Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) products are used by companies from more than last 3 decades for finance processes. Oracle is ending support for Hyperion 11.1.2.4 in December 2021. There are two options available for companies. Companies can move to Oracle EPM cloud or upgrade to on-premises Hyperion 11.2. We are working with companies on both options. Oracle Hyperion 11.2 was released in December 2019 and here is our feedback and lessons learned from our installations for our clients:
Hyperion 11.2 Installation:
The installation process has not been changed when compared to earlier EPM 11.1.2.x versions. The documentation is detailed enough with regards to instructions about database and server prerequisites. The first release 11.2.0 was not certified with any of the Linux versions. As of Hyperion version 11.2.4 , the certified OS versions are: Windows Server 2019 (all SP levels included), Windows Server 2016 (all SP levels included), Red Hat EL 7 (UL0+), Oracle Linux 7 (UL0+) and for Non Oracle DB Microsoft SQL Server 2016 (SP2+) is certified.
Configuration:
There are few consideration before you start the configuration process,
- If you are using Microsoft SQL for repository creation there are additional commands that needs to be run for Repository’s that are used to configure EPM. The requirements differ while creating database for Repository Creation Utility (RCU) RCU which is a new step to be done due to the FMW upgrade to 12g.
- Repository Creation Utility (RCU) configuration should be done prior to EPM configuration. This is tricky part as the initial EPM 11.2 documentation did not highlight the point that we need separate RCU schemas in a distributed environment for each server. This has been corrected and by including a special Note in documentation.
If you do not want to create a new RCU schema for each server on distributed environment you can use the same schema and while RCU configuration a different Prefix can be used so the required Infrastructure tables will have the unique Prefix.
- If client want to use data relationship management (DRM) for hierarchy management then its installation is not part of the EPM install package and is a standalone installation. On the server where DRM is installed there is additional requirement of installing IIS. DRM requires the .Net extensibility to be enabled. In case if this is not enabled the following error can be seen when DRM web console is launched.
HTTP 500.19 Internal Server Error with Error code 0x8007052e
We recommend for the use of DRM for the hierarchy management.
- Once configuration is done Start.bat did not start the OHS and must be manually started. The process to start this is service in windows and Linux is different and can be found here,
How To Start Oracle HTTP Server (OHS) 12c For EPM 11.2 (Doc ID 2627363.1)
- Finally the WebLogic service although not mandatory for EPM to work it is worth creating as windows service just in case you need for tuning or troubleshooting issues.
EPM 11.2 – How to Configure the WebLogic AdminServer to Start as a Windows Service (Doc ID 2640271.1)
Benefits of Upgrading to 11.2:
- Support for Latest Operating System and Databases
- Oracle Hyperion 11.2 support will be available until 2030. Business will have up to date support from Oracle.
- Limited use DRM is available to replace EPMA. DRM is a powerful & flexible tool to manage hierarchies metadata.
- EPMA to DRM Migration utility is available.
- Repository Simplification which streamlines and simplifies infrastructure and architecture for the future:
- Replace Foundation services with a simpler RDBMS repository.
- Content migration for FR/Workspace to RDBMS repository
- Currently Essbase still uses 11.1.2.4 code line and eventually will be upgraded to Essbase 19C which has many exciting new features like Federated Partitioning, Hybrid Mode, Enhanced Jet UI, and Rest API for building analytic applications.
- Calculation Manager Adobe Flash dependency is removed.
- There are number of planned additional features which will be released as patches in subsequent release. Few of the major features are,
- Planning: Smart Push, Valid Intersection, Extended Attribute Support
- HFM: Native Metadata Editor, Automated Consolidations, SV, DB batch processing.
Consideration’s Before Migration and removed features from Hyperion 11.2:
Several features have been removed from EPM – Hyperion 11.2 and needs to be taken into consideration. There are no surprises here as most of the products were removed even in 11.1.2.4.900 release as well and falls well within the Oracle Road Map.
- EPMA is replaced with DRM which now offered with restricted use.
- Hyperion Planning Out of box modules like workforce, Capital Expense, Project Financial along with Simplified User Interface (SUI) are not supported anymore.
- BI products like Web Analysis and Interactive Reporting are also removed. The reports must be either built in FR or can leverage other analytics.
- Some other tools like Essbase Analytical Links and Financial Management Analytics are also removed.
Astral Solutions Group is working with customers to see where they are on Oracle Enterprise Performance Management road map. We also work with clients to see if EPM Cloud is part of their strategic road map or make sense to do on-premises upgrade. We have our own EPM Cloud environments and Hyperion 11.2 Lab. You can reach out to us if you would like to see any of the EPM cloud product or want to look at Hyperion 11.2. We are Oracle Service partner and work closely with Oracle to provide you best service and get the best value of your EPM investment.
We can contact us and we would love to share our experience with EPM cloud and Hyperion 11.2 installations and upgrades.
