Industry Guidebook

How to choose upgrade strategy when going to IFS Cloud

November 11, 2021

Route #1 – A direct move to IFS Cloud

The first route is a direct upgrade to IFS Cloud that allows you to fully use IFS Managed Cloud and when doing that you can still benefit from having an IFS partner to strengthen your organization managing the contacts with IFS.

With this route, you will have full adoption of the Aurena interface, new IFS Life Cycle Experience and also the use of REST/Odata protocol for managing your integrations to IFS applications. It’s quite a big step!

Route #2 – Move to IFS Cloud via IFS10

The other route is to move to IFS Cloud via IFS 10. In that way, you will stay with the existing life cycle management and existing tools that you’ve known for years – all the way until 2025. With this route, you will be able to continue to use the Enterprise explorer interface and for certain user categories, you can start using the Aurena interface in your phase and likewise with adopting the rest of the REST/Odata protocol for your integrations in your own phase.

Evaluate the pros and cons of the different alternatives and ensure you know why you upgrade.

Moving directly to IFS Cloud (Route#1)

Consider route #1 if you:

are in an industry not affected by IFS consolidation
have limited critical integrations and modifications
have a strategy to move to Cloud Technology
believe your users will quickly adopt Aurena
need for IFS Cloud only functional feature

Note however that there are some specific features e.g. the overall equipment efficiency and some document management features that are not available in IFS Cloud and may not be available in the future either. So if you depend heavily on those and want to continue that you need to consider if you want to go directly to IFS Cloud.

Benefits of route #1:

Longer lifetime (No end of life)
No major upgrades
Earlier move to the cloud and closer to the IFS Evergreen philosophy

The benefits are that you are immediately onboard the new IFS release cadence that should give you a smoother and more cost-efficient life cycle of your business system.

Yes, the benefits of the direct route to IFS Cloud are great but you should assess your situation against these criteria. Go with it when YOU are ready and IFS is ready for your business.

Moving to IFS Cloud via IFS Applications 10 (Route #2)

Consider route #2 if you:

want to continue to use functionality that might not be available in IFS Cloud
are not yet ready to replace existing integrations
don´t have a Cloud-first strategy.
have a great number of heavy key users that will be slow accepting IFS Aurena.
want to implement a new process into IFS Applications

Benefits of route #2:

Minimal disruption for users
Selective use of current integrations not affected
Preparation time – you have time to prepare your integrations and get rid of modifications

The benefits are primarily that your user community has a flexible way of adopting the new Aurena interface and that you have time to replace integrations and modifications at a slower pace before moving to IFS Cloud.

In short, there are two different routes to move to IFS Cloud, a direct move or via IFS Applications 10. Upgrade to IFS 10 and execute a plan to prepare for the move to IFS Cloud unless you are truly convinced that IFS and your business are ready for IFS Cloud.

If you want to learn more about the upgrade strategies and more around this topic – watch the webinar “All you need to know to upgrade to IFS Cloud”

📌 Whichever path you choose, our low-code platform Novacura FLOW can help you succeed with your upgrades by reducing barriers and eliminating gaps.

Discover how to use Novacura Flow as an integration gateway, watch the webinar and read our related blog post: