Lehigh Carbon Count Community College Email Migration Plan I. Assumptions 1. Stable, reliable email system is essential for the institution 2. The current Groupwise email system no longer meets the needs of the institution 3. Existing IT staff is unable to provide adequate expert support in this area 4. The best course of action would be to obtain email services through either an outsourced arrangement or via SaaS (Software as a Service) 5. Cost is a factor in making the final email replacement selection 6. The institution will not hire additional personnel to augment IT support for email 7. The institution needs to implement an archival email storage system to comply with federal regulations in that area II. Process As with any system or software related acquisition project, there is a prescribed methodology which, when followed, will provide the best chance for a successful project outcome. The following phases will be used to insure a successful outcome in the email replacement project: A. Discovery/Requirements Definition (high level) [Complete] Specifications regarding current Groupwise 6.5 and Groupwise version 8 functionality were used as the basis for initial discussion with prospective vendors. Affordability assumptions were created and vetted with the Vice-President and Controller (what could the college reasonably afford to pay for these services?) B. Solution Set/Vendor Identification [Complete] Research was performed to determine what other local institutions were using for their email systems. Internet research was conducted to broaden the scope. Consultants and software vendors were also contacted to provide feedback on what their customers were using. Contact was reestablished with email vendors that had been spoken to over the past year. A Gartner Group report on market leaders in the email sector was obtained and the vendors products on the Gartner list became the focus of the next phase. The following email systems/vendors were identified as potential replacements for our existing Groupwise environment:
1. Groupwise Version 8 2. Microsoft Exchange 2003 3. Microsoft Exchange 2007 4. Google Apps for Education 5. IBM Lotus Notes 6. Mirapoint 7. Zimbra 8. Scalix C. Initial Vetting [90% Complete] Contact was established with the identified vendors. Discussions ensued where our requirements and cost expectations were shared with each vendor. Vendors were asked to provide us with order of magnitude pricing for 1,500 email user versions of their respective products. Vendors were also apprised of our desire to have their product provided as a hosted offering. Vendors who were not able to provide adequate price points (<$50,000 annual recurring costs) or could not provide a hosted offering were eliminated from contention. Vendors/products still under consideration include: 1. Microsoft Exchange 2003 hosted by the Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit 2. Microsoft Exchange 2007 hosted by Microsoft 3. Google Apps for Education hosted by Google 4. Zimbra hosted by Merit Network Vendors/products that did not meet our initial cost/hosting requirements and were eliminated included: 1. IBM Lotus Notes cost 2. Mirapoint no hosted offering available 3. Scalix cost 4. Microsoft Exchange 2007 hosted by Rackspace.com - cost Finally we continue to explore the cost and implications of upgrading Groupwise. The cost of the upgrade will be used as the basis for comparison in determining our best go forward course of action. To date we have not found a viable hosting option for Groupwise. We are, however, soliciting a proposal from an existing vendor for them to provide in-house support for the product.
D. Product Evaluation and Selection [3 5 Weeks] Given Cabinet approval, the next step would be to set up a test environment for the four replacement solutions identified in Section C. The initial test group would only include members of the IT evaluation team. The primary focus of this effort would be to make sure that the environments were working as expected and were adequately prepared to serve as test environments for a larger group of LCCC email users. An email evaluation team (recommend <= 10 people) will be identified in order to perform in depth testing of key email, calendar and auxiliary feature functionality for each of the prospective solutions. The team should consist of key email, calendaring/scheduling, etc. users who use the current Groupwise email system on a regular and frequent basis. Each of the evaluators will be expected to identify and replicate key functions in his/her areas that must work as expected in the new system. In addition, newly desired functionality (such as collaboration tools, bulletin board functionality, etc.) needs to be evaluated if included in the decision making criteria. Prior to the start of the end-user evaluation phase, each of the vendors would be scheduled to come in and make a presentation regarding their product s features and functions. Note there are critical path items identified in any project. End-user evaluation is a critical path item in this project. Members of the end-user evaluation team must have time available when required in order to make a timely replacement decision. E. Commercial Negotiations/Product Acquisition [2 3 Weeks] Once a final, uniform recommendation is made by the combined End-user and IT Evaluation groups, and approved by the Cabinet, final contractual negations with the vendor will need to be completed. Acquisition of software services via an outsourced or hosted model is more complex than if an entity just purchases a piece of software. Service Level Agreements (SLAs), information privacy and security issues, data retention strategies, etc. need to be thoroughly vetted prior to signing the actual contract. Actual completion of this phase may be dictated by the timeliness of the legal review process. F. Implementation/Migration Planning [3 4 Weeks] The specific nature of the LCCC migration plan would be contingent upon the particular product selected. There are general considerations in all cases though. Specific (but not all-inclusive) areas that need to be properly addressed during this phase would include:
1. Migration timing when could this be achieved without causing a major disruption to day-to-day business activities? 2. Training requirements will play a key role in how and when the migration takes place. It is likely that at least 400 employees would require face to face training prior to using the new system. On-line (Camtasia-based) training may be sufficient for the itinerant, occasional email user. Even so these modules would need to be acquired or developed. 3. What is the advisability of migrating existing email messages, distribution lists, directories, etc. from Groupwise to the new system? What tools exist to automate this process? 4. What technical issues need to be addressed within our present environment in order to support the migration effort? If the new email system interface is client-based (i.e. Outlook client) we will need to install software on ~ 400 PCs prior to the actual cutover. 5. Definition and implementation of the post-migration support organization for the new product. It is imperative that our users are able to get answers to their how do I questions in a timely manner. G. Specific Cutover to New System [Target date TBD] It may not be possible to perform a gradual, methodical migration to the new email system. This issue will be addressed during the Migration Planning phase of the project. Most likely, if a methodical migration option is not available the cutover would occur over the course of a weekend. This method has worked well for us in the past with respect to our Banner upgrades. III. Related Issues 1. Record Retention and Email Archival Storage At present it is unclear as to what our strategy should be with respect to implementing the use of an email archive tool with the new email system. Email archive tools ensure that email messages are retained regardless of the wishes or intent of the email sender or recipient. These systems can be configured to archive email for only a specific subset of email users or the entire post office. Archived messages can be kept for a matter of months or forever if desired.
Archival email storage is not the same as that provided by traditional full and incremental backup functionality. It is possible that email messages can come in to a user s mailbox and be deleted by that user prior to backups being run. As such there would be no record of the email in the backup files. The cost associated with providing the email archive capability is a function of number of users, amount of email kept and the length of time it is kept. The more users, the longer the time the archives are kept the higher the costs will be for the institution. The recommendation is made at this point that the institution s Record Retentions Officer confer with our legal counsel to determine what the institutions specific responsibilities might be in this particular area. Someone from IT should participate in this discussion as well.
Addenda 1. Copy of Groupwise 6.5 and Groupwise 8.x features and functionality document 2. Copy of Gartner Group report regarding email vendors 3. Simplified chart detailing costs of investigated options