upgrading to 11.1.2.4 and other technical considerations

www.finitsolutions.com

Getting the Most out of EPM:Upgrading to 11.1.2.4 and Other Technical Considerations

June 12, 2015Frank Zidar ([email protected])

Dawn Mathews ([email protected])

http://www.finitsolutions.com/

mailto:[email protected])


www.finitsolutions.com- 2 -

Finit Overview

• Founded in 2002

• 75+ employees in 20+ states

– Mostly CPAs, MBAs

– We have extensive Hyperion product and financial reporting backgrounds

• 80+ HFM Clients

– Managed several of the largest EPM projects in the U.S.

– Including the largest roll-out of HFM in North America

• Market Leader in ARM/FCM

• World Leader in FDM implementations and custom solutions

• 50+ Planning / Essbase Clients



EPM Services

• Finit Answers

– Technical Support

– Functional / Admin

Support

– Access to Hyperion SMEs

– Dedicated support team

and guaranteed response

times

– Customer Service Focus

– Flexible Time and

Material support

packages

• ‘Pay as you Go’ option

• Oracle Financial Close Suite

‒ Hyperion Financial

Management

‒ Financial Close Manager

‒ Account Reconciliation

Manager

• Hyperion Planning & Essbase

• Infrastructure

• Data Services

• Project / Program

Management

• Redesign / Enhancements

• Product Upgrades

• Application enhancements /

redesign

• Performance optimization

Dedicated Support

Upgrades

Full Cycle Implementations


www.finitsolutions.com

Finit Solutions Introduction

Finit as a company:

Who we are…Why? How?



• We make and deliver personalized financial reporting solutions and experiences.

– By listening, questioning, and analyzing

– By building relationships

…not company to company, but person to person.

– We are Makers and Doers

WHY is Finit Here?



We Run Finit like a Family

• Invest in our employees

• All owners actively involved in the business

• No debt or external owners

– Prioritize the customer, not profitability

• Long term stability

– Hire employees, not subcontractors

• Compensation model based on client satisfaction

HOW do we achieve our beliefs?



Our values, on which we ask you to provide consultant feedback:

Finit Values



Our values, culture, and approach to becoming a trusted advisor to customers

has led to 100% customer success for every Finit client (220+) and for every Oracle

Hyperion project (400+)

Finit Customer Success



Some Finit Customers


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Question and Answer



About the Presenters

Dawn Mathews

([email protected])

• Practice Director, Finit Answers

• Eleven years Oracle EPM experience

• HFM, FDM, Hyperion Enterprise

• Project manager in multi-product projects

• Oracle HFM 11 Certified Implementation Specialist

• Support lead for 60+ clients


mailto:[email protected]


About the PresentersFrank Zidar

([email protected])

• Practice Director, Infrastructure Services

• Nearly 25 years experience with software and information systems

• Specializes in environment design and sizing, performance testing andtuning, disaster recovery




• Common Questions and Technical Background

– Virtualization

– Exalytics and Exadata

– Disaster Recovery and High Availability

– Oracle’s Version Numbering

• Upgrade Methodologies (11.1.2.4)

Agenda



• What is it and why are IT departments moving to it?

– Virtualization means simulating computing resources on a physical host server (computers, storage, networking, etc.)

– Significant benefits to IT

• Faster server provisioning

• Consolidation of resources

• Spreading computing workload

• Easier hardware upgrades

• Disaster recovery and backup

Virtualization



• Nearly all of our customers employing some level of virtualization

– Most often used for non-production environments

– Many production environments have virtual/physical mix

– Some have corporate mandates to go 100% virtual

• Will EPM work in a virtual environment and what happens withsupport?

Virtualization



• Everything about Oracle’s stance on virtualization is detailed in doc ID: 562663.1 on Oracle’s support site. At a high level:

– Oracle will support but does not certify EPM in a virtualized environment

– Only certified on Oracle VM

– Oracle may ask you to try to replicate an unknown issue in a physical environment• We have not encountered such a situation

• All of EPM works perfectly with virtualization

• Can be problematic for Finance team

Virtualization



• Extra layer of software and complexity

– Shared server resources means variable performance

– Difficult to diagnose performance issues

– Processing overhead

• You will not be able to achieve the same level of performance as you can with physical

• Mitigation with CPU and RAM affinity might go against IT policies

• We have encountered all of these situations at clients

Virtualization



• Recommendations

– Essbase, database, and potentially HFM app server are physical in production

– No concerns with Java application layer

• FDMEE, Planning, Workspace, Financial Reporting, etc.

