Introduction

Fusion Applications has many different modules catering to different aspects of business
functionality. In addition to CRM and HCM, modules include applications for financials, procurement,
Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) and supply chain management (SCM). Customers can adopt
one or more of these modules and run them in their own data centre or in a hosted or cloud
computing environment.

Initially announced in 2005, Oracle didn't make Fusion Applications generally available until 2011.
The project was hampered by several delays that were in part due to Oracle integrating portions of
several applications into the portfolio. Many of those applications – including J.D. Edwards,
PeopleSoft and Siebel – were gained by Oracle through acquisitions. Fusion Applications is built on
top of Oracle's own middleware platform.

The open architecture ecosystem of Oracle Fusion which consists of two parts.

1. Oracle Fusion Applications.

2. Oracle Fusion Middleware.

Oracle Fusion Applications (OFA) is enterprise resource planning software applications from Oracle
Corporation. The applications are distributed across various product families including financial
management, human capital management, customer relationship management, supply chain
management, procurement, governance, and project portfolio.

Oracle Fusion Applications were announced shortly after Oracle's 18 billion USD acquisition spree of
PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, and Siebel Systems in 2005.

Oracle Fusion Applications were envisioned and pitched as an enterprise resource planning suite—a
combination of features and functionalities taken from the Oracle E-Business Suite, JD Edwards,
PeopleSoft, and Siebel product lines. The suite is built on top of the Oracle Fusion Middleware
technology stack; both layers implement the Oracle Fusion Architecture, which leverages the
capabilities of service-oriented architecture.

Oracle Fusion Applications were launched in September 2010 and released one year later at
OpenWorld 2011.

Oracle Fusion Middleware (FMW, also known as Fusion Middleware) consists of several software
products from Oracle Corporation. FMW spans multiple services, including Java EE and developer
tools, integration services, business intelligence, collaboration, and content management. FMW
depends on open standards such as BPEL, SOAP, XML and JMS.

Oracle Fusion Middleware provides software for the development, deployment, and management of
service-oriented architecture (SOA). It includes what Oracle calls "hot-pluggable" architecture,
designed to facilitate integration with existing applications and systems from other software vendors
such as IBM, Microsoft, and SAP AG.

Oracle Fusion is composed of two parts: Fusion middle ware and Fusion applications. -> Oracle
Fusion Middle ware aka FMW: Comprises of the Oracle Application Server and other technology
stack components that Oracle has acquired in past few years. Fusion Middleware is a family of
middleware products covering areas like BI, Identity Management, Content Management and SOA. -
> Oracle Fusion Applications is Oracle's next generation suite of applications that eventually replace
E-Business Suite. It will assimilate best of breed features from:EBusiness Suite from Oracle
applications I. Projects II. Financials III. HCM IV. CRM Fusion Applications is build on top of the Oracle
Fusion Middleware technology stack using Oracle's Fusion Architecture as blueprint.

3. 1. Oracle Applications is delivered as a Suite (collection of modules), but can be adopted in

modules (subset of Suite). 2. Various Modules in Fusion Applications are a) Oracle Fusion CRM
(Customer Relationship Management) – customers, contacts, and resources .This will contains the
Incentive compensation management. b)Oracle Fusion Financials – assets, ledgers, cash cycle,
invoices and payments, accounts receivable, collections, and setup of sub-ledger accounting and tax
configuration c) Oracle Fusion HCM (Human Capital Management) – Employee management for an
organization d) Oracle Fusion Procurement – procurement including requisitions, purchase orders,
and supplier negotiations e) Oracle Fusion PPM (Project Portfolio Management) – projects, budget,
forecast, collect costs, bill customers, and report performance. f) Oracle Fusion SCM (Supply Chain
Management) – integrates and automates all key supply chain processes. g) Oracle Fusion Setup –
special product family for Functional Setup and setting up Home Page or Help. h) Oracle Fusion GRC
(Governance, Risk, and Compliance) – automated controls enforcement to enable sustainable risk
and compliance management.

