AuraPlayer, in partnership with DXC, recently upgraded a client’s Oracle Forms 6.0 to Oracle Forms 12c patch 19 on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. That’s right–we took a system running a version of Forms that hasn’t been supported for over a decade and deployed it to Oracle’s next-generation cloud technologies.
You might be wondering why, in 2024, a global Fortune 500 company is upgrading Oracle Forms instead of moving off it. However, with full migration projects tying up resources for 5 to 20 years, the smartest strategy for achieving maximum ROI now merges the sustainability of your legacy system backend with next-generation user experiences. This has always been AuraPlayer’s guiding principle, which is why I advocate for modernization strategies that aim to leverage existing investments.
In reality, system modernization rarely involves an across-the-board overhaul. Despite the temptation to widely and rapidly adopt new technologies, big leaps (e.g., migration, cloud, re-development, etc.) are best broken down into several risk-free, secure, manageable, and impactful steps. In this way, businesses can implement digital assistants, mobility apps, automation (RPA), modern UIs, and a wide range of integrations (APIs), incrementally achieving their long-term modernization plans at a lower cost and risk.
This “digital decoupling” approach, proven successful for many of DXC’s and AuraPlayer’s customers, takes inspiration from an approach to mainframe modernization. Digital decoupling leverages new frontend capabilities while integrating with microservices / RPA automations that run on top of the mainframe backend. Similarly, when applied to Oracle backend systems, this approach is low-risk and delivers immediate benefits by modernizing the user experience on the frontend, while leveraging microservices, RPA, and REST APIs to retain the backend.
Organizations that embrace this strategy report a 300-400% ROI over 3-5 years, driven by enhanced agility, faster time-to-market, and lower operational costs.
Mobile apps for tracking expenses
Practically, this approach can benefit productivity across a range of business processes. Some examples are:
Purchase orders:
– Deploy automations for creating purchase orders via email or for validating data, updating records, sending confirmations, and handling approvals.
Work orders:
– Update records automatically and eliminate data entry errors.
Human resources:
– Enable employees to submit leave and absence requests, update working hours, and access salary and benefit information using a mobile device.
Expense tracking:
– Capture business expenses on location with minimal data entry.
Inventory:
– Conduct inventory counts using scanners and mobile devices.
In our most recent customer success story, the company was running an old version of Oracle Forms on an outdated AIX operating system. The strategy involved updating Oracle Forms to the current supported version and then “lifting and shifting” the on-premise system to the cloud, leaving the outdated AIX system behind.
Modern UIs replace the original Oracle EBS interface
2025 is just around the corner. Forecasters predict continued economic uncertainty worldwide. As a result, most businesses will seek to restrain spending. This is the time to adopt a modernization strategy that balances sustainability, agility, and ROI from existing investments with next-generation functionality. You can sit back and wait, or you can take advantage of what’s on offer.
To learn more about digital decoupling and phased Oracle migrations, please reach out to our experts.
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