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Ellucian® Solution Manager Provides More Flexibility to Deploy and Update Banner® by Ellucian Solutions Faster, Easier, and at Lower Cost of Ownership

FAIRFAX, Va. – September 19, 2013 – Ellucian® is delivering on its Extensible Ecosystem (Ellucian XE) strategy to provide alternative deployment models by dramatically changing the way that institutions can plan and manage their Banner® by Ellucian® environments, software upgrades and implementations. Rather than following forced processes and calendars for upgrades, institutions can choose which software components they want to install; where they want to configure it: either on premise, in the cloud, or a combination of the two; and when they want to deploy it – all much faster and easier than traditional deployment methods. Institutions can even provision a fully operational Banner environment—including the operating system and infrastructure software—within hours rather than days.

The new approach is facilitated by the Ellucian Solution Manager. Through the Solution Manager, IT staff can easily identify and choose the upgrades they want to implement, and then click an icon to complete the installation or upgrade process without further intervention. The Solution Manager automatically identifies dependencies ahead of time.

“This is a radical change in the way that institutions manage their administrative systems, and it is the result of pure technology innovation,” said Darren Wesemann, senior vice president and chief technology officer, Ellucian. “This evolution gives institutions total control over their Banner-related software, and extends the value of their investments. In addition to control, we’re providing institutions with a lot of automation, simplifying complex tasks, and significantly reducing the time, risk, and pain involved in provisioning, implementing, and updating technologies.”

The evolution of Banner is an outcome of Ellucian XE: the company’s architectural approach that strengthens its customers’ investments and accelerates application of new technologies. The new software delivery approach also provides an easy path for institutions to explore and leverage cloud services, supporting Ellucian’s commitment to bring the cloud and its benefits to higher education. Capabilities enabled by the new Ellucian Solution Manager include:

Software Update Management: System administrators can choose and automatically download the Banner software upgrades they want to implement, along with the associated documentation and installation metadata from the Ellucian software release repository hosted on ellucian.com.

Dependency Management: Previously, administrators would need to manually review documentation to determine dependencies prior to installing software upgrades. The process was time consuming and, occasionally, dependencies would be overlooked. Ellucian Solution Manager automatically presents system administrators with a list of pre-requisite software upgrades and automatically installs the pre-requisite software associated with their chosen software upgrades.

Configuration Support: Ellucian customers can choose to share their system configuration data with Ellucian, enabling Ellucian to identify issues more quickly and provide better technical support, helping to reduce the total cost of ownership.

Software Documentation Viewer: The system administrator can easily review or disseminate all of the documentation associated with a software upgrade via a centralized view.

“The Ellucian Solution Manager is a tremendous asset to have in my tech toolbox,” said Marianne Gillfillan, OCA CAIS Technical DBA at Concordia University System, a beta site. “I couldn’t believe how quickly six servers were provisioned from start to finish. It was awesome to sit back and watch it all happen! This software will save me an incredible amount of time and effort.”

About Ellucian
Ellucian helps education institutions thrive in an open and dynamic world. We deliver a broad portfolio of technology solutions, developed in collaboration with a global education community, and provide strategic guidance to help education institutions of all kinds navigate change, achieve greater transparency, and drive efficiencies. More than 2,400 institutions in 40 countries around the world look to Ellucian for the ideas and insights that will move education forward, helping people everywhere discover their futures through learning. Visit Ellucian at www.ellucian.com, follow Ellucian on Twitter (@EllucianInc), and like Ellucian on Facebook (/EllucianInc).

For More Information
Ellucian
Laura Kvinge
Tel: 801.257.4158
laura.kvinge@ellucian.com

Ellucian and Banner are trademarks of Ellucian Company L.P. or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.