• If virtualization is employed:

– Avoid unscheduled vMotion

– Use dedicated host for EPM relatedservers

• Avoid impact of other applications

Virtualization



• Pre-built, highly optimized servers

– Built using industry standard components (Intel)which are fully tested, optimized and loadedwith an operating system (“plug-and-play”)

– Extremely powerful: significant RAM and CPU

• Each kind of server has separate purpose

– Exadata: designed for the single purpose of running Oracle Database• 6TB+ RAM

• 120+ CPU cores

• Flash storage (much faster than traditional physical disk)

• Preconfigured with Oracle 11g or 12c database

Exalytics and Exadata



– Exalytics: general purpose server• Up to 2TB of RAM

• 2.4TB of PCIe flash storage memory

• 60 CPU cores

– Exalytics runs an optimized version of Oracle Enterprise Linux v5.8 or 5.10

• Operating system is installed by default but you still need to install and configure the EPM software

– Limited use to EPM product suite until version 11.1.2.4• Before now Planning, Essbase, FDMEE, FR




• 11.1.2.4 has extended HFM server OS compatibility with Linux and eliminated classic FDM

• This allows very nearly the entire EPM product suite to run on an Exalytics machine

• Product exceptions for Exalytics support

– EPMA Dimension Server• Provides back-end services for dimensionality, applications, and jobs

console

• Web and Data Synchronization front-end components are supported

– DRM

– Will need separate Windows servers




• Additional benefits of Exalytics

– Essbase has special optimizations on Exalytics to MDX query engine and parallel operations• Take advantage of the number of CPU cores

– HFM consolidation times will be reduced because of available RAM and number of cores• Entire application can be loaded into memory (“In- Memory

Machine”)

• Network and database latency are dramatically reduced

– Drawbacks to keep in mind• Pre-built Linux server - no virtualization

• Single point of failure




• Disaster recovery and high availability are very different in terms of what they are attempting to accomplish

• High Availability – how to maximize up time of system

– Also called fault tolerance

– Multiple machines for each EPM function clustered together in an environment• Other machines take over immediately in the event of a failure on

another

– Automatically handled via WebLogic and HFM application server clusters – users automatically routed to various servers in the cluster(s)

– Allows I.T. to handle scheduled system maintenance without down time

Disaster Recovery and High Availability



• Additional benefits of a highly available configuration in EPM

– Load balancing• Multiple servers means more horsepower available

• For larger clients this is more important than HA

– Performance scaling• If you outgrow your system, easy to add additional servers to the

cluster

• As always, this creates added complexity

– Multiple servers means it will be much more challenging to debug sporadic issues




• Disaster Recovery

– What to do if there is a complete disruption of service at primary data center• Networking or technology failure

• Natural disaster

• Fire, power outage, human error, etc.

– Reports need to be filed -- how long can the business afford to have EPM offline?• Speed of recovery will determine how best to approach DR

• Discuss SLA with I.T.

• Design and implement prior to go-live




• Approaches

– “Hot site”• Completely separate installation of EPM that is always up and

running in a separate data center

• Different URLs and separate databases

• Data kept in sync via LCM, RDBMS backups, HFM CopyApp process

• Refreshed nightly or potentially more frequently

– This can be a significant drawback

• Benefit of a nearly instant failover

• Can also be used as a DEV/QA system to overcome waste of resources for a system that is *hopefully* never used




• Approaches

– “Cold site”

• Separate EPM installation that is completely offline– This allows IT to perform operations that are not possible with a

live system

• Best configuration has databases replicated between data centers– Almost up to the minute data/information

• FDM data replicated

• LCM extracts taken nightly for Financial Reports, user provisioning and stored in the DR data center

• Will take time to get system back online




• Approaches

– “Cold site” (with virtualization)

• Virtualization systems have some kind of DR mechanism built in to replicate entire active virtual machines to other facilities

• In the event of a disaster, full and complete replications of the existing PROD systems can be booted up in DR data center




• Whatever method is chosen, you must document and test!

– Solid, simple, and repeatable process

– Must simulate an actual outage to know for sure




• Very different from traditional software versioning

• Broken into 2 major parts

• Oracle keeps major platform and maintenance release consistent across many products– Tied to Oracle DB, WebLogic

– Core of the system

• Fusion Middleware– Application support stack

– SOA

– ADF (dev. framework)

– Java

– Developer tools

Oracle’s Version Numbering



• For EPM, only the last 2 digits are truly important– Going from version 11.1.2.3 to 11.1.2.3.500 is a patch (ex. PSU500)

• Patches are done in place on existing environments – sometimes system wide, other times just very specific products

– Going from version 11.1.2.3 to 11.1.2.4 is an upgrade• Upgrades generally require a full system rebuild with new servers, application

upgrades/migrations, data reconciliations, UAT, etc.