4. 3. Product Families (CRM, HCM, Financials) mentioned above contains one or more Java EE
applications and are deployed on Oracle WebLogic Server. 4. An application can contain multiple
products, and a product can also span across multiple applications. Each product in Fusion
Application typically has one-to-one relationship with EAR file, for ex. EarSales.ear is an enterprise
application for product Sales. Oracle Fusion Applications can best be described as: Built on
an open standards-based platform Based on best practices business processes Deployed through a
selection of options Built with security as a priority
What is Oracle Fusion Cloud and Why Does it Matter?

Over the past several years, there’s been a lot of talk regarding Oracle Fusion and many people
struggle to understand what exactly this means. Essentially “Fusion” refers to Oracle’s Cloud
infrastructure (“Fusion” Middleware) and the development of new applications specifically designed
for the Cloud and subscription services. More recently, Oracle has focused communications on the
business process value and business uses of these the applications and now refers to these
applications and underlying technology simply as “Cloud”. For the purposes of this article, we’ll use
the term “Fusion” to describe the underlying technology for those that care, and the term “Cloud” to
describe business applications delivered by Oracle in a subscription service model.

Oracle has invested heavily in Fusion middleware and applications and this is one of the biggest
areas of growth for the company. On a recent conference call with Wall Street analysts, Oracle CTO
Larry Ellison reported seeing 100 % growth for Cloud-based software. On the call Ellison was quick to
point out the hard work Oracle developers have put in to build its new Fusion applications from the
ground up.

“We built everything, everything from scratch,” Mr. Ellison said. “Every single line of code in Fusion
HCM [Human Capital Management app] is new for the Cloud, every single line of code where Fusion
ERP is new for the Cloud. And those new Cloud applications are based on by far the strongest
platform.”

“Over the past several years, there’s been a lot of talk regarding Oracle Fusion and Oracle Cloud
offerings. This is part of a series of articles to help demystify these offerings and what they mean to
you.”

While much of the Fusion buzz to date has been around HCM and ERP, as an Oracle Cloud Fusion Co-
Development partner since 2012, we can attest that exciting things are coming for Oracle Cloud
Supply Chain Management applications in the near term.

How Oracle Fusion became what it is today

As recently as 2013, Oracle Fusion was divided into four software categories, including customer
relationship management, human capital management, enterprise resource planning and supply
chain management. At the same time, these applications were being delivered through the Oracle
Cloud in addition to on-premises setups. The Cloud application suite had rapidly gained momentum
and there was new functionality being added regularly – with major releases up to three times per
year.

If you fast forward to today, Oracle is going “all in” and accelerating their Cloud offerings. The
current Cloud Applications suite includes CRM; Financials; Governance, Risk, and Compliance; HCM;
Procurement; Project Portfolio Management; and SCM and within each of these groups, there are
sub-categories that provide companies multiple layers of services and modules. In our supply chain
space, Oracle had previously only scratched the surface of Cloud SCM applications up to release 9
with the following releases:

Fusion Distributed Order Orchestration

Fusion Product Information Management

Fusion Inventory and Cost Management

Fusion Procurement

Oracle Innovation Management

Oracle_FusionThis is changing with major functionality being scheduled for Cloud SCM release 10 in
the very near term and release 11 just behind it. We’ll reserve those encouraging comments for post
release by Oracle.

The Oracle Cloud SCM applications differ from previous Oracle applications software, such as E-
Business Suite, in that Fusion was developed within a modular framework that enables many of the
capabilities to be implemented as standalone solutions in a hybrid of Oracle Cloud applications with
your legacy systems or as a comprehensive fully integrated Cloud suite. A major benefit to Oracle
Fusion is its ability to integrate with these hybrid architectures of Cloud and legacy frameworks
through their technical Cloud infrastructure and platform offerings that encourage external
development within their open-standards architecture.

Oracle’s Cloud applications are rapidly evolving in both breadth and depth of offerings and they have
considerable momentum. I’m personally fortunate to work for a leading consulting firm in this space
such that I am actively engaged in adoption of these new technologies by working with our cloud
center of excellence, helping to implement these Oracle Cloud ERP applications for our own
production use, and advising client early adopters of Cloud SCM. These are exciting times. I hope
you enjoyed this article and feel free to reach out to us if you want to learn more about Oracle Cloud
applications.

Keep an eye on this blog for more information about Oracle Fusion and Cloud and what it means to
you.