Banner 9 and Free Software

Since the introduction of Banner 9, a lot (but not all) of the Banner components are now moving towards running on open source platforms. This may be welcome news for those sites that are looking to save money on expensive Oracle/Microsoft Licenses. However, keep in mind while costs may go down,  you may find that support will require a bit more "Googling".

With that in mind, let's look at some of the "free" and "non-free" Banner options that you now have.

• Operating System
  • While Banner is supported on a variety of platforms (Solaris, Windows, HPUX), Ellucian, along the Oracle seem to be aggressively pushing for everything to run on Redhat Linux. This distribution is a commercial one that offers full support (along with a fairly hefty price tag). However note that there is another distribution of Linux called CENTOS that is identical to Redhat in EVERY WAY except that it is Freeware. Redhat provides source code for their distributions, and CENTOS Linux takes this code and recompiles it to generate the corresponding binaries. In this way, CENTOS is essentially identical with Redhat.
  • However, please note you will be in a support "gray-area" with CentOS. That said, many clients are using CentOS in a production environment without any issue.
  • For more information you can visit the Centos Website.
• C Compiler
  • Ellucian supports the use of open-source gcc for compiling C Job Submission programs on Unix/Linux environments. While most Unix/Linux distributions do contain a native C Compiler, the freeware gcc is often also included free of charge.
  • GCC is also available as freeware source code. However, compiling gcc is, sometimes, a Catch-22 since you will need an existing compiler to build this compiler. However, many sites also offer precompiled binaries which you can simply install.
  • Unfortunately, gcc does not seem to be supported on a Windows environment for Banner
• COBOL Compiler
  • This is one of three components that CANNOT be run on free software. Unix systems require MicroFocus COBOL for the compilation of COBOL Job Submission programs. Linux systems require Fujitsu NetCOBOL. Both are commercial software.
• Database
  • Unfortunately, this is the second of three components that CANNOT run on free software. Banner's database must be Oracle. The current supported version is 12.1.0.2.0.
  • People that are still on version 11.2.0.0.4.0 MUST upgrade ASAP.
  • While PostGreSQL does offer some support for Oracle PL/SQL, the idea of porting Banner to another database platform is still only in the realm of science fiction.
• INB Banner 8
  • This is the last component that cannot be run on free software. Running of INB Banner 8 requires both WebLogic (10.3.6) and Oracle Forms and Reports Services (11.1.2.2.0). However, with Ellucian dropping support of INB Banner at the end of 2018, most clients should be doing that same.
  • In all honesty, everyone should be getting away from INB Banner at this point. This technology requires the Java JRE client, which most browsers no longer support.
• Banner 8 Self Service
  • Banner 8 Self Service requires that Apache MOD_PLSQL extension. This allows HTML to be generated from within the Oracle database (using PL/SQL via the HTP and HTF Packages). The extension is typically installed with Oracle Fusion Middleware.
  • However, many people don't realize that this extension is also provided as open source from Oracle which can be compiled on a standard apache http distribution.
  • This would allow Banner 8 Self-Service to be run on freeware apache httpd that is "free" from any Oracle Licensing.
  • For more information you can visit the PL/SQL Gateway Module Site. It is maintained by Doug MacMahon. Nyquest Consulting also worked with Doug to provide the OSX port of the module.
• LDAP Directory Services
  • With Banner, users need to have some sort of authentication provider. In most cases, this will be Windows Active Directory. However if you do not have this, you can also use OpenLdap. This freeware LDAP server can be installed (it will also require BerkeleyDB) on most Unix/Linux systems and is fairly easy to configure. Once this is setup, you can use ApacheDirectoryStudio to setup your users and attributes. For more information, you can visit the main OpenLDAP website.
• CAS
  • Banner software cannot "talk" to an LDAP server directly. Instead it needs to go through an intermediate third-party app that can write authentication tokens to a browser. This is was originally done using a CAS server, which is another open-source product. However, at the time, the setup of CAS was poorly documented and clients reported numerous problems.  Eventually Ellucian released a commercial solution (EIS) that had a lot more "bells and whistles".
  • However, CAS is still supported with Banner 9, and the initial problems people with its setup have all pretty much all been resolved.
  • CAS is a java servlet application, which typically runs on Apache Tomcat (see below)
  • CAS is also supported by Ellucian.
  • You can download CAS from its main site
• Java Servlet Container
  • CAS, Banner 8 SSOManager, Banner 9 Admin Pages and Banner 9 SSB all run under Java Servlet Containers. You have two options here:
    • Oracle WebLogic (commercial)
    • Apache Tomcat (open source)
  • While Weblogic has full support from Oracle, it is significantly slower than Tomcat. On the same hardware, Banner 9 pages tend to take 5x as long to open on Weblogic than on Tomcat.
  • As a result, most people tend to use Tomcat.
  • Tomcat is also suported by Ellucian.
  • You can download Tomcat from its main site.