Oracle JD Edwards World Licensing — How To
What is JD Edwards World?
JD Edwards is ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software that has been available since the 1980’s in differing versions. The JDE acronym is derived from its three founding members — Jack Thompson, Dan Gregory, and Ed McVaney and founded in 1977. By the mid 2000’s JDE had thousands of customers across the globe and were subsequently bought out by PeopleSoft, who in turn were bought out by Oracle Corporation in 2005.
Oracle has since developed and supported these JDE World customers and will continue to on a sustaining support basis. The current Premier Support capability is only available until 2025, which could impact many current customers of JDE World.
The latest supported version of JDE World is 9.4 — there will not be any further major releases for JDE World — so customers must decide if they are to remain with Oracle or transition to another vendor. If the decision is to remain with Oracle, then a choice is needed between staying on JDE World 9.4 or migrating to JDE EnterpriseONE. JD EnterpriseOne will have new releases and has a roadmap to at least 2034.
How to license JD Edwards World products
On the face of it, knowing what licenses to buy looks straightforward; understanding whether you have the right combination is the key differentiator when determining license quotas.
JDE World is licensed primarily on a modular basis, i.e. if you use Financial Management, then you should have Financial Management as a license and for the total number of actual users.
But you also need to have JDE World Foundation as a pre-requisite for Financial Management, and at the same quantity. This is the same for the other modules such as Distribution Management, Project Management, Quality Management and Manufacturing Management among others. JDE World also enables restricted use of BI Publisher under certain scenarios.
How to Analyse Usage
At Version 1, we have worked with our JDE consulting team to develop a script which shows the usage of modules, by user, and enables us to perform an accurate count of application usage over a period of time. Generally, Oracle look at a period of two years usage (as fair usage), to determine ‘genuine’ usage of the software.
Interestingly, our script looks at all usage (back to installation date), in case inactive users are still in the system, and can be identified and end-dated. Once data is collected via the script process, Version 1 analyses against the license entitlement to generate a summary of application usage and whether that is within tolerance of the agreements and granted license totals. This is a straightforward process, but the financial risk of granting access to modules to a user or a group of users could be hefty and also a pain to remediate.
How do I know what I am using?
By contacting Version 1 through your usual route or via the SAM team, we can advise clients on the process of data collection, what to collect, how to evidentially prove license entitlement for JDE World modules and how to understand product relationships and contractual obligations. Knowing which application and modules you are using is not the only requirement — knowing exactly what has been mutually agreed between you and Oracle is one of the most important things when it comes to license advisory.
What should we do now with our JDE World environment?
Firstly, we would ask that you contact us here at Version 1 to discuss what is the best approach for you — it could be a full transition to another application, cloud migration, migration from World to EnterpriseOne or even stay as is. Getting the right advice is the first port of call in any license advisory engagement.
Given the deadline of 2025 is only one year away, for end of releases for JDE World, it would be at your advantage to have these conversations with us now, so we can support you in your plans for your JDE World environment and enable you with the best way forward.
Contact us at Version 1 to start planning today.
About the Author:
Johnny Cree is a ORacle SAM Licencing Consultant at Version 1.
