Yarra Valley Water upgraded their Oracle Primavera system from version P6.0 to R8.2 to align with their corporate IT strategy and take advantage of new capabilities. This was a complex undertaking that involved migrating to the Oracle Exalogic and Exadata platforms, integrating with various Oracle technologies, and addressing several risks. The benefits of the upgrade included increased efficiency, leveraging existing IT investments, and aligning more work with in-house teams. Lessons learned included the importance of commitment, organizational agility, and aligning with the enterprise architecture.

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ORACLE PRIMAVERA ON
EXALOGIC AND EXADATA PLATFORM
OVERVIEW
Cessation of
Support for P6.0
With the cessation of support for Oracle Primavera Project Manager version P6.0, Yarra
Valley Water's Asset Creation division took the opportunity to review their Primavera
footprint and assess the benefits of upgrading to P6 R8.2. They also explored the benefits to
be gained by aligning more closely with their corporate IT strategies.
Yarra Valley
Water (YVW)
Yarra Valley Water (YVW) is a water utility company operating in Melbourne, Australia. They
have been well-known for their investment on strategic IT enablers that drive higher
operational productivity and enhance the delivery of their core services.
History of
Primavera @
YVW
YVW had procured and implemented Oracle Primavera Project Manager P6.0 and Contract
Manager 11 in 2008. The implementation also used Insynchro's Integration Manager to
tightly integrate Primavera's Project Manager and Contract Manager applications with their
Financial system. This integrated operational flow enabled YVW to better manage and control
the procurement lifecycle for the Asset Creation division.
Business
Challenges to
Primavera
Upgrade
YVW had been reluctant to upgrade their Primavera P6.0 for several reasons. One key reason
was their dependency on the P6.0 bundled iManage project workflows.
The iManage workflows facilitated compliance with YVW's strict Corporate Governance
demands on procurement procedures. Unfortunately, iManage was not available in
subsequent versions of Primavera and is no longer supported by Primavera.
Status Quo or
Upgrade
YVW had the choice of maintaining 'status-quo' with their existing P6.0 application but the
analysis proved that it was costlier to maintain that risk factor than the cost to upgrade the
application.
The cost for the upgrade was fairly sizeable. However, by aligning with YVW's Corporate IT
Strategy, surprising value-added benefits were uncovered and strategic opportunities that
were previously out of reach was now available for use.
Primavera @
YVW Today
Today, YVW is the first Oracle Primavera customer in the region, if not the world, to have
upgraded their Primavera to run on the super-fast, scalable and robust Oracle EXALogic and
EXAData platform.
This deployment also integrated with Oracle Fusion Middleware and Business Intelligence
suite of applications - major benefits that were gained by aligning with YVW's Corporate IT
Strategy.

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PRIMAVERA @ YVW
Role of Primavera
@ YVW
Primavera plays a crucial role in managing, controlling and forecasting procurement lifecycles
for the Capital Works Program at YVW. This program also manages the largest capital
expenditure budget of YVW with a high volume of contract awards and payments performed
each month.
Governed
Procurement
Lifecycle
Primavera Project Manager and Primavera Contract Manager were tightly coupled with
YVW's Financial application to comply with their procurement lifecycle governance
requirements. The application integration services were facilitated via Insynchro's Integration
Manager which synchronized data between the three applications within the context of
YVW's procurement lifecycle.
Insynchro's
Integration
Manager
With the tightly coupled integration services delivered by Insynchro's Integration Manager,
users only needed to update their core application and the changes would be cascaded
across all three core applications. Users were no longer required to perform repetitive tasks
across all applications to ensure they report the same version of the truth.
Cost and Effort
Savings
Valuable hours were saved from having high-value staff perform tedious and error-prone,
low-value tasks. YVW was quite intent on getting their workforce to focus on high-value
services and delegate low-value tasks to technology enablers. This is a marked strategy
embedded within YVW's Corporate IT Strategy.
ALLIGNING WITH IT STRATEGY
Acquisition of
Primavera by
Oracle
With the acquisition by Oracle, the Primavera application stack is now architected to use
Oracle Business Process Management (BPM) as the enabler for project workflows and Oracle
Business Intelligence Publisher (BI-P) as the enabler for project and contract reporting.
Primavera also integrates out-of-the-box with Oracle Identity Management.
Well Defined
Architecture and
Strategy
The YVW IT division, in-line with their Corporate IT strategy and Enterprise Architecture, had
defined their target technology stacks. They had already initiated their investments into
procuring these technologies. The IT Division's technology investments relevant to the
Primavera upgrade are listed below:
1. Database - Oracle DB 11g
2. Application Server - Oracle Weblogic Server 11g
3. SOA and Business Process Management - Oracle SOA and BPM 11g
4. Content Management - Oracle Web Center Content 11g
5. Business Intelligence - Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Ed. 11g
6. Oracle Identity Management 11g
7. EXALogic and EXAData Servers

