Oracle E-Business Suite is a very helpful and complex enterprise resource planning (ERP) tool. As a result, implementing EBS involves manual scripting and processes. Thus, changes are often slow and error prone.
Additionally, EBS users often customize the platform so that it better fits their needs. This can add another layer of difficulty (and opportunity for mistakes) when it comes to deploying changes across environments.
Today, no matter the technology, businesses and IT leaders experience pressures to move faster, reduce costs, and improve quality. These demands can result in even more errors, inefficiencies, and slower development and delivery.
DevOps is a method to meet increasing demands and pressures from the business. Automation, CI/CD, and Release Automation and Orchestration can help IT leaders create and release high-quality changes faster and more frequently. FlexDeploy, our DevOps platform, incorporates all of these methods with E-Business Suite and any additional customizations.
On October 10th, Dan Goerdt hosted a webinar on automating E-Business Suite customizations. He gave a short presentation about the issues faced by businesses and IT leaders and then demonstrated how to automate E-Business Suite on FlexDeploy.
The webinar was recorded and is now available on demand, here!
Here is a portion of the Q&A of the presentation:
What type of REST APIs are supported by FlexDeploy?
You can use an extensive set of REST APIs to both drive the configuration and the execution of FlexDeploy. Anything that can be configured or executed via the UIs are all exposed with REST APIs. You can drive all of these things with REST rather than from the UI.
Are there clients who use FlexDeploy for EBS instances on OCI?
Yes, that is quite a popular use case. Quite a few clients have already transferred from on-prem to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and have been very successful. We are working with at least five who are making that shift now. Overall, a lot of businesses have moved their E-Business Suite to run on OCI and have been very successful.
Does FlexDeploy have APEX support and so can we do APEX migrations via FlexDeploy?
Yes, we have out-of-the-box, end-to-end support for APEX. You can deploy APEX applications and at the page level. You can also deploy supporting projects, like database schema changes. FlexDeploy has multiple methods to automate supporting projects, including the Oracle Database plugin and the JDBC plugin.
What are options for integration for technologies without plugins in FlexDeploy?
Unfortunately, we will never have plugins for every technology out there. However, FlexDeploy is very extensible. There are a couple options. If you want to script something, you can, and we have mechanisms to help you create workflows to help you leverage these scripts. You can also create your own plugins, using JAVA or another language. Then, you can write containers in any language and use those for your plugins. There are other options, and we can work with you on that.
Can I run a full quarterly technical patch set through EBS?
Yes. The E-Business Suite plugin can be used for a variety of things, including managing the Oracle patch set.
Where do you recommend people start if they want to use a DevOps approach?
It varies depending on the individual’s situation. Generally, we recommend that you keep it simple. You can go a long way just by automating, then you can get more specialized with the out-of-the-box solutions and full CI/CD. To just get started, use the out-of-the-box utilities and accelerators.
What is Flexagon seeing from its customers about E-Business Suite and the Cloud?
The majority of customers are moving to run EBS on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. We also see customers moving other technologies, like Middleware, SOA, and others, to the Cloud. Many use the Cloud not as a substitution, but to augment their current set up for a hybrid architecture.
If you missed the live event, no worries! The recording is now available!
Want to learn more about DevOps? Check out our other on-demand and upcoming webinars!
Please contact [email protected] with any questions.
