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Upgrading an entire campus to enterprise email and calendar with GroupWise

Upgrading an entire campus to enterprise email and calendar with GroupWise. Betsy Black and E. Axel Larsson Drew University ACM SIGUCCS ’06. Agenda. Background Motivations behind the switch A successful pilot Formation of a task force A phased approach to a migration

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Upgrading an entire campus to enterprise email and calendar with GroupWise

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  1. Upgrading an entire campus to enterprise email and calendar with GroupWise Betsy Black and E. Axel Larsson Drew University ACM SIGUCCS ’06

  2. Agenda • Background • Motivations behind the switch • A successful pilot • Formation of a task force • A phased approach to a migration • Incentives and support resources • Results and lessons learned

  3. Some background… • Drew University • Located in northern New Jersey • Consists of a College of Liberal Arts, Theological, and Graduate school • Approximately 2,500 student FTEs • Largely residential • Standard laptop program for all CLA students

  4. Some background… • Drew has provided basic email service to all students, faculty, and staff since 1989.. • DEC All-In-One (OpenVMS) through 1998 • PMDF IMAP w/ Netscape Communicator 4.x + IMP Webmail (1998 – 2002) • Novell NetMail IMAP w/ Mozilla Mail + NetMail WebAccess (2002 – 2006) • Today: Novell GroupWise 7 w/ Windows and Cross-Platform clients + WebAccess

  5. Why switch away from standards-based IMAP? • New administrative staff not satisfied with basic IMAP email • No calendar support. • No PDA/wireless email support. • Most often cited technology need. • Continued support issues using non-integrated client and mail system: • Mozilla address books vs. WebAccess address books. • Mozilla rules vs. NetMail rules.

  6. Pilot project (Fall 2005) • Moved all technology staff to GroupWise. • President’s Office migrated. • Most pressing need was getting the presidential calendar in GW with appropriate proxy access for his staff. • BlackBerry Enterprise Server rollout. • Technology staff. • President. • Selected cabinet-level staff.

  7. Moving forward – Formationof a GroupWise task-force. • Representatives from all technology areas: • Computing and Network Services • Systems Administration • Enterprise Applications • User Support / Helpdesk • Instructional Technology Services • Training • Documentation • Administrative Computing

  8. Objectives • Use this as an opportunity to improve email service levels. • Implement clustering for fault-tolerance • Streamline the migration process • Self-service tools. • Copious training and support resources • Give people a reason to switch • Greater enterprise feature set, calendars, etc. • More space

  9. GroupWise System Overview • NetWare 6.5 SP5 cluster (4 servers) • Clustered POs, WebAccess, and GWIA • Four post offices • University Technology (migrated from standalone server – 50GB) • Employee (150GB) • Student PO1 and 2 (150GB each) • GWGuardian spam/virus filtering • BlackBerry Enterprise Server • GW Mobile Server • Linux-based list server (Mailman)

  10. A Phased Deployment • Phase 1 – Early Adopters • March 1, 2006 – May 1, 2006 • New users were still set up on NetMail by default. • Users could “opt-in” through a self-service web site. Faculty/staff only. • Migration tools available: • Transend Migrator (third-party) for moving IMAP mail and Mozilla address books. • University Technology student employees moved to GW for training and support purposes.

  11. A Phased Deployment • Phase 2 – Full Deployment • May 1, 2006 – November 1, 2006 • New users created on GroupWise. • New computers come with GW client preinstalled – all existing images updated. • Self-service tools available, GW now available for students. Enhanced migration tools available: • Home-grown server-side IMAP copier • Home-grown Mozilla address book converter.

  12. A Phased Deployment • Phase 3 – Compulsory Migration • All remaining GW accounts turned on November 1, 2006. • Old NetMail system remains available for migration of old email messages only. • Users have until March 1, 2007 to retrieve old messages. • Phase 4 – NetMail discontinued • March 1, 2007 – Old email server decommissioned.

  13. Targeted groups • Residential Hall Assistants (RAs) • Orientation Committee members • Athletics Department and athletes (returned early) • Public Safety officers • Students studying abroad during the fall semester

  14. Increased Support Resources • CNS Helpdesk chat room using GroupWise Messenger • “Satellite” helpdesk location at the start of the semester • Building sweeps by university technology staff • GroupWise “kiosks” near the main dining hall in weeks before and after compulsory migration phase

  15. Tools to help with the Migration • Self-service account activation • Web-based “wizard” points user to docs, client install instructions, etc. and allows for one-click account activation. • Sets up forwarding on the old NetMail system. • Creates GW account. • Self-service address book converter • Converts exported Mozilla address books into a .vcf format which can be imported into GW. • Web-based • Developed by a student employee in PHP

  16. Tools to help with the Migration • Self-service mail copy utility. • Moves users mail from NetMail to GroupWise using IMAP • Web-based • Users are presented with a list of folders to migrate • Actual migration is submitted and performed as a background task. • Users don’t need to keep browser open or wait while migration proceeds. • Developed by a student employee in PHP

  17. Incentives (and nags) • The 1,000th user to migrate was taken to lunch by university technology • Bigger mail quotas (1GB for fac/staff, 200MB for students vs. 60MB/40MB on NetMail) • Weekly email reminders targeted at netmail users • Default welcome screen in Mozilla Mail • Tool to import class schedules into GroupWise calendar • Flyers posted at key campus locations

  18. Some results.. • By the numbers… • 92 users before Phase 1 started... • 623 users by the end of Phase 1 (early adopters)… • Phase 2 (full deployment): • May 1 – 623 users • July 1 – 1,387 users • September 1 – 2,211 users • October 1 – 2,956 users • 599 users hadn’t switched by November 1 (3314 total switched by October 31) • Almost exclusively part-time grad students

  19. Aftermath… • Customers who were asking for the GW featureset have been very pleased with the results • Surprised that compulsory migration (Nov. 1st) did not trigger a substantial increase in Helpdesk calls. • Some complaints about performance of the Mac client. • Hopeful this will be addressed in GW 7 SP2 • Unanticipated demand for automatic mail forwarding • Client install issues on machines with older releases of the ZENWorks tools

  20. For more information… • depts.drew.edu/cns/groupwise • Betsy Blackeblack@drew.edu • E. Axel Larssonelarsson@drew.edu

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