How Test Automation Makes Oracle Cloud Migrations Easier

Oracle Cloud applications have become quite popular for enterprises, as they offer business continuity assurance, real-time data access, easy integration with third party productivity tools, and lower operating costs over time. Many companies are now migrating from their on-prem Oracle EBS system to Oracle Cloud to take advantage of these benefits, especially considering that premier support has ended for EBS 12.1.

This blog post highlights Oracle EBS to Oracle Cloud  migrations and offers guidance on how to eliminate testing bottlenecks through test automation. Removing testing bottlenecks is vital because, according to Oracle, more than 80% of migration projects fail to stay on schedule or within budget.

‍What are the Oracle EBS to Oracle Cloud migration options?

Enterprises can implement  Oracle Cloud in one of the following ways:

1. A re-platform of Oracle EBS to the cloud via “lift and shift”
2. An implementation of Oracle Cloud Applications
3. Moving business processes one at a time to Oracle Cloud for a hybrid co-existence of Oracle EBS and Oracle Cloud‍

1. A lift and shift of Oracle EBS to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (re-platforming)

In a lift and shift migration, you can continue using the same EBS applications in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) with little to no disruptions and negligible costs for training for business users. In an EBS to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure migration, you can carry over your existing customizations, integrations and extensions. That being said, you need to perform multiple rounds of testing, along with additional security testing, to ensure there aren't any negative process deviations, and critical customizations and integrations are working as expected.

• Customization testing: All EBS customers have custom workflows. Although you can carry over these existing customizations to OCI, teams need to regularly regression test customizations to ensure there are no process deviations.

• Integration testing for outside apps: Most enterprises have integrated their EBS with productivity tools such as Google Docs, payroll services, 3Pl, or Microsoft 365. Admins should have a full list of integrations with Oracle EBS and test scripts should be written to cover each of these integrations.

• Security testing: QA teams must develop an effective security testing plan to cover penetration testing, security audits, and vulnerability scanning to ensure that sensitive data is stored, used, and transmitted per compliance requirements.

2. Oracle EBS migration to Oracle Cloud Applications (SaaS/re-implementation)

Migrating to Oracle's SaaS is more of a commitment than lift and shift. Oracle Cloud offers configurations rather than customizations. As opposed to having a customized workflow in EBS that is specific to your business, Oracle Cloud Applications are more generic and must be configured using the Oracle Business Process Management (BPM) cloud service. Thus, every existing EBS workflow needs to be verified to ensure successful transition to the cloud. Testing for data validation, security role validation, and regulatory compliance verifications needs to be done for this type of migration.

The following information and testing should be applied to a migration from Oracle EBS  on-prem to Oracle Cloud applications:

• Create a business process map for critical workflow integrations: The best way to understand how a migration will affect your Oracle environment is to map out your current business workflows in EBS. Setting up a business process map is critical for migrating to Oracle Cloud, as you need to know how many different applications and users are involved. For example, a Procure to Pay workflow might begin in the finance department with an invoice specialist having to route all invoices over half a million dollars to the CFO for approval, but anything under that amount goes straight to the accounting department. This process would involve Oracle Financials, outside accounting software, and a banking application to handle customer payment.

• Compare your current and future processes: Once you have your business processes mapped for EBS, you must compare workflows to the new Oracle Cloud environment. This helps anticipate which EBS configurations will not translate into the new environment so you can find new ones to replicate the original workflow results.

• Educate your users on process deviation: Using supply chain as an example, there are several issues that could throw off a typical delivery timeline. A purchase order could be canceled, the item might fail a safety inspection, or the factory was unable to make the units on time. These changes might cause an Oracle user to have to manage separate delivery timelines.

• Schedule Critical Report Validation testing: Report validation is extremely important for a successful Oracle Cloud migration. However, enterprises often struggle to decide how or what to validate. You need a solution that offers different types of test execution result reports.

• Perform Security SOD Permission Validation testing: Segregation of duties ensures that employees have individualized access to certain parts of Oracle. It’s important to check security roles after a migration to ensure that employees have correct access to the workflows and features they need to use, and sensitive information doesn’t end up in the wrong hands. This provides transparency about who has the ability to perform certain actions for compliance reporting, especially in the finance and accounting fields.

3. Oracle EBS hybrid migration to Oracle Cloud

Another way of moving to Oracle Cloud is to take business processes off-premise one at a time. The most common version of this hybrid migration involves an upfront database migration followed by a process-by-process move to the cloud. The benefit of this is that the front-end applications can get the support they need for the transition at a slower pace.

