The Challenge
BANNER® 9 UPGRADE REQUIRES SIZABLE HARDWARE & SOFTWARE CHANGES
The client, a multi-location state community college, needed to upgrade their Banner® ERP environment to the latest version. The new version required significant changes in the configuration of the underlying hardware/ software supporting the ERP’s functionality. Without the staffing levels or the resources with the niche expertise required to configure the supporting hardware and software, the community college turned to Aspect to provide the technical expertise and the project management to guide the transition to the new version.
The Solution
PROVIDE EXPERT UPGRADE PLANNING & CONFIGURATION SERVICES
As a first step, Aspect conducted a needs analysis, identifying needs and any gaps associated with the upgrade, and recommended best practice changes so that future upgrades could be more easily implemented.
Aspect then created a technical upgrade plan that itemized all of the future environment’s needs, identified pre/co-requisite hardware and software, and prioritized all the technical tasks needed to complete the upgrade.
Aspect resources compiled repeatable instructions, then used those instructions to create a new environment, installing and configuring the underlying hardware and software to support the upgrade, as well as the new Banner® version and its supporting utilities.
The Advantage
SMOOTH TRANSITION TO BANNER® 9
Efficient Path to Upgrade: Aspect’s team of technical and functional experts utilized their proven upgrade plan tailored to the client’s required needs and timeline. With Aspect providing the project management and the technical resources, the client enjoyed a smooth and efficient transition to Banner® 9.
More Scalable, Redundant Environment: During the needs assessment phase of the upgrade, Aspect recommended additional best practice changes to the client’s environment to incorporate more redundancy and scalability, so that future upgrades would be easier to implement.
Supportable Environment: Aspect worked with college IT stakeholders to document the configuration and train staff on supporting the new configuration, so that the environment was supportable going forward.
FEATURES & BENEFITS
- Aspect had the staff on hand with the technology expertise that the college was missing to complete the upgrade.
- A Proven Upgrade Plan allowed the client to smoothly transition to Banner® 9
- Aspect helped the client implement an new environment with improved stability and supportability.
Successfully Meeting Upgrade Demands
Aspect was engaged to provide both the technical & functional resources to upgrade the client’s Banner® environment from Version 8 to 9, along with Degree Works and Blackboard implementations.
PRE-UPGRADE ASSESSMENT
Aspect worked in internal IT staff to identify
- The technical environment needs (i.e. prerequisite/ co-requisite hardware/software needs)
- The scope of the technical implementation (including customizations and major upgrade needs, and any assumptions, risks, and constraints associated with those needs.)
- Any Banner® add-ons required, such as Degree Works™, BDM, Argos, Form Fusion, Intelleck
Functional analysts worked with college stakeholders to assess custom forms & processes and determine where new functionality could take the place of former custom processing.
Aspect recommended a technical roadmap, identifying major upgrade tasks, and the order in which tasks should be performed. Using the information gained in the needs assessment, Aspect created an upgrade schedule that prioritized each task required in order of execution.
DEVELOPMENT/TEST ENVIRONMENT CONFIGURATION
Aspect then configured a Banner® 9 test environment, installing and configuring the following:
- Oracle 12c, followed by database migration.
- Ellucian Ethos Identity, SSO Manager, SSO, Application Navigator
- ESM environment with Jobsub, Weblogic and Tomcat
- Banner® modules, along with converted custom forms identified during the Needs Assessment.
- Degree Works modules
USER ACCEPTANCE SUPPORT
Aspect then assisted with user acceptance testing, ensuring all systems were functional within the test environment.
PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENT CONFIGURATION
Aspect resources began preparing the new Banner® 9 Production environment after the completion of the configuration of the Test environment.
Resources incrementally implemented the user accepted configuration into the new Banner® 9 Production environment as it was tested and accepted within the Test environment.
FINAL CUT OVER
Once the new Production environment was fully configured, Aspect then conducted the cut over, upgrading the current production environment to the target Banner® 9 version, switching the database connection, and making the Application Navigator URL accessible to users, successfully completing the upgrade.
“The Aspect team brought us the expertise we
needed to get through a complicated transition
and helped us get through each hurdle with
minimum disruption to operations.”– Community College Director of IT
P: 610-783-0600
F: 610-783-5155
ASPECT-CONSULTING.COM
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