What is OCI?

“OCI” is Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, the next-generation cloud designed to run any application, faster and more securely. OCI is running on sixty-six OCI data centers located in eight countries, and Oracle is building 100 new cloud datacenters.  NetSuite is running on 32 of these datacenters, and all NetSuite partners and customers are now officially running on OCI, a transition that was started in 2022.

What are the advantages of OCI?

With additional locations, customers experience reduced latency and can better adhere to global regulatory requirements. Each region is interconnected with other regions through a private, redundant, Oracle-managed backbone with encrypted traffic. OCI data centers incorporate physical security and resiliency which provides high availability. OCI is highly scalable, and what this means is that All NetSuite customers, regardless of size, get benefits that used to be afforded and available to only the largest global companies and organizations.

How does this impact NetSuite releases?

Previously, we released major NetSuite versions (XX.1, XX.2) bi-annually, starting in January and July of each year. This is largely unchanged, but the OCI upgrade process is continuous throughout the upgrade period. There is no longer the concept of upgrade “Phases”, rather we track progress by “Upgrade Month”, as denoted by UM1, UM2, and UM3.

Are customer upgrades done all at once?

No, we upgrade 20% in the first month, 40% the next month, and the remaining 40% the third month. This allows us to easily track and resolve any potential support cases.

How do customers find out their upgrade date?

OCI upgrade dates are assigned to all customers starting mid-month before the start of the OCI upgrade process¬, so mid-December for our XX.1 release, mid-June for our XX.2 release.

Can customers change their upgrade date?

Over 10% of customers chose to reschedule their upgrade date. Any customer may select any open upgrade slot. In concept, this is much like scheduling a medical appointment¬– there are pre-defined upgrade slots, and they are available on a first come first serve basis.

How are NetSuite versions deployed?

Throughout the upgrade months, UM1-UM3, there is continuous development, and there are specific dates when fixes are made and deployed.  When a fix is made, all previously upgraded accounts automatically receive the latest fix. There are only two versions of NetSuite in the field at any given time, the previous version for those who haven’t yet been upgraded and the latest version for those that have. We hot-fix critical bugs daily and deploy the new versions, as required.

What about Release Preview?

This is unchanged. Any customer or partner account may request Release Preview.

How are Partner accounts upgraded?

This is also unchanged. Partner leading accounts are upgraded prior to UM1, and Partner trailing accounts are upgraded after UM3.

Do I need to make changes to my SuiteApp?

No, this is only an infrastructure change and transparent to SuiteApps.