Guest Blog by Mike Current, Upgrade Specialist, OnBase
A homeowner discovers there is a crack in their home’s foundation walls. There is no danger at present! But – if ignored – the repairs could prove more costly, will definitely get worse as time goes on, and eventually could cause collapse.
Making the problem worse is the fact that the homeowner has necessary additions to make to their home, which could cause extra strain on the foundation.
The Future of OnBase
For people who have worked with OnBase for some time, it seemed like you could almost set your calendar to the new releases of OnBase. The last few versions released right around Memorial Day, and OnBase versions were almost like a harbinger of the coming summer.
However, as July of 2019 rolled around, folks started noticing that OnBase 19 had not yet appeared. Well, I’m glad to finally report on that front; the next version of OnBase is right around the corner…although it’s not going to be “OnBase 19” like we perhaps expected.
Going back to our opening illustration about a home with a cracked foundation don’t worry, your current OnBase version isn’t “cracked”! Over the past year, Hyland did a home inspection and saw that OnBase required some fundamental changes to continue to adapt for the future. Instead of waiting until a major issue developed, Hyland took a proactive approach and decided to change the way they release software, setting a new Foundation for the future.
Five major reasons for the paradigm shift
- The underlying architecture of OnBase has been relatively the same since it was first developed; since then we’ve seen the rise of Virtualization, followed by Cloud infrastructure.
- The OnBase Core (known mostly these days as Unity) was introduced around 10 years ago. While it’s still a robust platform, it also has some limitations when it comes to deployment.
- Microsoft and Epic both switched to a shorter release cadence for their major updates starting in 2017. Both products are getting quarterly updates, and OnBase needed to shorten the gap between releases to allow for continued compatibility.
- The more products and integrations an OnBase environment has, the more complex an upgrade project becomes. Hyland is looking to foundational architecture changes to simplify the upgrade process.
- Hyland owns many solutions other than OnBase (i.e. Brainware and Sharebase). These all integrate with OnBase, but versioning and compatibility will be aligned starting in the new version.
New and improved rendition
On top of all this, Hyland has invested in automated build testing for this new version like never before. This helps identify bugs sooner in the development process, enables them to be fixed more quickly, and improves regression testing to ensure that once a bug is corrected it does not get reintroduced.
Knowing some customer challenges ahead of time, Hyland delayed the release of this latest version to fix the foundation of their product and build a Foundation that will be more adaptable for the future.
Add all these things up and you get a clear view of what to expect in OnBase Foundation Build – the most stable, most secure, most enduring version of OnBase yet.
The wait is over, OnBase Foundation Build is now available. Stay tuned to DataBank All-Stars for more info to come.