This type of migration is complex. For example, a department may shift their Procure to Pay process to an Oracle Cloud server, but parts of the processes involve integrations with apps that operate through an on-premise server. There are two important testing considerations to incorporate because of how processes ebb and flow through apps:

• Incorporating end-to-end testing for all business processes: The integration points between apps in the business workflow are at high risk for breakdowns as data moves from a cloud server to an on-premise server. Each process or app can’t be tested as a silo. The workflow will only be fully tested when it is followed through each app. Without proper testing, you won’t know if your cloud environment is properly configured or if there are issues with your on-premise applications.

• Incorporate Oracle users into testing before UAT: For a successful implementation, you need to incorporate Oracle users who aren’t code-savvy into the testing process earlier to gain insight on app integrations, processes deviations, workflow issues, and configuration advice. Also, Oracle users need to be involved in testing in a way that doesn’t take too much time away from their jobs.

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Whitepaper: Testing Strategy for Migration from Oracle EBS to Oracle Cloud

How can Opkey make your Oracle Cloud migration easier?

Data migrations to the Cloud are a huge business risk. If testing is skipped or performed inconsistently, the impact could cause a number of issues, including application errors, data breaches, and lost revenue. Opkey’s powerful test automation platform uses AI to streamline your migration to Oracle Cloud while protecting your data. To shorten test creation time, Opkey has a library of more than 7,000+ pre-built test cases for Oracle EBS and Oracle Cloud. Tests can be applied to clients’ test environments in hours, instantly increasing their test coverage, and Opkey offers several tools that specifically help with migrations:

• Configuration variances are outlined with AI: Opkey accesses custom configurations and highlights any configuration variance between EBS and Cloud environments. Opkey’s scripts also work on both EBS and Cloud.

• Opkey enables End-to-End testing: Most Oracle EBS and Oracle Cloud environments are heavily integrated with other applications and technologies. With support for over 12 packaged applications and 150 technologies, Opkey empowers organizations to test complex cross-application business processes with confidence. Opkey alerts you whenever middleware, integrated packaged apps, or other 3rd party applications are at risk, making sure a business process change in one area doesn't disrupt the workflow later on.

• Smart regression testing protects important data: Opkey decreases business risks caused by inadequate testing. Our AI determines which processes are at the most risk, and recommends the right number of regression tests to run so users don’t waste time testing too much, or expose their data to risks by testing too little. Tests are recommended based on the most likely impacted business processes and other tests that frequently fail with similar changes.

• Educating clients with business process maps and migration impact assessments: Opkey uses AI to discover and document your current processes to highlight business-critical functions and ensure they are tested first. Pre-built mapping templates make process documentation easier and ensure a safer and faster migration.

• Opkey creates a change impact analysis report for Oracle Cloud migrations: Opkey’s change impact analysis shows a client’s “as-is” processes before migration, as well as changes in the “to-be” processes in their new Oracle Cloud environment. This allows clients to focus testing on the processes with the biggest expected changes. Additionally, Opkey enables your EBS and Cloud tests from one interface.

• Continuous testing eliminates bugs and process deviation errors: To ensure your Oracle Cloud ERP migration is error-free, you need to test continuously throughout the migration process. Opkey is built for continuous testing, helping users find and resolve bugs before they get into the later stages of the Oracle Cloud release. This is important because bugs found early in a migration cost roughly 4x less to fix than bugs found later. Continuous testing also outlines possible process deviations to make sure they are included in testing and helps pinpoint configuration changes that are needed for the cloud environment.

• Automated Security SOD Validation: Opkey clearly highlights the variances between functional and data security policies across all applications and custom roles with a simple click of a button. This ensures security compliance.

• No-code test automation: Our no-code test automation allows any employee to create test cases with process knowledge instead of coding knowledge. Using Opkey’s drag-and-drop & screen recording interfaces, users can intuitively create and automate test cases around the processes they know best.

• Autonomous Self-Configuration: Opkey generates all relevant data combinations that can be automatically seeded to your test cases to ensure full test coverage.

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Read our blog: Migrating to Oracle Cloud vs. Upgrading EBS

Conclusion

Oracle EBS to Oracle Cloud migrations require careful planning and testing. Whether you’re migrating your entire EBS system to the cloud or creating a hybrid system of on-premise and cloud-based applications, you want to ensure your data is migrated smoothly and safely.

Implementing testing for these migrations may seem challenging, but using the right automation platform makes all the difference. Opkey’s AI-enhanced features and no-code test creation are a great way to avoid time-consuming test script writing, and test maintenance.

Stop wasting time and resources on testing. Let us make the process easy.