Oracle Forms has been the mainstay of many enterprise applications over the last two decades, with companies worldwide relying on them to run their mission-critical operations. As such, Oracle has renewed its commitment to support Forms well into the future and continues to innovate and launch new Forms features with each new release. However, despite all this, some companies are growing increasingly concerned about the future of their Oracle Forms investments and are looking more closely at the agility and user experience of their back-end systems.
This leaves many organizations at a crossroads, having to decide the best way to bring their applications into the future. It’s a tricky endeavor, though; because if we’ve learned anything, it’s that the tech industry is changing so rapidly that we can hardly keep up! While the latest technologies on the market may initially be exciting and enticing, we can note that over these last 20 years, it’s the newer technologies like JSP, J2EE, and Java Swing that have all come and gone — and it’s been Forms that’s remained constant through it all. Companies are now forced to make this critical decision: Should they invest more money in their existing Oracle system with modernized functionality and hybrid options, or should they take the risk of migrating away from Forms completely and leaving the legacy application behind?
The decision to migrate away from Forms, however, ends up presenting organizations with a brand new dilemma. As companies do their research and make plans for large, long-term migration projects, they may not account for how long it will take in order to see any meaningful results or gains. Massive migrations can often take 5 to 20 years to complete (if at all), keeping companies from achieving the very modernization goals that made them choose this route in the first place. And while it’s understandable for these companies to not want to spend additional money on modernizing their current legacy system, there needs to be a plan for achieving the necessary functionality to meet critical business needs in the interim.
This dilemma makes it essential for organizations to look more closely at their IT roadmap and strategies at this critical juncture. The reality is that organizations choosing to move away from Forms also have much to gain by extending their current back-end to next-gen functionality and leveraging their existing applications. Even if the long-term goal is to migrate off of Forms, companies can benefit tremendously by extending their Forms applications as a way to achieve immediate results while continuing to work on a lengthy, long-term migration project behind the scenes.
It is this strategic combination that gives companies the best of both worlds — by setting them up for operational success in the here and now, while the long-term strategy can still be focused on the larger vision and end-game: migration. To help customers achieve this win-win, AuraPlayer’s specialized solution wraps existing Forms applications as rest services/ APIs in just minutes. It is these APIs that can then serve as the basis for new modernized functionality without the need to reverse engineer / redevelop the underlying Forms applications and can bring immediate results while working toward the long-term goals of migration. With custom APIs, companies become able to free the business logic trapped in their applications and allow it to then be accessed and utilized in a myriad of ways. Think of it as a series of “legos” that can be used independently or combined to perform specific business functions. The functionality of the Form would remain the same, while the look and feel can be changed by simply “unplugging” it and replacing it with a newer model on the same backend API.
Rather than seeing rest services as just “another investment” in an outdated system, this strategy is the real key to a successful phased migration process. Using this powerful combination, companies no longer need to wait years before benefitting from next-generation functionality such as RPA, Chat, and mobile apps. These APIs can be used as the gateway to new and improved UI screens, remote access via mobile apps, RPA automation to reduce time on tedious processes, and more.
If digital transformation and advancement are the end goal, how can companies afford to wait so many years before getting the functionality they need right now? Migration off of Forms may have its benefits, but companies need to be realistic and strategic about how to navigate this process in its entirety. It’s not enough to simply map out all the steps and goals for a migration project; it requires companies to take a look at the bigger picture and determine how they can meet their business needs as soon as possible. With a strategic plan in place, organizations can set themselves up for true operational success — and be able to reap the benefits much, much sooner.
Not sure how to navigate your migration plans and put a strategy into place? Feel free to email me at miaurman@auraplayer.com for more information.
About the Author, Mia Urman
Mia Urman is an Oracle ACE Director and a world-class expert in Oracle development technologies, with over 20 years of experience presenting, supporting, training, and consulting Oracle products. In her 7 years at Oracle, she was a senior support analyst and product manager of Oracle Developer Suite, Jdeveloper, and IAS technologies, as well as the lead on the topics of Oracle Forms modernization and ADF/Java development. She is the CEO and founder of AuraPlayer, a cutting-edge technology company offering solutions to extend and modernize Oracle Forms and EBS as Microservices to incorporate mobile/web, chatbots and RPA automation.
