Oracle Fusion
Applications
Oracle Fusion Applications (OFA)
is a suite of enterprise resource planning software
applications from Oracle Corporation. It is distributed across various product
families; including
· Financial
management
· Human
capital management,
· Customer
relationship management,
· Supply
chain management,
· Procurement,
· Governance,
and
· Project
management
Oracle Fusion Applications were envisioned and pitched as an enterprise
resource planning suite - a combination of features and functionality taken
from Oracle E-Business Suite, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft and Siebel product
lines. The suite is built on top of the Oracle
Fusion Middleware technology stack; both layers implement the Oracle
Fusion Architecture, which leverages the capabilities of service-oriented
architecture.
It was launched in September 2010 and released one year later at
Open World 2011
WHAT IS "ORACLE FUSION"
People often get confuse with this term .To start with, it will be
a good idea to know the difference between Fusion Applications and Middleware.
Oracle Fusion is composed of two parts:
Fusion middleware and Fusion applications.
· Oracle
Fusion Middleware aka FMW: Comprises of the Oracle Application Server and
other technology stack components that Oracle has acquired in past few years.
o Fusion
Middleware is a family of middleware products covering areas like BI, Identity
Management, Content Management and SOA.
o Each of
these areas has its own stack of products. Fusion Middleware was previously
called Oracle Application Server.
· Oracle
Fusion Applications:
· Oracle
Fusion Applications is Oracle's next generation suite of applications that
eventually replace E-Business Suite. It will assimilate best of breed features
from:
o E-Business Suite
o JD Edwards
o PeopleSoft
o Siebel.
ORACLE FUSION ARCHITECTURE
Oracle Fusion Architecture (OFA) is a standards-based technology
reference architecture or blueprint for building applications. Note
that Oracle Fusion Architecture is not a product,
and can be used without licensing
it from Oracle. Many organizations use it to write applications that can run on
Oracle Fusion Middleware or that compliment Oracle Fusion
Oracle Fusion Architecture is based on the following core
principles:
· Model
Driven: For applications, business processes and business information
· Service
& Event: enabled: For extensible, modular, flexible applications and
processes
· Information
Centric: For complete and consistent, actionable, real-time intelligence
· Grid-Ready: Must be
scalable, available, secure, manageable on low-cost hardware
· Standards-based: Must be
open, plug able in a heterogeneous environment
Features of Oracle Fusion Applications
· Complete,
standards-based foundation
· Role-based
experience, tested by the world’s leading organizations
· Increased
productivity throughout the enterprise
· Built-in
flexibility, from top-level executives to front-line users
· Embedded
business intelligence, provided at the point of decision
· Supports
faster, more informed decision-making
· Improved
accuracy of decisions
· Choice of
deployment options
· Runs
on-premise, in a hosted environment, in the cloud or a through a mix of each
option
· Modular,
flexible uptake options
Experience Oracle Fusion Apps in
· Customer
Relationship Management - Oracle Sales Cloud combines a
mobile-first strategy for sales reps and managers with powerful analytics and
forecasting, customer insights, and seamless integration with marketing and
partners for increased revenue.
· Financials – It
helps in revolutionizes productivity and information access with native,
real-time intelligence.
· Governance,
Risk & Compliance - Oracle Fusion Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC),
a component of the Oracle Fusion Applications suite, sets a new standard for
risk assessment & management.
· Human
Capital Management - Oracle Fusion Human Capital Management (HCM), a
component of the Oracle Fusion Applications suite, sets a new standard for
innovation, work, and HR.
· Procurement –
Oracle Fusion Procurement, a component of the Oracle Fusion Applications suite,
sets a new standard for strategic supply management.
· Project
Portfolio Management - Oracle Fusion Project Portfolio Management (PPM), a
component of the Oracle Fusion Applications suite, sets a new standard for the
project-driven enterprise.
· Supply
Chain Management - Oracle Fusion Supply Chain Management, a component of
Oracle’s Fusion Applications suite, is a revolutionary new approach to
collaborative, multi-system order fulfillment and product data management.
The Benefits of Making the Leap to Fusion
It’s certainly tempting to move to Fusion. Here are some reasons
why:
· It’s
positioned as the next-generation Business Applications solution by Oracle
· It offers
the best-of-breed from enterprise solutions acquired by Oracle
· It’s
built on a service-oriented architecture and SaaS model.
Oracle Fusion Applications is an all-encompassing suite of Oracle applications
built for comprehensive business tasks such as enterprise resource planning
(ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) and human capital management
(HCM).
Fusion Applications has many different modules catering to
different aspects of business functionality. In addition to CRM and HCM,
modules include applications for financials, procurement, Governance, Risk
and Compliance (GRC) and supply chain management (SCM). Customers can adopt one
or more of these modules and run them in their own data center or in
a hosted or cloud computing environment.
