Banner XE Update(eXtensible Ecosystem)

UNC CAUSE 2013UNC Greensboro

ITS-Management Information SystemsJim Kane

Moreland Smith

Banner Administrative ScreensBrief Technology Review

Foundations in Oracle Character Mode FormsEvolution to “GUI” Fat Client Forms late 1990s.2004 SCT bought by SunGardERP Movement to the Browser...

Oracle Application Server/INBAdobe Flex for “New Products”

Discussions starting 2008Something other than Oracle Forms

Java Stack selected 2009 for “Horizon”

Available Banner XE Releases

Banner Catalog (9.1) May 2012Banner Schedule (9.1) May 2012Events Management (9.1) August 2012Attendance Tracking (9.0) August 2012Faculty Grade Entry (9.1 ) October 2012

Coming NextCatalog & Schdule (9.2) December 2012Faculty Grade (9.2) in Development

UNCG Banner XE Project Goal

• Stand up for production use within Registrar’s Office baseline Banner Student Catalog and Course Schedule

To do that we needed to figure out a few new things....

XE eXtensible Ecosystem

Challenges: New Everything

New Fields in the Oracle Database (DBEU)New Application Servers (Unix to Linux)New App Server Hardware (Real to VM)New Source Code Management Model (Git)New Application Framework (INB to

Groovy/Grails)New Way of Thinking (Object Oriented)New Developer Tools (Oracle to Java Centric)New Security Model (Oracle to SSO)

Scope of XE Changes

• More technical change than OS Switch or Oracle Major Version upgrade.

• Architectural reset to position Banner products for next 10+ years

• Evolutionary change, but "First Hurdles" are high.

• Offers architectural choices but with tradeoffs:

Open Source vs Commercial Products.• Once in a Career Change, Don’t

underestimate scope!!!!!!

ITS PreparationsExecuted Database Extension Utility (spring 2013)Targeted Hire within MIS to focus on XETraining Classes

Code camp (1 day)Java (3 Day)Groovy Grails (5 Days)

Trial Run (Feb 2013)Banner XE Extensibility (3 days)

First Use Apps: Batch w/Groovy

Environment Progression

Project Development Environment (UGDEV8)

Project Environment (UGVAL7)

Testing/Validation Environment (UGVAL3)

Live in Production (BANPRD) (May 2013)

Benefits of XE

Off of End of Life Oracle Forms."Modern Look and Feel"Separation of presentation from business logic.Concept of Sub module as tight application vs

collection of forms & processes

Still Much to Do

Continue to Develop Operational Procedures in MIS & DBA Group.

Load Balancing in support of High Availability

Overcome Authentication Hurdles.

Prepare for additional modules coming soon.

Implications 1

Consolidation of code into more API'sLogic in one place for use in Admin, Self

Service, Batch, Web Services, etc.

Greater reusability.

Should reduce scenarios data in anomalous forms gets past one process but then chokes on another.

Implications 2

Test Driven Development Model• Automated Test Plans to "exercise" code for

basic input/output scenarios, issues pass/fail.

• Speeds run throughs to catch dumb mistakes.

• Will still require end user testing, but on more navigation than on basics.

• Still have to author "testing code" • Layers of Testing: Grails Test Units +

Selenium UI Testing Managed by JENKINS

Implications 3

UNCG must develop Single Sign On Framework for Banner tools.

Likely Shibboleth centric for UNCG (have not done CAS at UNCG)

Single Sign On framework must become High(er) Availability.

Potentially extensible to other applications.

Implications 4

XE Administrative (INB equivalent) and XE Self Service (UNCGenie equivalent) technical platforms will likely become more similar than todays INB & SSB.

More similar user experience

More similar programming environments (Still different today)

Challenges 1

Speed of availability for INB Replacements.Ellucian Roadmaps do not yet lay out target

end times for full conversion of major modules.

During interim ITS will have to maintain old and new skill sets, hardware & maintenance effort implications.

MTS estimate 4+ years to make transition.

Challenges 2

Users operating in "Mixed Mode" (Old INB & New XE) based on which submodules they interact with.

Keyboard Shortcuts varyCtrl-Page Down vs "Go"Roll Back vs "Start Over"

Critical to get authentication working before widespread deployment.

Challenges 3

Will require recoding of

UNCG Baseline Mods (35 ish)UNCG Custom Programs (100+)GA/Alliance Custom/Mods (???)

New framework has potential to manage our local mods differently

Challenges 4

Java Dependency

Developer desktop Java management challenges will persist. (But end user Java issues are removed for XE apps vs INB)

MIS developers must learn multiple tools to effectively author Java code in an Ellucian centric environment.

Questions