The Truth Behind Oracle E-Business Suite Support
Beginning with the release of EBS 12.2, customers feared the ultimate end-of-support for Oracle E-Business Suite. In 2017, Oracle mitigated customers’ fears by updating the EBS roadmap with a future major release subsequent to the 12.2 release. Later in June 2018, Oracle coined the “Continuous Innovation” release model for 12.2, providing ongoing application and technology stack updates for 12.2 without requiring a major upgrade but gave notice that Premier Support for EBS 12.2 would end in September 2023, which once again incited fear among EBS customers.
Realizing the confusion this announcement would cause, Oracle released a definitive ERP roadmap outlining the future of EBS in 2018, stating that they had plans to develop a major release beyond Oracle 12.2 sometime in the near future. Each 12.X release will receive a minimum of 10 years of support following its release.
In November of 2022, Oracle announced that it would be providing Premier Support for Oracle EBS Suite 12.2 until at least 2033, extending the support well beyond September 2023 with the release of 12.2.12. Oracle also emphasized its investments stating EBS has 34 Enterprise Command Centers with around 135 dashboards across Financial Management, Order Management & Logistics, Asset Lifecycle & Service, Procurement & Projects, and Human Capital Management.
As a general rule, Oracle promises at least 10 years of support following an update but often extends support beyond that rule. Customers must upgrade to EBS 12.2.1 (at least) to receive continued support. Customers on earlier versions of EBS will no longer receive necessary upgrades or hotfixes but can continue to use their solution.
The Future of Oracle E-Business Suite
As of 2022, Oracle continued to make relevant investments in Oracle EBS, especially in the Enterprise Command Centers (ECC). As defined by Oracle, ECCs, “provide information discovery along with visualization and exploration capabilities embedded within Oracle E-Business Suite user interfaces. [The] Oracle Enterprise Command Center Framework enables the creation of business dashboards in different functional areas” (docs.oracle.com). This delivers value to customers through the user interface and data analysis, with Oracle’s ECCs covering General Ledger, Bills of Materials, Inventory, Order Management, Process Manufacturing, Quality, and much more. This is a great sign for EBS users who are not ready to migrate to a different system.
While Oracle EBS 12.3 may still be on the horizon, it appears that for now, Oracle will extend support for EBS 12.2 through its yearly releases. In fact, Oracle’s EBS 12.2.12 release in 2022 extends EBS support through 2033. Oracle has also made advancements to allow for and encourage special cases to integrate with Oracle’s SaaS offerings. The integration of certain Oracle SaaS applications will complement and enhance a customer’s EBS applications, while also creating future paths for the application.
Conclusion
At this time, Oracle continues to support Oracle EBS 12.2.1 and beyond, with promised Premier Support through 2033, providing some relief to current EBS users. Although the definitive future of EBS is constantly evolving, Oracle’s commitment is evident in its SaaS integrations for EBS, ECC investments, and its living roadmap.
