Modernizing the ERP Platform – A Technical Journey 

The Evolution of Banner

I started working with Banner in 1999, the same year I was married. It was a year of learning to adjust to new things: a new life, new job responsibilities, a new role as a DBA, and a new ERP. It was an exciting time.

Banner was version 3.x; it was client/server technology. We were transitioning from a legacy system that was character-cell-based, hosted on VMS, and in my opinion, the most solid and secure OS around. At that time, Banner was still offered on VMS, so that was our platform of choice. It had its quirks, but we made it work because that’s what we did: we found a problem, fixed it, and moved on.

Over the years, we saw Banner move from client/server technology to what we affectionately called “Banner in a browser” (INB), a thin client. We all thought that wouldn’t last. We experienced our first 404 errors, then mysterious 500 errors, all in the name of progress.

As Banner Evolved, Our Community Grew Stronger

The Banner technical community became stronger as we struggled through this change together. We chatted more at conferences, the Banner DBA list became active, and we shared a great deal of information. We helped each other get through the change, and we made it work.

Along the way, we challenged each other to think outside the walls of our institutions. We became a community.

Then came the need to change the database character set with the introduction of UTF-8. I thought this would hurt more than it did. The initial plans from Ellucian were not well-designed, but the technical community challenged the vendor to do better, and they responded.

By the time most of us were ready to go through the process, it was relatively painless, and we moved on. The entire ecosystem improved because of the willingness to share and be open to suggestions. As a community, we have been improving the entire Banner environment for years.

When the most recent change from Oracle Forms to Java-based applications happened, the uproar within the community was astounding.

We went from supporting 3 servers per environment to supporting countless servers, depending on the choices we made. Our workloads increased, and we needed to learn new technology, especially if we chose Tomcat over WebLogic. It seemed like a dark time for those supporting the Banner infrastructure.

However, just as with any other change, we embraced the task at hand, pushed each other to try even newer technologies like Docker containers, expanded into cloud technologies as a cost-saving measure and for redundancy and disaster recovery, and moved on once more.

 Today, Banner is evolving again. There is always the unknown whenever venturing into something different. It doesn’t mean that it should be avoided. It doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be questioned, either. We’ve seen so much change over the years. We’ve experienced the good and the bad. The one constant we have come to realize, however, is the power of the collective voice.

We know our voice matters. We know the technical community can make things happen if we speak up and push the envelope, because we know at the heart of everything is the well-being of our institutions. The biggest question, though, is whether we can really handle another platform change?

To Change or Not to Change

Change is never easy. My kids are terrible with change. When we got rid of our aging minivan, I had to replace it with the same make, model, and color, and still I got the response from them: “It’s different! What was wrong with the old car? It was fine.” It wasn’t fine. It was old and costing us more in maintenance every time we took it in.

The new one had updated safety features, better gas mileage, GPS, but all they saw was the functionality of the vehicle: the ride inside from their perspective. They were not looking at the bigger picture.

Change is inevitable, and resistance to change is guaranteed.

The first time I heard that Banner was moving to a SaaS platform, my thoughts immediately went to “my role as a DBA is over”. It took me a long time to realize that my role as a DBA had been over for a long time. I haven’t been “just a DBA” for several years.

My daily tasks have morphed into sys admin, networking, cloud architect, problem solver, installer, Windows admin, counselor, and the list goes on. Occasionally, I get to flex my DBA muscles, and it feels good, but certainly not as often as I used to.

The Real Work Happens Between the Technology and the People

As I have begun working with the Ellucian SaaS platform, I have come to realize that the skills I’ve developed over the years, including my DBA skills, will not go to waste.

There are ample opportunities to create new approaches to old problems. This requires thinking outside the box—a skill you either have or you don’t. I’ve found that most DBAs just have it. We know how to work between the technology and the people. We know how to problem-solve.

We know how to make the technology work the way it needs to work. If it doesn’t, we know how to “encourage” the vendor to make the changes we need to see happen.

 We are a community of change makers. We embrace change.

We may complain about it along the way, but in the end, we get the job done and learn a bit while doing it. The only thing we cannot do is stand still.

If there’s anything I’ve learned in the many years of working in higher ed, it is that change will happen whether I like it or not; whether I’m on board or not; whether I agree with it or not.

The only choice I have to make is to embrace it and prepare the best I can for the ride.

We Got This

The bottom line is that when the technical community faces change, I have seen amazing things happen. Ellucian Student powered by Banner is just one more change in the evolution of the Banner ERP lifecycle.

If we embrace that change and accept the challenge, I can’t even imagine what the Banner Technical Community will develop and become. The possibilities are endless.

Stick with me over the next several weeks as I explore how to prepare your site for migrating to the Ellucian SaaS Platform.

It is a long road, and there is no better group I’d want to travel with than the Banner Technical Community.

We got this!