Streamline enterprise application upgrades with data life cycle management

Transcription

1 IBM Software Thought Leadership White Paper June 2011 Streamline enterprise application upgrades with data life cycle management Reduce downtime, control costs, improve performance

2 2 Streamline enterprise application upgrades with data life cycle management Executive summary IT technologies continue to evolve at a rapid pace. The enterprise applications that you rely on to run your business must remain current if you want them to deliver competitive advantage consistently. IT organizations have to make sometimes difficult decisions regarding when and how to upgrade to the latest version. In view of a number of business drivers including changing processes and requirements, upgrade deadlines issued by vendors and new and emerging technologies many companies are facing an enterprise application upgrade in the near future. This does not have to be the fatiguing and disruptive process that many fear. There are benefits to upgrading your enterprise applications and there are solutions available that can make the upgrade process less costly and less disruptive. For example, effective data life cycle management that includes data discovery and archiving can improve the outcome of upgrade projects, creating greater business value and higher overall success rates. Organizations can shorten the data conversion process and achieve the greatest benefit by identifying the data relationships in business-critical applications and archiving historical transaction data before an application upgrade. Where it is not feasible to discover and archive data before an upgrade, companies can manage the upgrade and archive projects in parallel. Once an upgrade is completed, organizations can manage continued data growth by implementing a routine data archiving strategy. Archiving and removing historical transactions from your production environment helps improve the performance of your enterprise application. Managing data growth will inevitably ease the next upgrade process. Most importantly, archived information remains accessible for data retention compliance and reporting purposes. This white paper describes data discovery, archive and upgrade scenarios and provides insight into selecting the solution that best meets your organization s requirements. Introduction New and emerging technologies. Business requirements that seem to change all the time. Aging technology and software. The announcement from your vendor that, in a short time, support for your version of their product will cease. A new government regulation affecting your industry. One, several or all of these factors has probably affected your company in some way recently, and you need to be able to respond. The solution is one that many companies fear: you must upgrade your enterprise application. Immediately, thoughts of the inconvenience, the cost and the downtime affecting your business arise. In reality, an enterprise application upgrade doesn t have to be the fatiguing and disruptive process you are probably imagining. There are benefits to upgrading your enterprise application, and there are solutions that can make them less costly and less disruptive.

3 IBM Software 3 What drives enterprise application upgrades today? Business process and application professionals tend to view enterprise application upgrades as challenging, tedious and costly. Factors deterring and delaying upgrades include upgrade project costs, customizations and fear of business disruption. However, upgrades have numerous benefits, especially in turbulent times when companies need an even sharper edge to remain competitive. Other factors driving enterprise application upgrades include: Changing business processes and requirements: As your company adjusts to a new economy and new rules for competing in the marketplace, an upgrade can help sharpen your focus and meet new requirements. Application instance consolidation: Common goals such as improving integration of existing applications, increasing revenue and shifting to a business process orientation are pushing companies with multiple application instances to consider instance consolidation. Technology: Emerging web and mobile technologies that operate differently from earlier applications, along with obsolete hardware, middleware and database platforms, can create a mandate for an upgrade. Plus, hardware, operating systems and databases often evolve faster than enterprise applications. So if your enterprise application is not compatible with them, you cannot capitalize on the benefits of newer and more costeffective technology. Basically, if your employees can no longer easily manipulate or combine data from existing business systems, or if they can t get the right data to use at the right time, an upgrade is probably in order. Industry compliance: The number of industry standards and legislative regulations increases each year. Many older enterprise application implementations are not equipped to comply with standards developed in the last few years. An upgrade can help to bring a company into compliance. Vendor-imposed upgrade deadlines: End of standard support and extended support arrangements with enterprise application vendors can make an upgrade inevitable, unless you want to risk the effectiveness of your business data and applications. No matter the reason for your organization s upgrade, it is important to note that it need not be as costly, time consuming or disruptive as you might expect. In fact, upgrading your enterprise application has a number of benefits, including revenue growth, process improvements, increased productivity, fewer customizations to compensate for absent functionality, and lower support and maintenance costs. Moreover, if you choose not to upgrade to the newest application releases, you will most likely face increased business risks and challenges. Losing vendor support for certain applications, like financial management or human resources, can jeopardize your compliance policies and can result in penalties for noncompliance. Similarly, maintaining unsupported hardware and software platforms that become obsolete can increase the risk of performance issues and even system failure. So, upgrading can be in the best interests of your organization. Once you decide to take the plunge, there are ways you can minimize costs, downtime and problems. The first step is to prepare yourself by considering the challenges of an upgrade upfront, so that you are not taken by surprise in the process.

