I work for an Aerospace and Defense company currently on Epicor v10.2.700. We are looking at our options now that it looks like Epicor is still forcing the cloud conversion. Obviously we are concerned about regulation compliance. We have read some lengthy posts with some good information but now that we are a few months down the road from the announcement and some may have more and/or different experiences, we are just looking for any guidance and/or pointers on what to be aware of as we make a decision going forward. Thanks in advance for any input.
Maybe just hire a few experts and stay here unsupported for another 10 years.
If you’re on-prem now, I’d stay put. You’re already off active support. Don’t go to the cloud.
Read any of the threads over the last week . . . this is life as a cloud customer.
At the moment they aren’t forcing A&D to go fo SaaS they are working on a Hybrid approach that may apply to that industry but that’s in development still.
On prem is supported through 2028.1 so you can go to any version before that safely and still be on prem and supported (through 2030 assuming you get to 2028.1)
There will be more information about SaaS Hybrid and A&D Offering over the coming months but at the moment I’d stick with what you have and see what shakes.
You could though get to at least 2025.2 (last Classic Client Version) so that you are not so far behind if you wanted to. This would allow you to keep all existing functionality and be closer to a suported version.
A @josecgomez says above, om-premise is still available as an option until Kinetic 2028. Other non-cloud options are being discussed.
The classic CLIENT is no longer available, so you’ll have to move to the web browser client even for on-prem (not a trivial task by any means), but if the SERVER location is your primary concern, that will be supported for a couple more years.
I appreciate the responses @klincecum @chaddb @aosemwengie1 @ernie. We are still having to plan so any other input is still appreciated. And of course thank you Jose. Love this site and have used it for many years more times than you know for answers. Just want to appreciate you and the work it took to create and takes to maintain.
It’s pretty much been said, 2025.2 is the last to include Classic UI. Upgrade to it then work on Kinetic UI conversion. 2026.100 brought many things to Kinetic UI so I’d probably make a Pilot DB and develop the UI there or whatever is the latest release when you get to that point.
We’re all waiting on the hybrid solution they’ll come up with. We hope it’s not locked to just A&D companies.
Not at a company with your required level of compliance & regulation, but currently on prem w/ 10.2.700. Here is our current plan, which was affirmed by many others at the Insights conference this year as something they will be doing in broad strokes as well:
- 2025.2 On-Prem upgrade. Keep everyone and everything on the smart client. There is no way we have the bandwidth to move everyone to kinetic screens at the same time as an upgrade, and there was no time/political capital to tackle an upgrade 1-2 years ago when we really should’ve.
- Slowly move people/areas/groups over to kinetic screens on the web. Will realistically take more than a year depending on executive buy in.
- 2025.2 → 2028.1 upgrade hopefully around-ish when it comes out, still staying on prem.
- Hold onto 2028.1 similar to what we have been doing with 10.2, re-evaluate cloud/any potential hybrid solution Epicor comes up with.
I spoke to multiple different epicor users at Insights with all the same rough idea in their head. I was definitely more gung-ho about the cloud 1-2 years ago. Between reading this site and the smart client retirement deadline coming and going, we aren’t too interested in moving to the cloud anytime soon.
This is ALWAYS the most critical piece of any implementation. I would SO MUCH rather have an executive sponsor/committee that is a cast-iron pain in my butt than one that is disengaged.
That’s a great plan.
Very solid plan. Thanks.
What are you guys going to do when a CVE comes out that only gets patched in a newer version? Or is that just a concern for another day? I too am trying to think through this @JimF , not as much regulation here, but it’s like, sink more money into on prem hardware for support till 2030? Probably won’t go live till late 2027, so getting three years out of the hardware till we are unsupported?
Idk all tough calls. I’m here with you though. Reluctant to go to cloud given all of these threads and issues.
CVE in Epicor? Have they ever issued a CVE (serious question)? Guess we’d deal with it when the time came. Depending on what it is it could be mitigated or not applicable. Epicor infrastructure is internal only. So makes it easier to deal with depending on what it is.
log4j was the last one that they pushed on in some of their third-party products, but other than that, you’re right I’ve never seen one disclosed. We can read up on SAP CVEs all the time, Oracle, etc.. At what point do attackers focus on Epicor, idk… is that going to come in 2031?
You know a lot more than my CAM. I had to tell him the Fedramp statement had been released on EpicWeb after asking for it 4 times at Insights (it still wasn’t published) Any suggestions for getting into the A&D industry/Epicor loop?
We also work in Aerospace. We are on a government cloud. We just upgraded to 2026 Kinetic. I believe we did this for compliance too.
You are doing it right now. 
You are on a non-Epicor government cloud using Epicor? Interesting. Maybe I am misunderstanding or just ignorant at this point but I hadn’t realized that was even an option?