Discoverer Discussion: EBS Support Implications for Discoverer 11G in June 2017

For those who didn’t read it though, here is the TLDR (too long, didn’t read): No new patches for Discoverer 11gR1 or its E-Business Suite (EBS) Discoverer-based content will be created after June 30, 2017.  EBS customers will continue to have access to existing released patches and other published resources.

What does this mean for IT? Any upgrades to your environment run the risk of impacting Discoverer, and without Oracle’s continued support, you run the risk of “breaking” the reporting tool your business depends on. This article even points out some unknowns, like, “Will Discoverer work with new desktop client updates after June 2017?”. The answer they list for this is literally, “This is unknown.” Is that a risk you can afford to take?

Another key question from this article is, “Can EBS customers continue to use Discoverer after June 2017?” The answer is yes, but, “customers should minimize changes to their Discoverer-related infrastructure with the goal of keeping Discoverer environments stable: e.g. limiting changes that might affect load, hardware infrastructure, or business processes.” At the very least, this could send your key reporting tool to the Risk Register.

Maybe you aren’t IT, so what does it mean for business users? Discoverer may work fine now, but with every upgrade patch IT applies, the chances of your reporting solution having a problem are increased. Oracle is recommending OBIEE as the “migration path”, but are quick to point out, “No, there are no automated tools for migrating Discoverer content to OBIEE, OBIA, or Oracle Endeca Information Discovery.” So where does that leave you? Probably with a lot of manual work.

Go find a friend or colleague that has tried to use OBIEE for transactional reporting and see how that worked out…

The bottom line is neither side should run the risk of their key reporting solution being negatively impacted. Oracle is recommending OBIEE as the next tool after Discoverer, but again, this article specifically says, “No, there are no automated tools for migrating Discoverer content to OBIEE, OBIA, or Oracle Endeca Information Discovery.”

There are a handful of solutions out there that boast to be a replacement for Discoverer. SplashBI can migrate your reports automatically, with minimal manual effort from the business. It migrates the entire infrastructure, compared to many solutions which just migrate SQL (which limits your capabilities later down the road if you need to ad hoc or make changes).  Read more about how SplashBI can take your reporting to the next level, or join our upcoming webinar with Discoverer guru, Michael Armstrong-Smith and hear more about the future of Discoverer and how you can protect your investment!

Reference URL: https://blogs.oracle.com/stevenchan/ebs-support-implications-for-discoverer-11gr1-in-june-2017