4 4 Streamline enterprise application upgrades with data life cycle management The challenges of upgrading Many companies dread application upgrades because of the challenges they present, especially in the areas of cost, downtime and data volume all of which relate to each other. Cost weighs heavy in the minds of many business leaders. In a 2010 study, Forrester Research notes that most business and IT execs put off upgrades as long as possible to avoid costs and minimize business disruption. 1 Not only can new licenses be expensive, but there are also the costs associated with application upgrade time, resources and maintenance to consider. Downtime is almost as big a concern as cost, because downtime also comes with a price. Many of today s global enterprises operate 24x7: business does not stop. Companies worry about the disruption to operations and business created by system downtime during an upgrade as well as the impact it will have on customers. If you cannot do business, you might lose customers and necessary revenue. Data volume is also a major challenge because it can seriously hinder an upgrade and contribute to downtime. Typically, enterprise application databases contain huge volumes of transactional data, both current and historical. The combination of maintaining and managing large volumes of historical information with continued data growth can have a detrimental impact on an upgrade project, primarily in the areas of capacity, cost and accuracy. These are significant challenges; however, by identifying them before you start your upgrade, you not only eliminate unnecessary surprises, but you can also seek solutions to address them and add those solutions to your upgrade plan. Planning your upgrade Any enterprise application upgrade strategy comes with ultimate goals that include streamlining business processes, improving customer service, connecting with global partners and operations, increasing revenue growth and supporting compliance requirements. To accomplish these goals, your business applications must deliver the technology, functionality and performance you need to succeed. Therefore, as you plan your upgrade, you need to determine the business and technical drivers for your organization, and know the general availability and support date options for the enterprise application versions you are using. Business drivers typically focus on new functionality that supports your business cases for an upgrade. Technical drivers focus on the infrastructure components and application certifications that might be driving your decision to upgrade. An upgrade project also requires a formal project plan, a project team, governance structure and management oversight with specific milestone dates, metrics and change management. If you approach your upgrade without a structured plan or simply order your IT department to handle and spare you the details, you run the risk of increasing business disruption and putting the expected benefits in jeopardy.

5 IBM Software 5 Another significant part of the enterprise application upgrade process should be considering solutions that can resolve the three major challenges introduced in the previous section. There are now enhancement packages and new products in the marketplace that can help you cut upgrade costs, minimize downtime and better deal with the volume of data. An effective data life cycle management strategy can handle all three of these requirements by helping you get volumes of data under control. Effective data life cycle management supports upgrade success As noted in a previous section, most enterprise application databases contain huge volumes of transactional data, both old and new. An effective data life cycle management strategy that includes managing data growth with database archiving and data discovery can move the burden of maintaining and managing unneeded data away from the production system and out of the way of your upgrade implementation. Analysts from Forrester to Gartner agree that such strategies, whether applied to ERP, CRM, custom or older applications, benefit both your IT organization and lines of business. 2 Effective data life cycle management for enterprise applications aligns with organizations business objectives, helping to optimize performance, control storage and operational costs, and reduce risks. It includes database archiving, which segregates historical from current data and stores it securely and cost effectively, and data discovery, which identifies data and its relationships in disparate systems to prepare it for archiving. A data life cycle management strategy can facilitate the application upgrade process by: Identifying complex data and business object relationships Reducing the amount of data to convert and substantially curtailing downtime Reducing the database capacity and IT resources required during the upgrade Shortening the time for iterative testing cycles and refresh activities Reducing the time to upgrade and go live into production, while minimizing downtime during the conversion Improving application performance from the old version to the new version by reducing the online transaction processing workload Reducing backup and recovery times by days or hours Shortening database maintenance time for tasks like reorganization, refreshes and cloning Streamlining and automating business processes and improving application performance Increasing the ability to satisfy data retention compliance requirements by ensuring that historical reference data remains accessible, even after applications have been upgraded Controlling costs associated with application upgrade time, resources and maintenance