The
Oracle Fusion Architecture’s SOA and EDA (event-driven architecture) technology
consists of
- An
integrated service environment (ISE) to develop services
- A
multi-protocol enterprise service bus (ESB) to integrate applications
- A
services registry for discovering and managing the life cycle of services
- A
BPEL-based orchestration engine to tie services into business processes
- A
business rules engine to enable business policies to be captured and
automated
- A
Web services management and security solution to enforce authentication
and authorization policies on services and to monitor services and
processes for compliance to SLAs
Fusion Middleware
Component for E-Business Suite
In the Fusion Middleware of
E-Business Suite, here is the list of components:
· Application
Server
· BPA Suite
(Business Process Analysis)
· Business
Integration
· Business
Intelligence
· Identity
Management
· SOA Suite
(Service Oriented Architecture)
· Web
Center Suite
On the technology front,
Fusion Applications is completely developed using Fusion Middleware 11g on
Oracle database 11g. Here is the list of technologies used in developing Fusion
Applications:
· SOA Suite
(BPEL, BPM)
· BI
Publisher
· Application
Integration Architecture (AIA)
· Applications
Development Framework (ADF)
· Applications
Server
· Business
Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE)
· Content
Management
· Database
11g
· Enterprise
Manager
· Fusion
apps are metadata driven which is managed by the MDS
framework
WHAT IS IN FUSION V1.0 ORACLE FUSION APPLICATIONS
Oracle
Fusion Applications offer a complete suite spanning seven critical business
areas consist of 100+ Oracle Fusion Applications modules which is targeted for
first release. These are distributed across the following product families: 34
- Sales & Marketing; 21 - Human Resources; 13 - Financials; 6 - Purchasing;
7 - Projects Portfolio Management; 10 - Supply Chain Management; and 10 -
Governance, Risk and Compliance. Majors are:
· Financial
management
· Supply
chain management
· Procurement
· Human
capital management
· Project
portfolio management
· Sales
· Governance,
risk, and compliance
· Enterprise
performance management
MIGRATION TO ORACLE FUSION APPLICATIONS
The
Oracle Fusion Applications platform was built with flexibility in mind, so
companies can selectively add modules if and when it makes business
sense.
With the
initial release of Oracle Fusion Applications likely focused on point
solutions, most users will be concerned with how to integrate Oracle Fusion
Applications into their core applications. This will be a substantially easier
effort than migrating the entire core functionality
There are
options/proposed path which can observed in various Oracle papers.
Here’s a
plan for IT side which may be consider to be crafted roadmap for the future of
enterprise applications
1. Continue
on Your Current Path .That mean you need to evaluate the latest
Applications Unlimited releases Oracle Applications releases such as Oracle
E-Business Suite 12.1.3, PeopleSoft Enterprise 9.1, Siebel Customer
Relationship Management 8.2, and JD Edwards Enterprise One 9.1 for the
additional value they bring to the businesses .In addition to gaining value
today, you will be in a position to upgrade to Oracle Fusion Applications in
the future, if and when you choose.
o EBS ->
Fusion Apps
o PeopleSoft
Financials to Fusion Apps
o PeopleSoft
HRMS to Fusion Apps
o Siebel
CRM to Fusion Apps
2. Move to
Fusion Step by Step. You need to adopt standards-based technology
first. Consider Oracle Fusion Middleware as in-house new imitative and
developing skill sets in technologies such as Oracle Application Development
Framework, Oracle content management products, Oracle SOA Suite, and Oracle Web
Center. These tools will help you integrate, extend, and manage your
applications environment today and prepare you to add Oracle Fusion Applications
if and when you choose by upgrading one environment and then reemployment rest
whatever/whenever.
3. Upgrade
to Fusion Applications. Decide (if and when appropriate.)
If you use any functionality that is not part of V1 but still see business
value in going to Fusion Apps, this may result in multiple Fusion Apps
instances.
4. Adopt a
coexistence strategy. Add Oracle Fusion Applications modules to your existing
environment or implement “pillars” (human capital management, sales,
financials, or supply chain management applications whatever suits) to extend
the power of Oracle Fusion Applications into your applications
portfolio.
Product
Supported Release for Fusion Upgrade
· E-Business
Suite :Release 11.5.10, 12 or later
· PeopleSoft: Release
8.8, 8.0, 9.0 or later
· JD
Edwards Enterprise One: Release 8.11, 8.12 or later 34
· JD
Edwards World Release: A7.3, A8.1, A9.1 or later Siebel Release 7.9, 8.0 or later
SKILL REQUIREMENT FOR FUSION SPACE
In-house
IT as well as consulting company’s needs skill such as BPM and process
governance, to manage an Oracle Fusion Applications implementation.
The
following technical skills are needed to extend, maintain and support the
various components of Oracle Fusion Applications:
- SQL,
PL/SQL, JAVA & java script
- XML
– Extended Markup Language
- CSS
– Cascading Style Sheets
- XSL
– Extensible Style sheet Language
- ADF
– Application Development Framework
- JSF
– Java Server Faces
- Web
Services
- BPEL
– Business Process Execution Language
- AIA
– Application Integration Architecture
- Web
Center
- BI
Publisher
- OBIEE
– Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition
- Hyperion
Essbase
- Web
Logic Server Administration
- Oracle
Identity Management
