Soaring Into Automated Technology Upgrades with Oracle

There is big news in the HCM Technology space this week, and it involves one of the major fears that organizations have when it comes to the pace of technology~ the upgrade.  There are many reasons organizations delay when it is time to upgrade their people solutions.  The primary reasons are cost and time to make the change.  Yesterday, Oracle CTO and Chairman, Larry Ellison, announced that this is a worry of the past.  They are rolling out Soar, the world’s first automated cloud migration product that enables Oracle customers to reduce the time involved and the cost of cloud migration by up to 30 percent.

How is Soar to the Cloud different from other solutions?

• Offers automated tools and cloud migration methodologies that help on-premise customers migrate in as little as 20 weeks
• Focuses more on strategic IT investments
• Emphasizes accelerating innovation and growth

Soar is unique in that customers have a dedicated Oracle concierge service that ensures the best possible experience.  There is a mobile app that allows customers to continuously monitor the status of the cloud transition.  It also has something I think is revolutionary as a former HR pro who implemented numerous systems over the years~ a step-by-step implementation plan that breaks down the daily activities for the team handling the implementation.

My first thought was what about all the customers who have customizations and integrations with other vendors.  How will this impact their experience? Oracle says that they will have several components to address these questions. The first is Integration Accelerator, a large library of pluggable Fusion integrations.  Next, it will connect to Oracle Apps plus SAP Apps, Salesforce.com Apps, and many more.  Third, it will reduce the number of customizations and extensions and replace them with standard Fusion ERP features.  Lastly, the Oracle Consulting Upgrade service includes 30 integrations and 30 custom reports.

Why are those things important to the buyers and customers?  Well, most of the time it took in the past to upgrade to a more sophisticated version involved slowdowns at those very contact points.  By addressing those up front and having a planned way to address each one, it greatly reduces not only the time to implementation and go live, but the cost.

The last thing I want to touch on is security.  In a world where data breaches are becoming commonplace in the news, it’s a time where senior leaders are very concerned with the steps and processes in place inside their solution.  Oracle Soar addresses both Platform Security and Infrastructure Security.

Platform Security – Autonomous Oracle Database

• Automated Threat Detection and Remediation
• Database Instantly Patches Itself while Running
• No Delay for Human Process or Waiting for Downtime Window

Infrastructure Security – Separate Applications and Security Processors

• Applications Processors cannot access Security Processors memory
• Security Processors cannot access Applications Processors memory
• Technical staff running Oracle Cloud cannot see customer data

As you’ll see, this announcement is a big one in the HCM industry.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out for existing and future Oracle customers.  For more information, visit their site at Oracle.com.

*Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post, nor a commissioned piece by the vendor. The Oracle Soar offering is available today for Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle PeopleSoft and Oracle Hyperion Planning customers who are moving to Oracle ERP Cloud, Oracle SCM Cloud and Oracle EPM Cloud. Oracle will continue to invest in the development of the product, extending the solution to Oracle PeopleSoft and Oracle E-Business Suite customers moving to Oracle HCM Cloud, and Oracle Siebel customers moving to Oracle CX Cloud in the future.