6 6 Streamline enterprise application upgrades with data life cycle management Therefore, a solution that supports such a strategy with database archiving capabilities and data discovery can help you promote upgrade project success. The key is to focus on: Ensuring the integrity of the archived data in its complete business context without ties to production. For example, archiving a complete invoice business object would include the invoice and invoice lines, receipts, payment schedules, receivable applications, plus all the contextual information from related business objects and the master data for retaining complete referential integrity. Data discovery and application metadata repository analysis can help you unravel these relationships and can smooth the archiving process by analyzing data values and data patterns to identify the relationships that link business objects. Managing archives and retention periods cost-effectively and consistently over the full lifespan of your data. Capabilities for saving archives in a variety of storage media enable you to futureproof methods for managing data, based on its business value and access requirements. You can retain access to your business records until the legal retention periods expire and archives can be deleted. Managing archive processing using capabilities that accommodate your enterprise application customizations. Also look for capabilities that offer superior safety, control and job separation, along with administration and integration with your enterprise application. IBM offers data life cycle management solutions that can help you focus on these tasks. IBM InfoSphere Optim solutions streamline enterprise application upgrades IBM InfoSphere Optim data life cycle management solutions are well-suited for facilitating your upgrade process. IBM InfoSphere Optim Data Growth Solution provides enterprise data growth management and archiving capabilities that have proven to ease the upgrade process, while saving historical data to a safe and secure archive. IBM InfoSphere Discovery prepares you with the information you need about your data so that you are ready for archiving. InfoSphere Discovery automates the identification and definition of data relationships in the complex, heterogeneous environments prevalent in IT today. Covering every kind of data relationship from simple to complex InfoSphere Discovery provides a 360-degree view of your data assets by analyzing the data itself. IBM InfoSphere Optim Application Repository Analyzer helps explore and analyze the application metadata repository to identify relationships in the data model within your Oracle packaged applications, which include JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft Enterprise and Siebel CRM. The solution identifies application customizations and compares differences in data models across application versions. By making customizations and differences clear and evident, it helps you streamline upgrade projects and manage Oracle packaged application data throughout its life cycle.

7 IBM Software 7 These solutions form the core of an effective data life cycle management portfolio that provides the flexibility for managing your enterprise application data before, during and following an upgrade. After the upgrade, ongoing database archiving (monthly, quarterly or annually) helps manage database growth to keep enterprise applications operating at peak performance and helps ensure that your archived data remains accessible. There are also tangible benefits to adding archiving and data discovery to an existing application upgrade project already underway. Benefits before an upgrade The processes of data discovery followed by archiving historical data and removing it from the production environment will streamline the upgrade process when complete prior to the application upgrade and data conversion. Only the most current data is converted and migrated to the new environment. Managing less data reduces the risk and downtime that often accompanies the testing and conversion processes during the upgrade. Migrating only active application data shortens the time needed for production cutover and maximizes the application performance benefits in the upgraded version environment. the data discovery process and the data structure of your enterprise application. Next, your team adapts InfoSphere Optim archive templates to adjust for any custom tables identified in discovery and repository analysis, as well as business rules to be incorporated into the archive process. These templates define the complete business object of the historical data to be archived, ensuring the integrity of the archived data in its complete business context. Finally, the team initiates the archive processes for the enterprise application system. Historical transaction records along with the referential business data that makes up the complete business object are copied to a secure archive; the historical transaction records are then safely removed from the production database. Older Version Application Data Application Upgrade Project Archive Planning Upgraded Version Application Data Application Archives The process begins with data discovery and application metadata repository analysis, which identifies the data relationships and prepares historical data for archiving. It s followed by the implementation of the data growth (archiving) solution, which uses Application ODBC/JDBC Report Writer Universal Access to Application Data Mashup Center InfoSphere Optim Data Find XML