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Primavera
Upgrade - Aligned
to IT Strategy
The Primavera Upgrade in alignment with the IT Strategy also meant that the upgraded
Primavera applications had to make use of the IT investments for DB, Application Server,
Middleware and Business Intelligence applications. Plus, these applications must be deployed
on the EXA platform.
IT ALLIGNED UPGRADE - A COMPLEX UNDERTAKING
Assimilation of
Oracle
Technologies
As Primavera had already assimilated many Oracle technologies as part of its entry into the
Oracle technology platform, the out-of-the-box implementation of Primavera with these
linkages were readily available. At least, that was the assumption. However, several risk
factors were identified for this undertaking.
Risk: Zero
Reference Sites
on EXA
With zero reference sites, the issues that arise at the EXA platform level will be deemed as
new issues even for Oracle to support. This would mean that much effort will be spent liaising
with Oracle Support while hacking temporary work-around solutions if issues were to arise.
Risk: RAC DB
Configuration
Primavera Contract Manager is not certified to operate under the RAC Database
configuration. However, RAC remained the target configuration. The team decided to take on
the "try-first" approach before requesting exceptions from the Architecture Review Board.
Risk: Mandatory
Webcenter
Content
metadata
All documents ingested into Webcenter Content (UCM) must have mandatory metadata in
compliance with YVW documents metadata framework. Primavera P6 and CM had native
integration capabilities to UCM but they did not cater for the mandatory metadata required
by YVW. These metadata constraints must be complied with.
Risk: Shared
Infrastructure
The IT infrastructure was shared amongst several key business units. Stability and change
controls procedures were concerns that could lead to delays. There will be many instances
where the teams will battle for the environments and push their configurations as the target
environment standard.
Risk: Multi-
disciplinary Skill
Sets
Many interdisciplinary skills were required to deliver this project. The resource availability
and skill levels were concerns that could jeopardize the project.
Having multiple project teams on the same environment had it's advantages. Teams had the
opportunity to collaborate on devising and selecting the best solutions on the issues faced.

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Risk: Primavera -
Fully Integrated
The use of almost all Primavera integration points to external applications were required as
the target environment was designed to enable Oracle-centric application cohesion. There is
a risk that the integration points may conflict when interacting with all these external
applications simultaneously.
Opportunity:
Exploit All
Integration
Avenues
With the alignment to IT Strategy and to generate the highest Return On Investment, the
Primavera Upgrade must take advantage of all the available integration and linkage points
that Primavera had to offer, especially in relation to Identity Management, SOA / Business
Process Management and Content Management.
PRIMAVERA @ YVW - IN THE PAST
Primavera
previously
The previous Primavera deployment operated on IBM hardware running Windows Server
2003 operating system. It ran on the Oracle 10g database and Weblogic servers version 9 (for
P6) and 10 (for CM).
Users were linked from LDAP and project workflows were delivered using iManage
application. Project documents were stored in project folders on file servers. Contract
Manager reports were developed using Sybase Infomaker and supported their operations
and governance reporting needs.
The following is the configuration of the previous deployment of Primavera at YVW:
Item Description
Hardware IBM Blade Servers
Operating System MS Windows 2003
Database Oracle 10g
Weblogic Server Version 9 for P6.0 and version 10 for
CM13
User Authentication LDAP
Project Workflows iManage
Report Writer Infomaker (CM 13 only)

