E-Book. Compatibility Doomsday: Discoverer, Microsoft and Java It s Only a Matter of Time. September 2017

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1 E-Book Compatibility Doomsday: Discoverer, Microsoft and Java It s Only a Matter of Time September 2017 SplashBI 3079 Peachtree Industrial Blvd Duluth, GA info@splashbi.com

2 It s Only a Matter of Time... Overview Everybody knows about Oracle s de-support of Discoverer, and it being placed into Sustaining Support. So, what about the impact of Microsoft and Java on your Discoverer estate? What about the business risks this creates, leaving you open to statutory reporting issues and Sarbanes Oxley compliance? What does Oracle Sustaining Support mean? No new updates, fixes, security alerts, data-fixes, and critical patch updates No new tax, legal, and regulatory updates No new upgrade scripts No certification with new third-party products/versions No certification with other Oracle products The end result is Discoverer will cease to work with Oracle, both EBS and Database. And for reasons that will be explained later, Discoverer will experience problems caused by Microsoft and Java. When you consider all the technology risks, it means that Discoverer cannot be guaranteed to work with any future release or patch of Oracle Database, Oracle EBS, or Microsoft. Business Risks Let s start with the Business Risks. You may not be aware of the Business Risks that your organization is potentially exposed to. Financial reporting is a key requisite of all organizations, and even more so for stock exchange listed companies. Therefore, anything that puts this at risk needs to be communicated to the shareholders. The Global Stock Exchange corporate governance code requires companies listed on a Stock Exchange to report their risk management activities. The corporate publication of information on risk management activities enables shareholders (and other stakeholders) to evaluate the attention that the company pays to the management of the risks that it faces. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) requires the Chief Executive and Chief Financial Officers of public companies to attest to the accuracy of the financial reports, and requires public companies to establish 2

3 adequate internal controls over financial reporting. SOX has resulted in an increased focus on IT controls, as these controls support financial processing. This falls into the scope of management's assessment of internal control under Section 404 of SOX. Technology Risks The risks of remaining on Discoverer aren t limited to your reporting infrastructure. There are technology risks as well, including your operating systems, Microsoft Office Suite, Oracle versions, and more. Remaining on Discoverer may require you to remain on outdated versions of these applications, which would put your technology stack at a greater security risk. Let s start with an overview: Microsoft continues to develop new technologies for their Microsoft Office suite. The Java version required for Discoverer will always need to be in sync with the Microsoft suite of products, otherwise you run the risk of losing the ability to run/view outputs when reports are executed in Discoverer. Because customers cannot stay current on the latest, secure, releases of both the Microsoft Operating System or Java, this increases the risk that your system can be hacked. Windows 8 and beyond pose great challenges to continue to run the Discoverer administrator, and there is every probability that beyond Windows 10, it will not work. Now, what does all this mean for your organization? One of the questions we are being asked the most: Is Java supported in Windows 10, or will Java run in my browser on Windows 10? The simple answer is yes, Java was certified on Windows 10 starting with Java 8 Update 51. But the simple answer is never really adequate. The following information can easily be researched and found on the internet. Older Java versions that are required for Discoverer will not work with Windows10. They are either blocked due to out of date ActiveX controls or they can cause API Stack Overflow. Windows 10 contains a new piece of code called UNISTACK SERVICES GROUP and many of the problems stem from the fact that the JIT Compiler stores bytecode in shared memory. The UNISTACK SERVICES GROUP handles all synchronization with contacts, mail, Skype etc. It is possible to remove this, but why would you want to? Internet Explorer 11 and Firefox will continue to run Java on Windows 10. However, Internet Explorer 11 has a plugin blocker for outdated plug ins. This means that old versions of Java will not work in IE 11. Discoverer uses a very old, unsupported version of Java. While Java 7 and 8 are certified to work with Oracle EBS, they are not certified for Oracle Discoverer. 3

