Risks related to using version 10.7

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By: rekha singh | 06 Mar 2010 11:42 am

Hi,

I have a client running version 10.7 and was looking for some specific risks on staying on that version. Can we offer some specifics other than 'its not supported by Oracle?'

I thought of legislative updates provided by Oracle for HRMS/Payroll or legislative reporting requirements related to localizations. What are some other specific risks?

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One of the biggest risks isn't even with the software, but with the hardware it's running on. All hardware fails eventually, and when they next have a failure I would expect it to be unlikely that their vendor could provide replacement parts. Even if the vendor gave them brand new hardware as a replacement, any current operating system would likely not be able to run 10.7. So basically I see any system this old as a ticking time bomb. Eventually the hardware will fail and you will be stuck in an emergency situation with no options for getting a system back up and available in a timely manner. Oracle support sure wouldn't help in that situation either.

As for the software, I would imagine the security risks/holes are numerous. They didn't really provide security updates and fixes back in the 10.7 days. I know some parts of 10.7 weren't even Y2K compliant unless you got all the patches applied. They also wouldn't get the annual 1099 updates.

By: rekha singh | 06 Mar 2010

Some other thoughts:

· Replacement hardware that will support it may be harder to find/ more expensive

· Corrupt data etc (although low risk) will not be fix by Oracle

· Would expect audit to raise an eye brow or two over the support side of things

· I assume IT (or at least this part of it) is not considered to provide competitive advantage – can’t take advantage of the ‘internet’ apps to reduce the burden on central resources/ reduce costs etc

· Difficult to say much more without knowing the background and Apps in use etc

Regards

By: rekha singh | 06 Mar 2010

Hi,

I am guessing by staying on 10.7 until now they are just utilizing Oracle applications schema since I don't believe the end users will continue to use a character based UI (before forms 4.5) and also they must be having extravagant customization that is/was not portable to a newer version.

If either of them were true - any update provided by Oracle - legislative or otherwise might not be of much use to them. Without knowing which modules they use - here are some generic ones

To me the biggest risk for them is keeping the people who are still motivated to work on that version of technology - (sorry did not mean it in a funny way)
Here are some other things to think about - While Application Support is Unlimited (might need to look into specifics) - the tools, operating system, database will keep getting obsolete so they will need to keep certifying - which they might be doing already.
Since they are not web-based I guess they will not have any security issues like SQLInjection, DoS and the remedial fixes that have been released in the recent past.

By: rekha singh | 06 Mar 2010

Risks related to using version 10.7

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