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Previous Logical
Architecture
PRIMAVERA @ YVW - TODAY
Primavera Today The present Primavera deployment is on Oracle EXALogic and uses Oracle database 11g. The
database was deployed on Oracle EXAData and configured for Real Application Clustering
(RAC). The weblogic application server version 11g is configured as a cluster.
Project workflows were implemented using Oracle SOA and Oracle BPM.
Project and contract documents are stored as Oracle WebCenter Content (UCM).
All project documents were readily available from P6 application's project documents tab
that used P6 Web's native integration link to UCM.
All workflows stored their documents into the respective project's document folder in UCM
which had implemented a standardized and strongly governed project folder structure.
Aside from the upgrade, P6 Analytics and User Productivity Kit applications were also
introduced into the YVW Capital Works application landscape.

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The users in Primavera are linked to LDAP while BPM and UCM users were linked to Oracle
Identity Management (OID). Oracle Virtual Directory will soon be introduce to unify the LDAP
and OID users.
The following is the configuration of the new deployment of Primavera at YVW:
Item Description
Hardware EXAData and EXALogic Servers
Operating System Oracle Enterprise Linux
Database Oracle 11g [RAC configured]
Weblogic Server 11g [Clustered]
User
Authentication
Primavera (LDAP); Fusion Middleware (Oracle
Identity Management)
Project Workflows Oracle SOA/BPM 11g
Report Writer Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher 11g
Present Logical
Architecture

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THE JOURNEY
Maximize
Application
Lifespan
To maximize the life span of their Oracle Primavera investments, YVW decided to upgrade
Primavera Contract Manager 13 to version 14 in the same exercise. Additional applications
were also included in the upgrade as they complemented or value-added to the business. The
additional applications comprised of Oracle Primavera P6 Analytics (P6A) and Oracle User
Productivity Kit (UPK).
Multiple
Environments
and
Comprehensive
Data Validation
The Primavera Upgrade had 4 environments to setup - Development, Test, Pre-Production
and Production. The data migration procedure included a comprehensive data validation and
verification (V&V) scheme which was not only for the Primavera datasets but also the Project
Files that needed to be migrated to UCM. An MS Excel based comparator program was
developed solely for this V&V to validate and verify the migrated data.
CM Reports using
BI Publisher
All existing Contract Manager reports were redeveloped using Oracle Business Intelligence
Publisher as Sybase Infomaker was no longer supported for CM 14.
Workflows All existing iManage workflows were redeveloped using Oracle BPM as iManage was not
supported in P6 R8.2. These workflows uploaded all attached documents to their designated
folders in UCM with the mandatory metadata. These documents were readily available under
the project documents tab in P6 Web.
Oracle User
Productivity Kit
(UPK)
UPK content for the YVW Capital Works Procurement Lifecycle and project workflows were
developed. The UPK content was aimed at reducing the user-support burden on their Project
Management Office.
Business
Reporting
Monthly (BRM)
To increase productivity, the manually prepared Business Reporting Monthly Report is now
generated using P6 project data via Business Intelligence Publisher services.
Integration Points The upgrade of Primavera utilized all connectors to ensure integration between Primavera P6
to Contract Manager, Oracle Webcenter Content and Oracle SOA/BPM.
Challenges There were many challenges encountered along the way but the cooperation derived from
the commitment and diligence of both YVW and Insynchro teams ensured that these
obstacles were short-lived. The mission never wavered from its objectives.
Some of the key issues faced were:

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1. Server Warning States [Contract Manager]
2. EJB Errors [Contract Manager]
3. DB Support for RAC [Contract Manager]
4. IE Content Rendering [Contract Manager]
5. Upgrading of OFM broke P6-BPM native integration
6. Disabling Document Upload to UCM from P6
7. Oracle support across different time zones
THE BENEFITS
The Business
(Asset Creation)
Business end users are now enjoying the benefits of the many new features that were not
available in P6.0. The richness of the data and the enhanced features increases their
efficiency and productivity. This usage will continue to evolve in sophistication as they
creatively seek ways to short-cut or value-add to their service and deliverables.
IT Strategy The IT division made major progress in reducing the client application footprint by the
removal of the P6 client from all end user machines and only limited its use to the PMO team.
They were able to leverage their investments in Oracle technologies by ensuring that
Primavera used Oracle database configured for RAC, Oracle Weblogic Servers, Oracle SOA /
BPM and Webcenter Content. There were no legacy applications to be maintained from the
previous Primavera versions such as iManage and Infomaker.
Their YVW Enterprise Architecture guided the Primavera upgrade by ensuring it leveraged on
the new IT infrastructure and complied to their high-integrity rules and policies.
In-Sourcing
Strategy
By aligning to the technologies under the IT Strategy, the footprint of technologies grew
smaller. This translated into smaller technology focus for the in-house support and
development teams.
The alignment with IT Strategy allowed the business to increase their leverage on their in-
house teams that were trained to support and develop on these technologies. For example,
their in-house teams are trained to support and develop on Oracle SOA/BPM, Webcenter
Content and BI Publisher. All future business needs related to the support and development
on these technologies can be now be 'in-sourced'.
This exercise personified YVW's commitment to focus their workforce on high-value strategic
or revenue generating services and delegate low-value tasks to automation.

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THE LESSONS LEARNED
Committed to
Deliver
The project, despite the many obstacles faced, could have led to a failure if not for the strong
commitment from both the YVW and Insynchro teams to ensure that this project is delivered.
The transparency of constraints and the alignment of objectives between the two teams led
to smooth issue resolutions that could have otherwise paralyzed the project into a failure.
Organizational
Agility
The multi-disciplinary skills required by the project and the dependencies to resources and
environments that were not under the direct control of the project was often seen as a dire
concern from a project management view.
YVW's matrix style organization structure showcased the agility of being able to pull-in
resources from their functional departments to service the project needs and then released
back to their functional roles upon completion. This mode of resource management ensured
no project resources were idling while waiting for their tasks to commence.
Enterprise IT
Architecture
It is important to align with the organization's Enterprise IT Architecture. This exercise gives
the opportunity to seek ways of exploiting architectural elements to gain benefits that are
typically ignored when defining project scope.
The Enterprise Architecture of matured organizations such as YVW has proven that precious
benefits can be gained by linking applications to their specialized peripheral enablers. For
example, Oracle BPM, Webcenter Content and BI Publisher are leading applications for
workflows, document management and reporting needs.
By ensuring that all specialized applications such as Primavera leverage on these mainstream
components instead of using their own native features allows the organization to centralize
such functions. This gives the users a common experience on using these functions and
maximizes their adoption and exploitation with increased levels of mastery.
The use of these mainstream supporting technologies also paves the way to unify their
compliance to the stringent governance standards that would have otherwise required a
costly manual process - a cost element that does not add value to the business operations or
revenues.
Conclusion From the knowledge and experience gained on this project, we believe that Primavera
business-users should invest their time to understand what benefits their Corporate IT
Strategy offers them.
These benefits that were previously out-of-reach are often ignored. They could translate into
significant operational cost-savings with increased quality and efficiency in the delivery of
their business services.
For YVW, the journey to reap their benefits has only just begun.