• wef

Oracle’s Version Numbering

• HFM 11.1.2.1 --> .2 was a complete rebuild of the web front end (look and feel changed)

• HFM 11.1.2.3 --> .4 was a complete rebuild of the HFM consolidation engine

• Also FDM to FDMEE



• Reasons you may want to upgrade:– Oracle Premier Support

• 11.1.2.x versions on Premier Support until April 2018

• Extended support until April 2021

– Additional third party software support• Windows 8

• IE11

• Office 2013

– Platform independence, including Exalytics

– New modules desired, such as SDM

– Substantial application enhancements desired

To Upgrade, or Not to Upgrade: That is the Question



• Reasons you may not want to upgrade:– Loss of older third party software support

• Windows XP (11.1.2.3.500+)

• Office 2003 (11.1.2.3+)

– User interface changes

– Insufficient resources to:• Re-shell HFM application

• Convert FDM scripts to FDMEE

• Reconcile data

• Train users

– Deprecated utilities disrupt current process

To Upgrade, or Not to Upgrade: That is the Question



• Once your organization has decided to move forward with an upgrade, how you go about doing it needs to be determined

• Two methods: In place (existing servers) vs. out of place (new servers)

– In place upgrade is also known as a “maintenance release”

– Oracle promotes maintenance releases as the preferred and tested method to upgrade EPM systems

– Because of this, over time Oracle has been reducing the

supported paths and options available during the upgrade process…

Upgrading EPM



• Older versions of the EPM Configurator utility had options to upgrade databases

• Version 11.1.2.2

• Version 11.1.2.3

• Version 11.1.2.4

Upgrading EPM



• How do you get a system to version 11.1.2.4?

– 11.1.2.x• Apply 11.1.2.4 maintenance release

– 11.1.1.4.x• Upgrade to release 11.1.2.3

• Apply 11.1.2.4 maintenance release

– 11.1.1.0.x to 11.1.1.3.x• Apply 11.1.1.4 maintenance release

• Upgrade to release 11.1.2.3

• Apply 11.1.2.4 maintenance release

• Not everyone agrees with this approach

Upgrading EPM



• In place upgrades do not allow you to make other system-wide changes:

– No server operating system updates

• On July 14th, 2015 Windows 2003 will have all support end – this includes mainstream and extended support– I.T. departments are forced to move forward with a new

platform or face security risks

• On January 13th, 2015 Windows 2008 saw mainstream support expire– Only security updates until January 14th, 2020

• Version 11.1.2.4 enabled Windows 2012 support so upgrading the OS and EPM together makes sense

Upgrading EPM



• When you perform an in place upgrade, you lose the ability to upgrade hardware

– Performance issues are generally not solved by upgrading your software

– This is not as important with virtualized configurations

• You will not be able to restructure your environment

– Unable to solve performance issues

– Looking to add a new product (FCM, Planning, etc.)

Upgrading EPM



• Oracle is not good at cleaning up after itself

– Old applications and data are left behind• Upgrading to 11.1.2.4 will leave FDM classic intact!

• Shared Services database often has incorrect data remaining that can cause issues down the road

• Running an in place upgrade on production means bringing down the environment for an extended period of time

– Risky

– No opportunity to do proper UAT and data reconciliation

• Version 11.1.2.4 had consolidation engine rebuilt to support Linux – you will want to tie out your data

Upgrading EPM



• For all of these reasons, we almost always see out of place upgrades

• Prior to version 11.1.2.4 the process was:

– Step 1: Build new system

– Step 2: Migrate applications and data

• HFM Copy App utility

• Database backup and restore

– Step 3: Upgrade the databases to the latest version

• HFM and FDM schema update utilities

Upgrading EPM



• With version 11.1.2.4 the *ONLY* truly supported method is the maintenance release

– CopyApp and Schema Update are removed

• What does this mean?

– Out of place upgrades will require a manual re-shell of applications

– In place upgrades will be the only option for those who want to copy entire applications as-is

– There are pros and cons for both an in place and out of place upgrade of HFM

Upgrading EPM



• Updates application using maintenance release– All application elements copied over

• Including data, calculation status, Process Control history, original timestamps for documents and journals

• Data reconciliation effort *should be* less time-consuming than re-shell option

• Requires a “double install” • In order to not see remnants of previous versions, the

environment used for the upgrade will need to be copied to a fresh environment– Environment where upgrade occurred would be a “throw

away”

Upgrade In-Place



• Provides opportunity to perform application enhancements

– General application ‘clean up’

– Use of additional or new functionality

• Does not retain audit trail

• Process Management will be at Not Started

• Consolidations will be required

– After reloading data, rules and other artifacts

Application Re-shell



HFM Re-shell Requirements

HFM Upgrade

Maintenance

Metadata

Security

Rules

Artifact Migration

Data & Data

Recon

FDM

Reports

Smart View

Models

• Metadata

• Security

• Rules

• Artifacts – Data Forms, Grids, IC Reports

• Data extract / re-load

• Consolidations

• Data Reconciliation

• Import of Reports

• Smart View model updates



Noteworthy Finit Solutions EPM 11.1.2.4 Webinars

– Introduction to Oracle Hyperion Planning - New Features in 11.1.2.4

– Hyperion Financial Management - Deep Dive into 11.1.2.4

– Introduction to FDMEE - New Features in 11.1.2.4

Getting the Most out of EPM



Questions?

Email us for a

copy of the slides or

link to the recording.

Thank you for attending!

- > Frank Zidar

([email protected])

- > Dawn Mathews

([email protected])

- > [email protected]

- > General Questions Greg Barrett

([email protected])

Joe Mizerk ([email protected])







upgrading to 11.1.2.4 and other technical considerations

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