4 The Microsoft Edge browser does not support plug-ins and therefore will not run Java. Google Chrome and Mozilla (Firefox) will at some point no longer support plug-ins. Java 8 update 91 and Oracle Java 1.7.0_80 can both cause SIGSEGV errors in conjunction with Microsoft APIs. The bottom line is, if you insist on continuing to use Discoverer, in order to continue the harmony with your Microsoft applications and browsers, you must remain on outdated versions, opening your organization to risks of viruses, security breaches, and more. Are you ready to share these risks with your shareholders? Real World Examples You might think these issues are rare, but increasingly, we are finding organizations reaching out for help for issues related to compatibility problems listed in the previous sections. Examples of issues found on forums and help sites: I have windows 8.1 with Explorer 11. My Computer worked fine with Java until I did the new Java update that was two days ago. I keep getting a window from Internet Explorer Stating: The page you are viewing uses Java. Windows Creators Update breaks Java applications. Java applications crash just after launcher. I've tried all applications using Java on my PC and all crash. I have Windows Vista, 32 bit, IE8. I'll put things in order as they've happened. Some months back after a Java update my MSE would scan and find a "severe" threat which I would remove, it happens every time Java updates, but the last time at the end of the update a Java pop up stated it couldn't locate something and couldn't finish. I just canceled it. Today I started getting the ssvagent.exe pop up and found a solution on this forum to go into "manage add ons" and disable the Java SSV helper plug in. There was a plug in and a plug in 2, I disabled both. Then I ran a MS Fix It scan and it didn't find any errors. I'm beginning to hate Java! I know computers have to have it, but something is not right. Some more examples we have been told about: A major bank in the UK has been using Discoverer with Excel for a number of years. Two months ago, they upgraded to Microsoft Office Following the upgrade, some of their users started to experience problems. Now many of their users can no longer download Discoverer workbooks to Excel. A US Military Academy has a mandate to be on Windows 10 by the end of Q1. They were told by Oracle AND Microsoft that Discoverer Admin will not run under Windows 10 as it does not support the de supported version of JAVA Discoverer needs to function. 4

5 Another Organization anonymously said, 10g DISCOVERER Plus is not opening. We are using Discoverer 10 g ( ) with Microsoft 32 Bit. We are not using Oracle EBS, some of our users started getting Java errors when they tried to login to Discoverer. Not all users have the problem but it is happening more and more, there is no user pattern nor any geographical pattern. This one is on the Oracle Community Board: We are upgrading to EBS and installed the required Java 8 version (1.8.0_111). After installing Java 8 my 11g version of Discoverer is not working properly. I'm getting the following error when launching Discoverer 11g: unable to connect to the discoverer server. null Please contact your Oracle Application Server Administrator " Response from Oracle Premier support for Discoverer 11g ended June Version is the final / terminal release of the Discoverer product. Premier support is the only level of support that includes new releases and new certifications. Therefore, any software update (Java, Browser, OS, EBS, etc.) released after June 2014 has not been specifically certified or tested. Discoverer is only certified to use Java 8 when connecting to EBS and with Patch applied. Discoverer was certified against 1.8.0_25, so the issue may be the Update level of Java 8. Each Java update is tighter and tighter. Eventually you may hit an update level that causes Plus to not work. Try a lower java update version. Conclusion As you can see, remaining on Discoverer isn t as simple as just not moving to another solution. It can and will eventually impact your existing technology stacks. It is only a matter of time When we speak to organizations that are hesitant to begin their move away from Discoverer, the two key questions we ask are: 1. Does IT fully understand the technology risks of continuing with Discoverer, now that it is in sustaining support? 2. Do your business users fully understand the risks they are exposing the company to should they continue with Discoverer in this way? Once organizations fully understand these risks, they begin to see how it will impact more than just their reporting. Remaining on a solution that requires outdated services and versions is setting yourself up for problems down the road, never knowing exactly when it will happen. 5

6 About SplashBI The SplashBI Discoverer Migration Utility seamlessly converts Discoverer workbooks and business areas to SplashBI domains and reports. The utility supports any data sources that Discoverer workbooks are built upon, including datamarts, warehouses, online transaction processing systems, and Oracle E- Business Suite. It converts not only the workbooks, but also the fields in the Discoverer folders that the report is based on, thereby allowing the converted report to be modified without the need to customize or extend the original Discoverer view. The utility directly reads the Discoverer metadata from the EUL schema and user can then choose the business area/workbooks to import into SplashBI. The key advantage to SplashBI as the next step following Discoverer is you are future-proofing your reporting investment. No matter what ERP you may switch to, or new Cloud Application your HR team starts using, SplashBI can support them all. Plus, with a comprehensive dashboards and visualizations suite, you get more than just amazing reports. You get a full BI package, ready to keep your organization on top of their data story. For more information, please visit About the Author Graham Spicer is the Sales Director, UK for SplashBI. He has been involved in the Business Intelligence and Analytics community since 1979, and is a recognized thought-leader in the ORACLE community. He has published several papers and serves as a regular presenter at the various annual industry events. He has a strong history of growing satisfied client bases as well as building talented staff members to support such successes. To learn more about Graham, him directly at graham.spicer@splashbi.com. 6