How Oracle Cloud Enterprise PCM Changes Our Approach to Architecture

In the last blog, we shared our excitement about the recent release of Oracle Cloud Enterprise PCM, explored the history of Oracle PCM, and discussed what exactly Oracle Cloud Enterprise PCM is. In the upcoming blogs, we are going to discuss how the release impacts our implementations. We will look at breaking out our discussions into 5 areas of impact: architecture, master data management, data integration, rule maintenance and execution, and reporting.

Within each of the upcoming blogs, we will discuss:

1. What Changes?
   • An overview of the key changes that we expect to see when comparing the capabilities and functionality of Oracle Cloud PCM vs Oracle Cloud Enterprise PCM.
   • It is important to note that Oracle Cloud Enterprise PCM will continually receive new features, and the differences in each of the above categories will continue to grow.
2. How We Implement
   • A high-level overview of the high-level implementation approach to each of the categories, highlighting some of the key changes in the implementation strategy.
3. What’s the Impact?
   • How our choice between Oracle Cloud PCM and Oracle Cloud Enterprise PCM affects each of the above categories.
   • What are the important considerations when choosing between Oracle Cloud PCM and Oracle Cloud EPCM.

Let us start our discussion with a deep look into the Solution Architecture, as this is our starting point for each and every one of our implementations.

Oracle Cloud PCM Architecture

Over the years of implementation, Alithya has developed a very standardized approach to our allocation solution architecture. This approach leverages Oracle Cloud Enterprise Licensing to take advantage of the different feature sets of the different business processes, depending on the requirements of the clients. Below is an example of a typical architecture approach that we outline in our OTP blog series:

What you will notice from the above is that our typical Oracle Cloud PCM architecture involves the usage of multiple cloud modules and applications. We have:

1. Enterprise Planning Instance - used to accommodate data entry, review, task flow, and reporting functionality.
2. Oracle Cloud PCM Processing – used as our allocation engine and contains only the data we require for the current management cycle.
3. Oracle Cloud PCM Reporting – used to store our historical information and for reporting purposes.

This approach has some significant advantages over a single Oracle Cloud PCM application approach:

1. The approach leverages the capabilities available in Cloud Enterprise Planning that are not available in Oracle Cloud PCM for data entry (E.g., web forms and various integrations) and reporting (e.g., Dashboards 2.0).
2. Addresses the slowdown in performance that is seen in ASO database calculations when large datasets are present by separating out the Oracle Cloud Processing and Reporting applications.
3. Allows for the application of security to ensure separation of duties performed on each of the applications between different user groups (data input, modelers, and report viewers).

Of course, there are some downsides to having a multi-application architecture:

1. Leads to a large number of required instances for clients who have multiple environment requirements (e.g., Dev, UAT, Prod).
2. Multiple touchpoints of maintenance for:
   • Security – Users’ security must be maintained across the different instances.
   • Master Data – Master Data such as dimensions needs to be maintained across different applications. Oracle Enterprise Data Management (EDM) is incredibly important in this approach to help alleviate the maintenance burden.
3. Requires a cross-application integration strategy that can increase the solution’s technical complexity.
4. Requires training across different Oracle business processes (e.g., Oracle Cloud Enterprise Planning and Oracle Cloud PCM).

Oracle Cloud Enterprise PCM Architecture

Oracle Cloud Enterprise PCM allows us to significantly simplify our allocation solution architecture:

From the above, you can see that with Oracle Cloud Enterprise PCM we are able to have a single application approach to solution architecture whilst still delivering on all of the benefits of the multi-application approach. This is a big deal and is possible due to 2 key advantages of moving the Oracle Cloud PCM to the Common EPM Platform:

1. Multiple Databases per application support allowing us to deploy a driver (data) database for data entry, a processing database for calculation purposes, and a reporting database for historical data retention and reporting.
2. Common EPM functionality grants Oracle Enterprise PCM access to functionality such as webforms, dashboards, and many others.

The impact of this change in architecture is that we retain the advantages of the multi-application approach but lose the disadvantages. When comparing the two architectural approaches, Oracle Cloud Enterprise has the following benefits:

1. Single application setup and maintenance for:
   • Security – Users can be provisioned at an application, database, and data level giving control and minimizing maintenance.
   • Master Data – Dimension and other master data are maintained in a single application for multiple databases minimizing the maintenance touch points and automation requirements.
   • Patch Smoke Testing – having multiple applications requires patch testing on each.
2. Common EPM Platform Functionality – Enterprise PCM can leverage functionality not available in Oracle Cloud PCM, which can help simplify our implementations and align to other deployed EPM business processes. Existing Oracle Cloud deployments can also be leveraged to speed up the Oracle Cloud EPCM implementations.
3. Intra-Database Integration strategy which removes unnecessary complexity from the integration strategy by utilizing common EPM data integration functionality and removes automation requirements.
4. Single business process training that can leverage existing and shared common EPM knowledge.

Conclusion

The architectural approach differences between Oracle Cloud PCM and Oracle Cloud Enterprise PCM may seem simplistic and straightforward on the surface, but they are incredibly important to the overall usability of the allocation solution and the success of the overall implementation.

Although the Oracle Cloud Enterprise Licensing grants us access to the entire world of Oracle Cloud EPM, having multiple applications in an allocation solution adds complexity to the running and maintenance of that solution. By allowing Oracle Cloud Enterprise PCM to have multiple databases per application and being able to utilize the Common EPM functionality, we now have a no-comprise single application approach to our allocation solutions, which is incredibly exciting.

For comments, questions, or suggestions for future topics, please reach out to us at infosolutions@alithya.com.  Visit our blog regularly for new posts about Cloud updates and other Oracle Cloud Services such as Planning and Budgeting, Financial Consolidation, Account Reconciliation, and Enterprise Data Management.  Follow Alithya on social media for the latest information about EPM, ERP, HCM, and Analytics solutions to meet your business needs.