11
Mar
2010
Siebel – Why Upgrade? – Part II
by Nitin JainThis is a continuation of the post, “Siebel – Why Upgrade? – Part I”.
Here are some more..
3) Talk about Performance and Efficiency. Though I agree that the new software generally runs with a higher efficiency with most of the old bugs closed, the higher performance almost always comes at a cost of higher Hardware Configuration as well.
The new softwares are, however, seen to be efficient to handle larger volumes of data, or to churn out decisions on the basis of the humongous data store. Maybe, the old system didn’t support it in the first place to make it possible, forget about efficiency!
4) With each higher version, I have personally noted that Siebel Data Model becomes more and more complex. This in turn means more and more universally agreed standards now form a part of the Siebel CRM Installation. This helps a Customer become more aware of the global standards that he may introduce in his organization, if not already there, or to align his Business Process accordingly.
Another fall-out of this, is higher Regulatory Compliance. Now, how many times have I heard Customers going in for implementation of packaged Applications owing to requirements to map to the local Regulatory Requirements?!
Ask yourself the following questions whenever you are pondering over a Software Upgrade:
1) Do I really need an upgrade?
2) What is it in my business that my current implementation is not able to solve?
3) What are the clear Business benefits that the new system brings to the table? Are they relevant to me?
4) If I must upgrade, is my existing IT Infrastructure upto the demands of the new version Installation?
5) How much time do I have before my IT Support for my current version runs out?
Plan ahead, to be ahead.
Feel free to add, or suggest. I am leaving the ground open. Cheers!
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I would like to add more to the Upgrade planning…
Few challenges that you would face and need to add in the planning—
1. Size of current database (this would impact the overall time Upgrade process takes to process and would impact your project timelines…)
2. There might be custom functionalities built in your current Siebel system (due to unavailability in current version). Check if Siebel has included those functionality in the latest version to which you are upgrading. Make an assessment to either continue with the custom functionality or migrating your changes to the new one…
3. Is there a need to migrate from Non-Unicode to Unicode database (it would be a separate effort in the overall Upgrade plan.. Best practice is to first run the Siebel upgrade and then convert the database from non-unicode to unicode)
4. Is there a need to migrate from existing horizontal to latest vertical application
Some considerations if you are upgrading it to 8.0
5. Though Siebel takes care of upgrading the versioned objects (e.g., workflows) in Siebel 8.0 and later, it would be manual effort to re-visit all custom workflows. (One pointer to check in all workflows is Decision steps… Siebel 8.0 made it mandatory to have atleast 1 default connector unlike previous versions)
6. If you have lot of code (scripts), ensure obsolete functions are not used anymore and they are replaced with new / supported functions. Check if you need to migrate your code to use strongly typed variable declaration…
[...] been through the Siebel Upgrade Assessment, and Planning steps. Siebel – Why Upgrade? – Part I Siebel – Why Upgrade? – Part II Siebel – Upgrade Roadmap – Part I Siebel – Upgrade Roadmap – Part [...]