OracleAppsBlog

A day in the life of an Oracle Applications Consultant

J.D. Edwards

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

JD Edwards Blog by Andy Klee at ITtoolbox

There’s a new JD Edwards blog at ITtoolbox called What’s Hot & What’s Not with JD Edwards. Looks like it’s going to have some good content.

The About section of the Blog says:

Welcome to my blog for the JD Edwards community. I’ve been a JD Edwards consultant for the past 16 years, and in the last 5 years I’ve headed up Klee Associates, Inc, providing consulting and training services for JD Edwards, Oracle, and SAP clients. Reading this blog will keep you up to date on the important (and no so important) happenings at Oracle, the current custodians of the JD Edwards product line.

The Author Bio reads as follows:

As President of Klee Associates, Andy leads one of the premier independent JD Edwards consulting firms in North America. He considers himself very fortunate to have been able to attract some of the best people in the business to the Klee team. He is totally committed to differentiating Klee Associates from the teaming masses of consulting firms roaming the ERP landscape.

He started with JD Edwards in 1989 and has been involved in training, consulting, and project management for over 16 years. He was one of the first consultants to implement the Energy and Chemical Suite. He also has over 10 years experience with Advanced Pricing, dating back to before the first release on A7.1.

Andy developed the concept of Mastery Workshops for the install base in 2001, and is busy creating more value-add services for both new clients, and the install base. In late 2002, Andy made a decision to start SAPtips, and OraTips was rolled out in mid 2005.

Andy moved to the Western Slope of Colorado in 1999 after living 22 years in Denver.

Andy’s first post is entitled Blog 1 - What’s Up (or Down) With Fusion? and makes this interesting statement:

Gazing into my crystal ball, I predict that by 2008, Oracle will release Fusion Financials. That will allow them to claim victory, but still leave most of us wondering when there will be enough rationale to make the move. The whole thing will be done by 2014, forcing Oracle to extend the 2013 deadline for support for World and EnterpriseOne to 2016.

I like what Andy has done here and I’m sure it will educate people as to what’s going on in Project Fusion. Recommend you add the ITtoolbox Popular Blogs and New Blogs RSS feeds to your feed reader.

Monday, April 25, 2005

JD Edwards and Peoplesoft Product Packs now downloadable via Oracle’s e-delivery site

Last week I mentioned that you can now download the latest Oracle Software and Updates via Oracle’s e-delivery web site. I was rather chuffed to discover today that JD Edwards World, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and Peoplesoft Enterprise have been added to the list of available downloads on this site.

This post from last week outlines how to access Oracle’s e-delivery site. The following additional software and products can now be downloaded from this site:

JD Edwards World

According to the JD Edwards World Product Lines Page: -

JD Edwards World is the leading enterprise software solution for the IBM iSeries platform. The applications offer small businesses a reliable, functionality-rich, web-enabled environment for world-class management of plants, inventories, equipment, finances, and people as a synchronized, integrated whole and are tightly integrated and pre-bundled on a single database, reducing implementation cost and complexity.

The following CD/Media Packs are available for this product on the IBM iSeries OS/400 platform: -

• JD Edwards World Express V1.2
• JD Edwards World A73 Multi Language Documentation
• JD Edwards World A73SP15 MP2 Web Enablement
• Letter: Crystal Reports Install
• Crystal Reports for JD Edwards World
• Crystal Enterprise for J. D. Edwards World
• Crystal Reports ERP Direct 2032
• Crystal Enterprise Direct 2032

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne

According to the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Product Lines Page

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne is a complete suite of modular, pre-integrated industry-specific business applications designed for rapid deployment and ease of administration on a pure internet architecture. It is ideally suited for organizations that manufacture, construct, distribute, service, or manage products or physical assets.

The following CD/Media Packs are available for download via the Electronic Product Delivery (EPD) system: -

• Crystal Reports and Enterprise Applications
• JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.11 Applications
• JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.11 Application with Translations
• JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.10 Applications
• JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.10 Application with Translations
• JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.10 Application Localizations
• JD Edwards EnterpriseOne User Productivity Kits Development Tool 2.5.4

These packs are available for the following platforms: -

• AIX5L Based Systems (64-bit)
• HP-UX PA-RISC (64-bit)
• IBM iSeries OS/400
• Linux x86
• Microsoft Windows (32-bit)
• Solaris Operating System (SPARC 64-Bit)

Peoplesoft Enterprise

According to the Peoplesoft Enterprise Product Lines Page: -

PeopleSoft Enterprise is a suite of best-in-class applications built on our Pure Internet Architecture and designed for the most complex business requirements. Ideally suited for large, company-wide functions across all industries, it provides industry-leading web services integration with multivendor and homegrown applications. PeopleSoft Enterprise can be easily configured and adapted to meet the most unique customer requirements. In addition, it supports the broadest choice of technology infrastructure in the industry.

The following CD/Media Packs are available for download via the EPD system: -

• Process Modeler Client 8.91
• Enterprise Learning Solution 8.81
• PeopleTools Enterprise Development 8.46
• Supply Chain Planning 8.11
• Customer Relationship Management 8.9
• Human Resources Management System and Campus Solutions 8.9
• Portal Solutions 8.9
• Revenue Management Solution 8.9
• Incentive Management 8.9
• Enterprise Performance Management 8.8
• Financial & Supply Chain Management 8.8
• Human Resources Management System and Campus Solutions 8.8
• Portal Solutions 8.8
• Staffing 8.8
• Enterprise Performance Management 8.8
• User Productivity Kits Development Tool 2.5.4

These packs are available for the following platforms: -

• AIX5L Based Systems (64-bit)
• HP Tru64 UNIX
• HP-UX Itanium
• HP-UX PA-RISC (32-bit)
• HP-UX PA-RISC (64-bit)
• IBM z/OS (OS/390)
• Linux x86
• Microsoft Windows (32-bit)
• Solaris Operating System (SPARC 64-Bit)

Looks like I’ve got some serious downloading to start tonight!!