8 8 Streamline enterprise application upgrades with data life cycle management After discovery and archiving is completed, you can execute your upgrade project as planned. The primary difference is that you will have less data with clearly delineated relationships to convert to the new enterprise application version. Accordingly, the upgrade testing and production cutover activities take much less time. When users begin using the new version, they experience improved transaction and query processing times. Your upgrade project can be viewed as a success from day one. Older Version Application Data Application Upgrade Project Archives Upgraded Version Application Data Application Archives Even after archiving, business and functional users retain convenient access to historical transaction records outside the production environment for ad hoc queries and reporting purposes. It is possible, but not necessary, to migrate the archives into a production history instance after all critical-path upgrade activities have been completed. Application ODBC/JDBC Report Writer Universal Access to Application Data Mashup Center InfoSphere Optim Data Find XML Benefits of acting in parallel with an upgrade If you decide to incorporate data discovery and archiving in parallel with your upgrade project, there are certain common tasks that you must plan and perform for both archive and upgrade testing. There are the technical tasks of validating the individual steps in the archive or upgrade project (for example, moving query tables forward) or validating the new technical environment, along with performance testing. There are also the functional/business tasks of reconciling the before and after results for the archive or upgrade project (for example, after posting accounts payable transactions), or regression testing key business processes (for example, period-end financial close or payroll processing). Although it might appear that performing data management and upgrade projects in parallel requires incorporating additional tasks and potential risks into the upgrade project, the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. If the parallel archiving and upgrade projects are well designed, there will be built-in synergy among common tasks, like building and maintaining the upgrade environment, along with staged testing activities. For example, reconciliation testing confirms the pre- and post-system balances for both the upgrade and the data life cycle management project. Regression testing confirms that the common business processes function correctly after the upgrade, data discovery or archive. Performance testing ensures expected service levels and processing times as part of the data discovery, archiving and upgrade. Keep in mind that the archive and upgrade projects can be managed independently at any point in time.

9 IBM Software 9 You save time and resources by planning and building these common tasks only once, and then executing each task at the appropriate point in the upgrade project and the archive project. Reusable test scripts ensure consistency to support a repeatable and efficient validation process. Your upgrade team can eliminate duplicated effort and minimize total calendar time and effort to complete the upgrade. If you decide to manage your archive, discovery and upgrade projects in parallel, archiving can be accomplished at various points in the project with minimal impact on testing resources. Post-upgrade archiving can also be accomplished after system testing. In this scenario, the site first completes the upgrade. However, before going live with the new system, they archive the historical transaction records in the newly upgraded enterprise application. This approach reduces the size of the application database, again supporting improved performance and overall perceptions of project success. The parallel approach provides the opportunity to derive more from the upgrade investment in time, effort and IT resources. No matter what alternative you choose, ongoing archiving helps you manage continued data growth, improve application service levels and facilitate the next upgrade. IBM InfoSphere Optim solutions meet the upgrade challenge The time is right for companies to protect and extend their investment in their enterprise applications. The IBM InfoSphere Optim Data Growth Solution delivers data growth management and archiving capabilities that offer the greatest range of options for meeting your current and future IT challenges. With InfoSphere Optim Data Growth Solution, you can manage continued data growth, ease the upgrade process and support your business objectives for data retention compliance. InfoSphere Optim Data Growth Solution has proven successful at client sites for streamlining the upgrade process, improving service levels and reducing costs and risk. Most importantly, archived historical transactions remain accessible for inquiries and reporting purposes. IBM InfoSphere Discovery prepares you with the information you need about your data so that it is ready for archiving. InfoSphere Discovery automatically and accurately identifies relationships and defines business objects in a fraction of the time required using manual or profiling approaches. Standard relationships are defined directly to your database catalog. In more complicated cases, InfoSphere Discovery analyzes the data values and patterns from one or more sources to capture hidden relationships and bring them clearly into view. Because it

