Technology projects rarely follow a perfectly straight path. While conference presentations often focus on success stories, Marina Beraldo’s BLUEPRINT 4D 2026 session offered something equally valuable: an honest account of the obstacles, setbacks, and hard-earned lessons learned during a challenging JD Edwards modernization journey.

Presented with refreshing transparency, Beraldo shared how her organization, WEPA Hygieneprodukte, navigated a complex migration to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), a JD Edwards upgrade to Release 25, multiple performance crises, and even a canceled go-live. The result was not just a technical success but a stronger partnership between business and IT teams and a renewed confidence in the value of modernization.

A Long-Term JD Edwards Transformation Journey

Beraldo’s organization, one of Europe’s largest hygienic paper manufacturers, has spent more than a decade standardizing JD Edwards across multiple locations. The company’s strategy evolved through three major phases: consolidating JD Edwards across operations, strengthening security and availability, and ultimately pursuing digital transformation through newer JD Edwards releases and cloud infrastructure.

The company successfully completed numerous rollouts, including remote deployments during the COVID-19 pandemic. Those successes built confidence that future modernization initiatives would follow a similar path.

As Beraldo explained, that assumption proved incorrect.

Moving JD Edwards to OCI: When “Lift and Shift” Isn’t So Simple

In 2022, the organization made the strategic decision to move its JD Edwards environment to OCI. The goal was straightforward: improve security, availability, and infrastructure resilience while maintaining the same user experience and performance levels employees had come to expect.

Because the company operates advanced manufacturing and warehouse facilities, system performance is critical. Every production movement, warehouse transaction, and financial posting generates activity within JD Edwards. Users across multiple European countries needed consistent response times regardless of location.

The migration was initially planned as a straightforward lift-and-shift project. Infrastructure changes would be minimal, with the expectation that users would experience little difference beyond improved reliability.

Testing, however, revealed a different reality.

Initial integration tests uncovered performance degradation significant enough that business users refused to approve the go-live. The project team postponed deployment and conducted additional testing before eventually receiving approval to proceed.

Unfortunately, the real challenges began only after production workloads arrived.

When Real-World Usage Exposes Hidden Problems

Following the OCI go-live, performance issues quickly emerged under actual business conditions. Invoice processing slowed dramatically. Load creation and confirmation processes created bottlenecks that delayed truck departures and customer deliveries. Some interfaces that previously completed in one minute suddenly required more than forty minutes. Routine business processes took three to five times longer than expected.

The experience highlighted a lesson many IT leaders understand all too well: no matter how comprehensive testing appears, production workloads often expose conditions that laboratory environments cannot fully replicate.

The team launched an extensive investigation, evaluating infrastructure configurations, CPU allocation, patch levels, database settings, and performance tuning options. After numerous experiments and infrastructure adjustments, they ultimately identified the database layer as a primary contributor to the problem. By redesigning portions of the architecture while remaining on OCI, they gradually improved performance until it exceeded their original on-premises environment.

The experience reinforced the importance of persistence and methodical troubleshooting rather than abandoning the broader modernization strategy.

Upgrading to Release 25 Introduced New Challenges

Despite the OCI challenges, the organization remained committed to modernization. The benefits available in newer JD Edwards releases—including enhanced User Defined Objects (UDOs), Orchestrator capabilities, and opportunities to reduce customizations—were too compelling to ignore.

The company initially planned an upgrade to Release 24 but ultimately shifted to Release 25 when project timelines changed.

The upgrade strategy focused heavily on reducing customization where possible. Instead of automatically retrofitting every modified object, the team evaluated whether newer JD Edwards functionality could replace historical customizations. Features such as form extensions allowed them to eliminate custom code and move closer to standard functionality, simplifying future maintenance and upgrades.

Multiple integration testing cycles were conducted. Functional testing succeeded, but performance again became a major concern.

Extensive analysis eventually revealed compatibility and performance issues involving Release 25, SQL Server 2022, and Windows Server 2022. After testing numerous combinations, the team discovered that SQL Server 2019 and Windows Server 2022 delivered the best results for their environment.

The solution seemed clear. The team proceeded toward go-live.

Then came one of the most difficult decisions of the entire project.

The Day the Go-Live Was Canceled

During final go-live weekend preparations, the team completed migration activities and began validating the new environment. Almost immediately, performance degradation reappeared.

As users waited for a decision, the project team spent hours investigating the issue. Eventually, leadership faced a choice: move forward with known performance risks or halt the deployment.

They chose to stop.

For Beraldo, it was the first canceled go-live in more than 27 years working with JD Edwards. The team rolled users back to the existing environment and resumed business operations while continuing their investigation.

Although disappointing, the decision ultimately protected the business from repeating the earlier OCI experience. It also demonstrated the importance of governance, discipline, and putting operational stability ahead of project timelines.

Why Communication Became a Critical Success Factor

One of the most powerful lessons from the presentation had little to do with technology.

Throughout the project, the team maintained complete transparency with business stakeholders. Users were continuously informed about challenges, delays, testing results, and decisions. Because communication remained open and honest, business leaders became partners in solving problems rather than critics of project delays.

When additional testing was required, users participated willingly. When emergency procedures needed activation, operations teams responded quickly. Rather than creating conflict, the shared challenges strengthened relationships across departments.

According to Beraldo, that partnership became one of the project’s greatest successes.

The Pot of Gold: Unlocking Modern JD Edwards Capabilities

After continued troubleshooting and collaboration with Oracle, Microsoft, and external experts, the organization successfully moved forward with Release 25 using the architecture that best fit its environment.

More importantly, the upgrade positioned the company to accelerate automation and digital transformation initiatives.

JD Edwards Orchestrator already delivered measurable business value. Automated logistics processes create orders, build loads, confirm shipments, and generate delivery documents with minimal user interaction. Cycle count activities that once required significant IT involvement can now be executed directly by warehouse teams. Sales order creation, exchange rate updates, and other repetitive tasks have also been automated.

These improvements demonstrate why the organization remained committed to modernization despite the obstacles.

The challenges were real. The delays were frustrating. But the destination remained worth pursuing.

Key Takeaways for JD Edwards Customers

Beraldo’s story offers valuable lessons for any organization planning a major JD Edwards modernization initiative. Performance testing must go beyond standard validation and simulate realistic business workloads. Documentation and architecture reviews should extend beyond application configurations to include infrastructure components. Strong emergency procedures are essential when supporting mission-critical operations. Most importantly, transparent communication builds the trust needed to navigate unexpected setbacks.

The presentation’s title captured the experience perfectly. Not every glimmering thing is gold, and modernization projects rarely proceed without obstacles. But for organizations willing to persist through the challenges, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow may be closer than it appears.

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