The Future of JD Edwards – Key Takeaways from INFOCUS 2018

As another JD Edwards INFOCUS Conference concludes, attendees are buzzing with positive feedback. This years conference not only seemed to generate higher attendance volume, but hosted exciting new education sessions, booth demonstrations and networking opportunities. Perhaps the resounding takeaway from the conference was the future of JD Edwards, and Oracles plan for continuous innovation.

A Memorable First Take from our IT Experts

We recently had the amazing opportunity to attend the JD Edwards INFOCUS Conference in Denver, Colorado, which surpassed our expectations. The networking opportunities allowed us to discuss the real world needs of several end users while showcasing some of Smartbridge’s recent wins, like successful migrations of JD Edwards to the Oracle Cloud. It was also an incredible experience when Lyle Ekdahl, SVP and General Manager JD Edwards, and Manuel Neyra, Senior Director Business Development at Oracle, presented Smartbridge with a distinguished partner award for this achievement. Overall, the event was a resounding success.

Future of JD Edwards - Infocus18

Various key aspects of Oracles future with JDE served as huge takeaways of the event overall, especially as a technical resource. We had a weeks’ worth of technical sessions to enhance and improve our existing skill sets, and understand Oracle’s vision for the future of JD Edwards. We were informed of several major changes to JD Edwards Ecosystem. Though the future may not be ‘now’, Oracle is certainly taking great strides toward their future vision. Here are some of the major technical announcements and takeaways from the event:

Five Important Facts Regarding the Future of JD Edwards

1) Oracle has announced (again) that premier support for JD Edwards 9.2 was extended until 2030, and there is no planned end-of-life (EOL).

  • Takeaway 1: JD Edwards is not going away any time soon, and has increased ROI.

  • Takeaway 2: Upgrading to JDE 9.2 is significantly more appealing to a customer that may be hesitant due to the changing releases.

  • Takeaway 3: Oracles move to the continuous innovation delivery model, enhancing 9.2 instead of releasing 9.3, will provide a higher return on investment (ROI).

2) Oracle is moving toward autonomous ERPs. From the sessions, it was clear that they have not left out administration and maintenance in these enhancements.

  • Takeaway 1: Oracle is developing tools to streamline administration and maintenance of JD Edwards. Can you say REST APIs?

  • Takeaway 2: On-click Provisioning has received some love. This should reduce the total effort and costs associated with many new implementations, migrations, upgrades, and lift and shifts to new architectures.

3) Oracle has continued to enhance Orchestrator capabilities.

  • Takeaway 1: Oracle is building out native, semi-antonyms integration capabilities.

  • Takeaway 2: The process recorder is going to save us a lot of time creating orchestrations.

  • Takeaway 3: Manual input and data entry will soon be a thing of the past. While we can’t get rid of everything right away, we can automate a manual process without coding!

4) Oracle has devoted massive resources to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

  • Takeaway 1: They are continually enhancing and developing their cloud offering, and have become a major play in the space over the past two years.

  • Takeaway 2: They have become a power player in infrastructure as a service space.

  • Takeaway 3: New services are being released on a regular basis, and new data centers have been added and planned all over the globe.

  • Takeaway 4: Oracle discussed a service that allows partners to validate cloud architectures with Oracle resources. Oracle provides this advisory service to assist both customers and partners in migrations to the cloud. Did we mention it’s free?

  • Takeaway 5: Oracle has introduced a new accelerator program called JUMP START for customers who want to transition to the cloud.

5) UX One still Awesome.

  • Takeaway: Letting the users develop their own composite pages and dashboards lets CNC’s focus on more important things, like OCI and keeping JDE running.

In Conclusion

The JD Edwards INFOCUS Conference was a worthwhile experience. Opportunities for networking, educational workshops and most importantly, diving into the future of JD Edwards were the highlights of the event. Oracle continues to embrace innovation, improve user experience and enhance solutions through their expertise. From the perspective of an IT professional, we look forward to the future of INFOCUS and Oracle JD Edwards.

Keep Reading: Sales Order Process Automation with JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Orchestrator

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