Why your SIS integration matters more than your hardware

Spec sheets make hardware look like a commodity. To a point, it is — IP ratings, lock cycles, and compartment sizes converge across credible vendors.

Where vendors diverge is in how they handle student identity. A vendor that can't read your Banner, Workday, Colleague, or PeopleSoft records is a vendor that's going to ask your staff to maintain a parallel roster — forever.

The same applies to SSO. If students can't sign in with the same credentials they use everywhere else on campus, your IT helpdesk inherits the locker problem.

Ask three integration questions in any procurement: which SIS endpoints do you read, which identity protocols do you support natively, and what happens during the first 30 days of a SIS data quality issue?

Hardware is the body. The integration is the nervous system. Pick the nervous system first.