Tags
Blog, JD Edwards, JD Edwards World, Peoplesoft, Peoplesoft Enterprise, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, Oracle, Metalink, EPD, Electronic Product Delivery, Media Packs, Software, Patches

Friday, March 18, 2005

Project Fusion - merging the Oracle, J.D. Edwards and Peoplesoft Software

In a press release in January 2005, John Wookey unveiled the combined Oracle and PeopleSoft product roadmap and support plans. This post contains the details of Project Fusion, the new effort to merge the JDE, Peoplesoft and Oracle Software.

According to the press release, Project Fusion is "revolutionary technology that will follow an evolutionary path."

Wookey stated: -

The new “Project Fusion” is a new information age architecture based on industry standards that will be modularized for flexible deployment, optimal performance and easy maintenance. New information-driven applications will incorporate key strengths of all product lines and focus on business process automation, industry-specific capabilities, superior usability, real-time information access and reporting, and a shared data model to provide customers with a single source of truth. The “Project Fusion” architecture will leverage the latest Oracle technology for scalability, availability, security and performance. The new architecture and the results companies will achieve will be truly revolutionary, but the path to the new successor product line will be evolutionary.

What was most interesting to see that there is already a timeline for the rollout of the upcoming releases of the software under discussion as well as an estimated release date for Project Fusion which is as follows: -

• PeopleSoft Enterprise 8.9 (2005)
• Oracle E-Business Suite 12 (2006)
• PeopleSoft Enterprise 9 (2006)
• JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.12 (2006)
• Ongoing JD Edwards World enhancements planned to be delivered continuously
• First Project Fusion components, specifically data hubs and transaction bases, (beginning in 2006)
• Initial "Project Fusion" applications (2007)
• "Project Fusion" applications (2008)

The press release also contains support milestones and other useful links. There’s also an interesting page on the Oracle site entitled Strategic Direction and Vision that has more information on Project Fusion. It states that Oracle will continue to support Peoplesoft until 2013 and has the following to say about Project Fusion:

Project Fusion: The Successor Product
In addition to continuing development of the three existing lines, we plan to develop a successor suite of products—which is called ‘Project Fusion’—where we hope to merge the features and functions of the J.D. Edwards products and the PeopleSoft products and the Oracle products together. We’ll build, if you will, a super-set application suite using modern technology.

Monday, March 07, 2005

Open Invitation to J.D. Edwards (JDE) and Peoplesoft Blogger’s

In line with the recent take over of J.D. Edwards by Peoplesoft and the subsequent take over of Peoplesoft by Oracle I wanted to invite any persons with Functional Skills in Peoplesoft and J.D. Edwards to become members of this Oracle Apps Web Log and make any contributions you feel may benefit the Oracle, Peoplesoft and J.D. Edwards Communities.

I have two levels of membership available: -

• Level 1 - gives you the ability to post comments to existing posts and e-mail other members via the profile e-mail console.
• Level 2 - in addition to level 1 capabilities allows you to post, edit and delete your own comments (i.e. be a blog author).

Ideally, I’m looking for Level 2 members i.e. persons who would actually be willing to post their implementation experiences on the blog. In particular I’m interested in receiving contributions which discuss how all of these three systems will eventually become one i.e. will J.D. Edwards or Peoplesoft merely be killed or will certain elements of these applications be ported to the Oracle Applications environment? What technologies or applications components will stay and which ones will be binned? A good discussion point is also the impact of these mergers/take overs on all of the customers of these applications.

If you don’t necessarily want to join or are not comfortable with the blogging concept but would still like to submit your articles and papers, please send me your work and I can always upload it for you. If you are a good writer and have plenty of good content to submit but don’t necessarily know how to blog, it is my intention to teach you, so sign up today!! If you know of someone who is interested, e-mail them this post today.

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

Finally!! - Oracle Buys Peoplesoft

Well, I guess it’s good news if you are an Oracle Consultant or Implementor like myself. If you’re a JD Edwards or Peoplesoft Consultant or Implementor it could be interesting times.

After a long and protracted take over battle, Oracle has finally bought Peoplesoft. I remember thinking at the beginning of Oracle’s take over efforts that it was going to happen one way or the other and so it has. Fortunately, Oracle in taking over Peoplesoft has also managed to swallow up J.D. Edwards so now they only really have SAP, Microsoft and the Open Source Movement to contend with. You can check out the official press statement here. I noted with interest the following lines in the press statement: -

This merger works because we will have more customers, which increases our ability to invest more in applications development and support. We intend to enhance PeopleSoft 8 and develop a PeopleSoft 9 and enhance a JD Edwards 5 and develop a JD Edwards 6. We intend to immediately extend and improve support for existing JD Edwards and PeopleSoft customers worldwide.

I guess this offers some relief to Peoplesoft and J.D. Edwards customers in the short term but knowing how difficult it could be to integrate these products
into Oracle E-Business Suite I wouldn’t be surprised if Oracle decides to kill both of them and just retain the customers and some of the skills and infrastructure used to build, distribute, market and sell these products.

Also check out the Oracle Peoplesoft Page for more in depth information on the deal.