Google Apps at WLU
Fazil Rasheed
Frasheed@wlu.ca
Andrew Harris
Aharris@wlu.ca
Agenda
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Why Cloud Services
Situational Analysis
Alternatives
Key Success factors
Implementation
What are Google Apps?
Current Status
Technical Consideration
Q and A
Background- Why Cloud Services
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Cost savings - Cloud services present an enormous opportunity for us to divert
spending away from IT infrastructure
Shift the financial burden - from upfront capital expense to ongoing operating
expense
System Downtime - removes the burden of infrastructure maintenance from our
IT staff and puts it in the hands of a much larger entity that can offer 99.99%
SLA.
Ease of use and administration - IT staff can easily implement, monitor, and
maintain systems from literally anywhere. Students are able to access
documents and collaborate on projects from anywhere.
Why Cloud Services Situational Analysis Alternatives Key Success factors Implementation What are Google Apps? Current Status Q and A
Situational analysis
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Limited storages space – 25MB for emails
Forwarding – most students forward their email to a cloud-based provider
Students were demanding a better email solution
Storage in ITS – with our limited budget, storing users’ emails was becoming an
increasingly expensive
– ITS burdened with keeping the Groupwise System updated
Why Cloud Services Situational Analysis Alternatives Key Success factors Implementation What are Google Apps? Current Status Q and A
Alternatives
Architecture
On-Premise Email
Hosted Email
Description
All email services run on
WLU servers
All email services are
hosted by an external
provider
Benefits
•More control
•Easier to integrate
•Minimal internal resources
required
•Always current
•Cost saving
Challenges
Expensive – staff and
resources
•Exposure to external
business failures
•Privacy
Why Cloud Services Situational Analysis Alternatives Key Success factors Implementation What are Google Apps? Current Status Q and A
Key Success Factors
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Ease of integration with our current environment
Support for Multiple Campuses
Retention of username/password
No Disruption of Email delivery
Migration of current Email
Privacy
Contract with Google
Communication Plan
Marketing Plan
No additional capital requirement
Why Cloud Services Situational Analysis Alternatives Key Success factors Implementation What are Google Apps? Current Status Q and A
Implementation
• Formation of a Core Team – April 2010
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Project Manager
Technical Architect (LDAP, Provisioning etc.)
Help Desk – Documentation, Training
CPAM – Branding and Marketing
University Secretariat – Contract negotiation
Student Union/ Student Services
• External – SADA, Consensus, OMNI-TS, Other Universities
• Charter Approved – April 15th
• Go-Live –August 30th
Why Cloud Services Situational Analysis Alternatives Key Success factors Implementation What are Google Apps? Current Status Q and A
Google Apps - Overview
Gmail
Documents
Calendar
Over 7GB of storage
Create documents online
Customizable views
Easy search with Google
Live collaboration
Overlay multiple
Conversations and
threads
Spreadsheets and forms
Bi -Directional Sync with
blackberry
Sync with Smartphone
Notifications – pop ups, emails
Why Cloud Services Situational Analysis Alternatives Key Success factors Implementation What are Google Apps? Current Status Q and A
Current Status
•Fully deployed – all students
•>17,000 accounts activated
•All incoming students provisioned
•Development of retention policy
•Retirement of GW accounts
•On-going Consultation with Student
Union
Why Cloud Services Situational Analysis Alternatives Key Success factors Implementation What are Google Apps? Current Status Q and A
Technical Considerations
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Student demand for a “gmail”-like experience
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Novell GroupWise Web Access
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25k+ accounts to provision
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Student e-mail residing on fiber channel drives – not feasible to offer “unlimited space”
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Managing identities
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Migration of e-mail from GroupWise to Google Apps domain
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Administration
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New e-mail domain (@mylaurier.ca)
2010 | The Sky’s the Limit
Design (Provisioning)
2010 | The Sky’s the Limit
Design (Mail flow)
• @wlu -> @mylaurier.ca
• GroupWise internal routing (rule injection)
• External mail routing
• Banner (internal systems, applications)
• Mailing lists
2010 | The Sky’s the Limit
Design (Login)
(Sada Systems)
2010 | The Sky’s the Limit
Implementation
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Sada Systems login/migration page
Pilot
Began production provisioning in late August
Introduced new WLU webmail in conjunction with portal
Injected GroupWise delegation rule and external mail
aliases
• “Cut over” / “go live”
• Monitored usage and migration queue processes
2010 | The Sky’s the Limit
Post Mortem (Pros)
• Students get the experience they want
• E-mail maintenance tasks reduced
• Can retire students from GroupWise
• Infinitely scalable
• Google Apps admin interface improving
2010 | The Sky’s the Limit
Post Mortem (Cons)
• The word “Cloud”
• Account support
• Google Support
• Account management
• Google Roadmap (not Google exclusive – “cloudy”)
2010 | The Sky’s the Limit
Looking forward..
• BEIS module (Banner Enterprise Identity Management System)
• Full IDM integration
• “Real” SSO
• Account management
• Aligning new features with what is needed / wanted
2010 | The Sky’s the Limit
Q&A
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You’re lucky to have Gmail,”“All Gmail users
now get the highest level of security, so they
have incredibly secure communications” “That’s
what I think you should be pleased about in
using this service with confidence.”
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Dr. Ann Cavoukian - The Cord, September 6th 2010
Background Why Cloud Services Situational Analysis Alternatives Key Success factors Implementation What are Google Apps? Current Status Q and A