10 10 Streamline enterprise application upgrades with data life cycle management provides accurate representation across a heterogeneous enterprise of business objects to archive, InfoSphere Discovery is the perfect complement to the InfoSphere Optim Data Growth Solution. InfoSphere Optim Application Repository Analyzer helps enterprises that use Oracle ERP/CRM package quickly identify application customizations by analyzing the application repository metadata. This analysis helps reduce manual efforts to discover and document application customizations. InfoSphere Optim Application Repository Analyzer also provides fast comparisons of data models so that you can quickly recognize changes associated with application patches and upgrades. In one step, InfoSphere Optim Application Repository Analyzer can then export the data model information for use with InfoSphere Optim Data Growth solutions, streamlining upgrade projects. The capabilities provided by InfoSphere Optim solutions and InfoSphere Discovery help you prepare your data for archiving, if you do it in advance of your upgrade, and help you streamline the process if done in parallel. By removing historical transaction data from your production environment, you not only get the problem of huge data volumes under control, but you also reduce the downtime caused by the unnecessary conversion of historical transaction data. Controlling data volumes and reducing downtime help minimize the disruption to business or slow processing that can add significant costs to an upgrade project. Implementing an effective data life cycle management strategy as part of an enterprise application proves successful for a consumer products company A multilevel marketing company that produces quality consumer products and has a global ordering and distribution network recently needed to upgrade their enterprise application. The estimate provided for downtime for this upgrade was five to seven business days. The company needed to reduce that downtime to prevent a costly disruption to its global business, provide near transparent user access to archived data, reduce the data size of the application production environment and improve performance of online and batch processing in the enterprise application. The company selected IBM InfoSphere Optim Data Growth Solution for the archive project. As a result, the company realized these benefits: The anticipated 16-week project was completed in 14 weeks. InfoSphere Optim Data Growth Solution archived a total of 192 million transactions. The transactional data in production was reduced by percent for an estimated annual storage savings of USD 75,000-80,000. The actual conversion time was less than three days and cutover occurred over a long weekend.

11 IBM Software 11 Conclusion An enterprise application upgrade is a significant undertaking, but it need not be as painful as you imagine. By leveraging data life cycle management solutions for your upgrade project, you can: Meet the upgrade challenges of cost, downtime and data volumes head on. Streamline and automate business processes and improve application performance and customer service. Increase the ROI of your enterprise applications. Reduce the time to upgrade and go live into production, while minimizing downtime during the conversion. Increase your ability to satisfy data retention compliance requirements, ensuring that historical reference data remains accessible, even after applications have been upgraded. Control costs associated with application upgrade time, resources and maintenance. Why IBM? With solutions such as IBM InfoSphere Optim, IBM can help your company meet its data archiving needs. In addition, our data management experts and our partners work with your project team to define business objectives and processes for managing enterprise application data in your environment. After implementation, you can count on continued optimization and technical support. IBM InfoSphere Optim is part of the IBM InfoSphere portfolio, which creates an integrated platform for defining, integrating, protecting and managing trusted information in all of your systems. The InfoSphere platform provides the foundational building blocks of trusted information, including data integration, data warehousing, master data management and information governance, all integrated into a core of shared metadata and models. The portfolio is modular, so you can start anywhere, and mix and match InfoSphere Software solutions with components from other vendors or choose to deploy multiple solutions together for increased acceleration and value. The InfoSphere platform establishes an enterprise-class foundation for information-intensive projects, providing the performance, scalability, reliability and acceleration needed to simplify difficult challenges and deliver trusted information to your business faster.

12 For more information To learn more about the IBM InfoSphere portfolio, including IBM InfoSphere Optim solutions, please contact your IBM marketing representative or IBM Business Partner, or visit the following websites: ibm.com/software/data/infosphere ibm.com/software/data/optim Additionally, financing solutions from IBM Global Financing can enable effective cash management, protection from technology obsolescence, improved total cost of ownership and return on investment. Also, our Global Asset Recovery Services help address environmental concerns with new, more energy-efficient solutions. For more information on IBM Global Financing, visit: ibm.com/financing Copyright IBM Corporation 2011 Route 100 Somers, NY U.S.A. Produced in the United States of America June 2011 All Rights Reserved IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, InfoSphere, and Optim are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries or both. If these and other IBM trademarked terms are marked on their first occurrence in this information with a trademark symbol ( or ), these symbols indicate U.S. registered or common law trademarks owned by IBM at the time this information was published. Such trademarks may also be registered or common law trademarks in other countries. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the web at Copyright and trademark information at ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml Other company, product or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others. 1 Application Upgrades: How To Make Upgrade Decisions When Business Value Proves Elusive", Forrester Research, Inc. - Paul D. Hamerman, June 25, Your Enterprise Data Archiving Strategy, Forrester Research - Noel Yuhanna, February 2011; Selection Criteria for Database Archiving Products, Gartner - Sheila Childs, February 2011; Slash Storage Costs, Archive to the Cloud, Storage Switzerland -Joseph Ortiz, 2009; Laura DuBois, Gain Business Value from the Disparate Landscape of Corporate Content with Content Archiving, IDG, Please Recycle IMW14562-USEN-00