Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud Service (EDMCS) is Here

Background

The history of Oracle Data Relationship Management (DRM) dates back to a company named Razza Solutions in roughly 1995. The company sold a product named Razza Dimension Server (Razza DS), and had approximately thirty Fortune 500 customers. In January of 2005, Hyperion, not yet owned by Oracle, acquired the company with Razza’s fifteen consultants. After Hyperion’s acquisition of Razza, the product was renamed and marketed as Hyperion Master Data Management (MDM) Server. Razza was then integrated as part of Hyperion’s System 9 Business Intelligence Platform.

The value proposition for Razza’s product was a different way to model business in order to measure business performance. It provided a single point of control on the complex and dynamic business rules and data such as products, organization, channel, and impacts of mergers and acquisitions for various business lines.

Overview of the Timeline

2005 – Hyperion acquires Razza Solutions (Master Data Management – MDM)

2006 – Hyperion acquires UpStream (Financial Data Quality Management)

2007 – Hyperion acquires Decisioneering (Crystal Ball)

2007 – Oracle acquires Hyperion for USD 3.3 Billion

Oracle’s Data Relationship Management Suite (DRM)

Within Oracle, DRM evolved from an analytical MDM solution to a comprehensive enterprise master data management solution that served many different lines of business from the front office to the back office with plenty of performance management use cases in between.In the front office, customers frequently used DRM to master sales territories so they could optimize reasonable distribution of sales opportunities across the sales teams. Business to Business (B2B) companies utilized DRM to manage corporate hierarchies allowing them to align accounts with sales teams. B2B companies also used DRM to understand collective credit risk among client entities and model shared sales strategies based on a data-driven understanding of their complicated customer organizations.

In the back office, customers put DRM to use by modeling structural and business changes. Business heads and operations experts modeled everything from legal entities to employees to cost centers in order to suggest, approve, and implement organizational changes. Finance systems leaders and Hyperion Admins utilized DRM to redesign their companies’ chart-of-accounts. This allowed them to compete better in the market. Many other business units used DRM to streamline and reduce their General Ledger (GL) applications across operating currencies and lines of business. This allowed them to then push down processing to sub-ledgers and refocus their GL, improving their group-level business understandings.

The office of the CFO used DRM expansively to map GL structures against their planned budget. They used DRM for expense control structures, close and consolidation rollups, as well as management, tax and statutory reporting structures. DRM on-premises is used by many organizations today that have to manage master data across multiple domains and automate repeatable processes to govern changes.

Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud Service (EDMCS)

In 2018 Oracle released DRM in the Cloud, known as Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud Service (EDMCS). This is an Oracle Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application. Although licensing is different from the other SaaS applications. The traditional EPM Cloud applications (FCCS, PBCS, EPBCS, ARCS, etc.) are priced by user license. EDMCS is priced per record just like DRM was. A record in both EDMCS and DRM is defined as a unique node and the node may have multiple usages. For pricing purposes, Oracle uses a standard cost-per-record and then users, without limit, can be added to EDMCS. It’s worth mentioning as well that there are rumors that the price may eventually move away from records and move to users. For now, it’s approximately $1.50/record.

The new EDMCS application is not a replacement for the DRM on-premises application, nor is it an equivalent. EDMCS is a new application from Oracle that has entrenched many of the significant elements of DRM but seems to be more enhanced. EDMCS has a new foundation and a different data model that will keep many of the attractive qualities of DRM. While companies (or consulting firms) will not be able to simply “life-and-shift” from DRM on-premises to EDMCS, EDMCS data stewards will have the opportunity to share dimensions and hierarchies between the applications.

EDMCS will natively support data visualization as a foundational element of modeling changes. Each change can be logged using request items and actions, thus providing the data stewards a chance to analyze the impact of the changes prior to making them.

EDMCS will also allow for a more rapid data onboarding experience. As any data management professional will tell you, data management is more than rationalizing data from many sources, but rather getting the data properly into the application. Oracle has delivered to us, in EDMCS, an end-to-end packaged integration with other Oracle cloud applications. Its initial focus will be on EPM cloud applications and this will evolve upstream to include Oracle ERP and GL cloud applications to deliver a whole solution for the Office of the CFO. EDMCS will have out-of-the-box adapters that are available to integrate seamlessly to other Oracle EPM cloud products. Oracle Planning & Budgeting Cloud Service (PBCS) will have an adapter from initial release and additional adapters are currently being developed for the other EPM cloud applications (FCCS, EPBCS, ARCS, etc.). EDMCS also has integration capabilities via a flat-file export, which can be used in the interim. Also, EDMCS will leverage Oracle’s EPM Automate utility that is used for other Oracle EPM Cloud applications.

For more information about the recent release of EDMCS, please contact Datavail. Datavail is a specialized IT services company focused on Data Management with solutions in EPM, BI/DW, analytics, database administration, custom application development, and enterprise applications. Our EPM practice focuses on professional solutions and services for Oracle’s market-leading applications. We specialize in accelerated implementations, assessments and roadmaps, cloud migration plans, and managed services via our global delivery model.