How DXC Utilizes SQDR for its JD Edwards Practice

How DXC Utilizes SQDR for its JD Edwards Practice

Leading companies around the world turn to DXC for J.D. Edwards managed services. And when Phil Anderson, Principal JD Edwards Technical Consultant at DXC, has a project that requires data replication, he turns to StarQuest Data Replicator (SQDR).

StarQuest recently had a conversation with Phil to learn what he views as the key use-cases for SQDR for JDE customers. We’ve pulled the highlights to help you utilize SQDR for your instance of JD Edwards.

1. Migration Activities

“SQDR supports all three platforms that JDE runs on – Oracle, SQL Server, and IBM DB2. We keep all JDE-specific table structures intact and let SQDR write all the data to the tables. I’ve never had any integrity issues or transformation problems. With migration activities, you can do them with the database tools, but the process of the setup and using the toolset, it’s quick to get things done whether that’s real-time replication or bulk refreshes. It’s a time-saver.”

SQDR’s seamless data modeling easily transforms data from database type to database type. It also replicates with sub-second latency, ensuring accuracy and currency in near real-time. This incremental replication enables a scenario that we like to call “zero downtime migrations”. Using change data capture methodology, SQDR maintains accurate and current data on both the source and destination servers. This offers IT professionals a perfect test environment until they are satisfied that the migration will have the desired effect. This mitigates risk, minimizes downtime, and offers peace of mind when cutting over permanently.

2. Replacing Homegrown Solutions With Mature Software

“If we don’t use SQDR, we have to use log-shipping scripts and these homegrown solutions, while they do work, are not the best. Fail over and fail back can be clunky.”

SQDR easily moves data from source-to-destination while maintaining a copy of your data on an intermediate server that is unaffected in a disaster scenario or planned downtime. However data needs to be moved, SQDR When connectivity is lost, SQDR checkpoints replication and will automatically restart once connectivity is restored.

As Phil says, homegrown solutions can be a stopgap solution, but their weaknesses are often exposed whenever any aspect of the environment changes. Using SQDR ensures that you are using an up-to-date solution maintained by a dev team that has been working together for over 20 years. The software is also built on open standards so that we can add support for both emerging technologies and the latest update to existing technology.

3. Handling DBMS-Specific Requirements

“SQDR handles unique requirements such as reading SQL Server CDC tables quite well. We use SQDR to write transactions back to SQL and then use CDC functionality in SQL Server so that it can just keep running.”

All data stores have their particular set of functionalities and our team is well versed in all the data stores that we support. From relational databases such as Oracle, IBM DB2, and SQL Server to NoSQL platforms such as Hadoop and HortonWorks, SQDR works with the particular characteristics of the data store to ensure robust and reliable replication.

4. Data Integration

“We use SQDR as a data integration tool to bring in data from staging tables.”

Most IT professionals are either dealing with “make this talk to that” challenges or will be soon. SQDR addresses this obstacle well, particularly in heterogeneous environments, by mapping data easily between data types and synchronizing that data seamlessly. We often help customers by delivering data from disparate systems into a staging database that can then be ingesting by a modern ERP or other software that can utilize all of their data.

5. Upgrades

“A lot of the underlying table structures can change when you do a major release upgrade. Typically, the core transaction tables have new columns bolted on. With SQDR, you can build a scenario where you can replicate data out of existing tables into destination tables. Typically, you have to keep running a data conversion process which can be very lengthy and time-consuming. With SQDR, you have a tool that’s effectively managing it in real-time. That dramatically eases the whole upgrade process as you don’t have to keep testing that long process. When you get to go-live, you save a bunch of time on the weekend as the data is already in the right format and doesn’t need conversion.”

Upgrades are a scenario where SQDR can substantially accelerate time-to-value. SQDR was designed from its inception to excel in heterogeneous environments. The software replicates data not only from database type to database type but also across the various versions so upgrade paths are as direct and efficient as possible. Upgrading with SQDR is usually just one step whereas other software often requires costly step-by-step migration processes all the way up the stack.

6. Data Refreshes

“A common job inside of JDE is data refreshing between environments. In most cases, you’re backing up an entire database and then restoring it to a destination. With SQDR, you could say that we just want to refresh these ten tables and schedule the replication. Then you have an automated data refresh service instead of having a managed services team, DBA, and outages.”

SQDR excels at making accurate, current data available whenever and wherever a customer needs it. Depending on the requirement and architecture, we can either maintain synchronization in near real-time or schedule regular snapshot replication. SQDR also partitions datasets to the row and column level, which is ideal for subscribers that only need or have permission to receive a subset of the source data.

Thank you to Phil for offering his expertise and insight into how SQDR can be used with JD Edwards. We have greatly enjoyed working with Phil and DXC and we are happy that the feeling is mutual. Here’s what he had to say about our team: “Working with StarQuest is really easy. Everybody is really helpful and goes above and beyond to solve problems and get things working. StarQuest works as a partner not just as a vendor. It makes a big difference.”

If you would like to explore using SQDR for your instance of JDE, please email onlinesales@starquest.com.