (the traditional software) is a package you purchase, and then you have to install that software on your own equipment. When you run MS Office, you can be disconnected from the internet - BUT all the processing and data storage is provided by the computer that you're using. Google Docs, on the other hand, requires a connection to the internet to use, but no software is installed on the computer - instead, you access the software through a browser, and (in theory) you don't need a large amount of CPU to handle the processing, nor do you store the data locally - its all stored at the provider.

Now, thats the "true" definition of a "cloud" application. But what about JDE ? How is that "cloud enabled".

Lets look at the infrastructure from the beginning. Why is something called "cloud" needed - what is the benefits to a company ?

Well, EnterpriseOne requires a lot of hardware, CPU and storage. Its an expensive thing, running JDE, and there have always been customers that have balked at how much architecture is needed to be managed by ERP solutions. JDE is no different than other ERP software (in fact, in my opinion it requires a lot LESS hardware than many of its competitors) - and its just the bean-counters who balk at hardware and ongoing operation costs. But theres a big difference from a project and capital expenditure point of view to the cost of "starting" a JDE project.

So, one way to reduce the initial cost of hardware is to "rent" the hardware. Spread that initial purchase cost over a long period of time. IBM is one company that kind of created that method of "leasing" hardware, and of course JDE is historically close to IBM.

But what about the cost of storage - specifically backing up and restoring the data ? And what about the costs of maintaining the equipment - hiring system administrators, etc ?

Thats where the "Application Service Provider" model comes in. For a fixed fee, they purchase the hardware and maintain the equipment in a data center, charging the customer an "all inclusive" price. Sometimes, if a software company allows, that also includes the software. JDE dabbled with Application Service Providers since the late 90's and this has most successfully been done by companies like WTS (Velocity now). The "ultimate" of this is "Software As A Service (SAAS)" - which is where a company puts up a complete instance of the software, and hosts it on equipment - the customer "rents" the entire lot. In the end, the customer still owns the data - and the reliability of the platform is usually dictated by a contract.

So, then, what about "Cloud Computing" - how does that get into this model ?

If you are able to host a complete instance of, say, JDE on a server in a data center, then its also possible to host a NUMBER of instances of JDE on shared equipment in multiple data centers. By having a model where the customer connects to virtual address, where their application is being provided by servers that have incredible reliability, storage etc etc - then you're starting to become more "cloud" based.

Virtualization has provided the ability to deliver a "virtual" server across multiple physical machines - so that if a machine fails, the application is completely separated from that failure and continues to run.

The largest Public Cloud computing platform is Amazon Web Services. In that space, you can create a full "virtual" computing system that is capable of running JDE - but the physical hardware you're running on is unimportant, the virtual machine "floats" across multiple physical machines - so if there is ever any downtime on the physical layer, the virtual layer is completely unaffected. Now, if an ERP customer tried to replicate something like that themselves, they would find it to be extremely costly to achieve. It only becomes cost effective if the large amount of hardware (and therefore the cost) is shared across multiple customers. So, a company can provide a cloud-based virtual platform - install JDE onto it, and claim that they are providing "JDE in the Cloud".

Now, this model is still a customers purchased license, hosted on "virtual" hardware - but provides no difference to the customer as far as development is concerned. You remove the infrastructure operational costs, but still have the functional operational cost.

So, what about the "future" - or "True JDE Cloud" ?!

This would be an instance provided, supported and maintained by a cloud provider on a cloud platform. Think Google Docs for ERP ! The customer gets to use the application - but are not allowed to modify it in any way, and it is centrally supported and upgraded by the cloud provider. Now, there ARE applications that work like this (Workday, Salesforce, etc) - what could be conceived as "true" cloud software. But these applications are usually "new" to a company - how they are used dictate how the processes are configured for that company.

To take a software platform that is specifically meant to be modified to fit a business - and then try and host it in a "single" native manner - well, thats where you would have to create a "model" - and modify the business to fit that model. Its something that SAP has been able to do successfully, but its NOT something that JDE does well at all.

JDE has always been the "modify the software to fit the business" - and there aren't any "models" created to try and reverse that methodology. Now, there are some exceptions - for example, you could definitely take Financials, for example, host a true cloud version of Financials - and every customer would have to "fit" the financials model. Customers could then create custom reports over the financials - but no modifications to core code would be allowed.

But Distribution and Manufacturing aren't the same between companies. Companies use modules completely differently, and the power of JDE is that it allows the adaptability to how customers run their business. So outside of simple financials, JDE isn't a good fit for "true cloud" software.

ok - so back to Govs' original question - what is the value of cloud computing for JDE ?

JDE running IN the cloud (ie, using AWS to provide the infrastructure) can provide a huge financial advantage to a company. I have often been involved with customers that spend millions of dollars on infrastructure, sometimes YEARS before the first user goes live. With a cloud-based infrastructure, you can spread the cost over many years - and with a platform like AWS, you can "elasticize" the infrastructure, starting very small and gradually increasing the power to match the customers performance requirements. Running JDE on AWS is a slam-dunk for almost any customer and we should see more and more AWS implementations over the next few years.

But running JDE AS a cloud software ? It just doesn't work. Not for many traditional JDE customers - and, to be honest, there are a lot more solutions out there that compete at that level in much better ways.
 
Thank you every one for your valuable inputs.

Jon, Thank you for your detailed explanation. Many of my questions are cleared
 
I apologize, guys, I know that this topic is very old, but maybe my answer will help someone in the future

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) means providing compute, storage and networking functions to customers in the form of a service, a main benefit being that those customers need no infrastructure (datacenter, server room) of their own. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the leading IaaS provider. Private cloud platforms like Eucalyptus also belong to the IaaS category because they allow you to create your own IaaS cloud on your own servers.


Software-defined datacenter (SDDC) is about the way you architect your datacenter/infrastructure. Your datacenter can be said to be software-defined when the hardware resources have been virtualized and there is a dynamic way of configuring the datacenter and of provisioning compute cycles as a service.

In summary, IaaS is about the way compute power is provisioned, SDDC about how it is architected. It could be argued that in order to provide infrastructure as a service, your datacenter needs to be software-defined. Vendors try to promote their own terminology, so you will see different definitions by different companies.I read an interesting article https://diceus.com/cloud-mania-undeniable-benefits-iaas/ on this topic, leave it here, can someone help you in the future.Good Luck
 
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