by Pat Neary
Code-current. Continuous Delivery. Continuous Adoption. Continuous Innovation. These are all terms and constructs that the JDE E1 community has heard for several years now. They all have been used to articulate the tremendous value that the Oracle JDE team continues to deliver, and to encourage companies that want to invest in JDE E1 to adopt and innovate.
This blog is not about value or innovation so, if like me those topics have exhausted you (at least momentarily), please keep reading! This blog is about what I think companies in the JDE E1 community should be looking to buy, and what System Integrators serving the community should be looking to sell. I’m going to define what “Code-current as a Service” means to us at DWS and how it can be used within the community to better serve our customers and to build stronger and more mutually beneficial partnerships. Hopefully it will catch on!
For years, all of us have been doing JDE E1 projects. After projects, many of us have entered into a variety of support and/or managed service relationships. What is clear is (i) the need to keep running projects is not going to stop anytime soon, and (ii) companies want support over and above what they get for the annual maintenance fees they pay Oracle.
What does Code-current as a Service deliver?
Code-current as a Service is an offering that addresses a company’s desire to not just support JDE E1 but to evolve and innovate, taking advantage of continuous delivery. It is an offering that I think can and should be adopted by any company that is on release 9.2 and that continues to invest in their implementation of JDE E1. Code-current as a Service (CCaaS) is what companies should be looking for soon after completing their upgrade to 9.2.
A Systems Integrator (SI) that sells Code-current as a Service must be able to:
- Be a trusted advisor; with industry, business, process and JDE skills
- Have program, change and project management capabilities
- Provide advice and guidance to exploit the functionality that is available with JDE updates (old and new)
- Provide advice and guidance to exploit technological advancements delivered in JDE Tools releases (old and new)
Each SI is likely to have their own particular version of Code-current as a Service. Some SI’s might go beyond the above points to create propositions, or simply one-off proposals, that include:
- End-user support
- CNC support and services
- Management for your application infrastructure
- Ad hoc development services
- Code-current retrofitting services
- Testing services
What seems clear is that any company that wants Code-current as a Service will have their own ideas as to what they require. They will also probably have an idea of how they envisage contracting to meet their requirements.
DWS can be a part of any Code-current as a Service solution
Companies running JDE E1 might engage us directly, or SI’s might take advantage of our products or services in support of their propositions. As an experienced and proven specialists we can uniquely address any code-current retrofitting requirements with Dimension Tempo, and our Dimension testing products can be employed to improve, speed and ease the functional, regression, load, stress, volume and performance testing requirements. Tempo in particular should be of interest to end customers and SI’s when talking about the code because DWS offers cost certainty within a 3-year term and mitigates the risk associated with customers having modified E1.
Because of our specialization, DWS’ role will only ever be as part of a wider solution for getting and remaining code-current. Having made this point, we are proud that we have been able to serve the JDE E1 community for over 20 years and are excited by the fact that our services and products can still be an integral part of strategies and plans for code-current.
Please react to what you have read here by adding a comment, or by reaching out to me directly at patrick.neary@dws-global.com.
