Deliberation, decision and deployment

Michael Pickett

Vice President and CIO

Brown University

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- Agenda

• Why did we consider a cloud-based option?

• What factors did we consider?

• How did we make a decision for a) students, b) faculty/staff?

• What difficulties/surprises did we encounter?

• Experiences with Google Apps for Education (GAE) thus far and lessons learned

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Why Change?

• Exchange 2003 system out of support

• Inadequate quotas (email 200 mb, attachments 10 mb)

• Data center limitations made BC/DR critical

• Significant improvements identified as strategic plan priority for Fall Term 2010

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- Requirements

• Significant email and attachment quota (> 2gb and > 10mb)

• Affordable – staff layoffs and budget cuts a reality

• Standards-based, integrated tools - preserve flexibility for faculty use, include full business functionality for staff, respond quickly to technology change - integrated email and calendar a key requirement

• Reasonable risks – Privacy, confidentiality, data ownership, compliance, cost exposure, service continuity, service lifespan, BC/DR capabilities key factors

• Ease of use – speed to functional use time important, low annoyance factor important

• Preserve naming conventions – no one’s email address should have to change

4

Student Options

• Students had to be upgraded first and quickly because of BC/DR costs

• 2008-2009 Email assessment team led by John Spadaro (Director, Technical Architecture /Outreach) identified 3 viable student options:– Microsoft BPOS– Microsoft Live– GoogleApps for Education

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Student System Decision

• Microsoft & GoogleApps options piloted in 2009

• Campus technology advisory committee involved – faculty consulted

• General Counsel and Chief Security Officer reviewed risks & approved contract

• Students expressed preference for GoogleApps for Education (60% already forwarded to Gmail)

• Rollout – September 2009

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Faculty Staff Options

• Upgrade dedicated Exchange service & add BC/DR (onsite & hosted options considered)

• Convert to Microsoft hosted Exchange service (Live@edu or BPOS)

• Migrate to GoogleApps for Education

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Faculty, Staff, Decision 2009-

2010

• Vendor meetings/evals

• TCO financial analysis

• Input sought from Brown stakeholders, peers, businesses

• Email assessment paper with options and GoogleApps recommendation

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Key Factors for GAE

• Significant quota allocations: 7.4GB/user for email, 25MB attachments, 1GB for Docs, Sites

• New features and improvements added nearly daily• Brown undergrads GoogleApps experience was

positive. More collaboration opportunities w/faculty• Cost avoidance - significant new funds required for

any other viable option• Standards-based, integrated tools (Gmail, Docs,

Calendar, Sites (web), Chat, and more) – ability to read email from anywhere using almost any email reader or mobile device

• Reasonable risks – Reviewed by University Counsel and Chief Security Officer. Same protection as Google Apps for Business. Optional tools available for e-discover and end-to-end encryption (Postini)

• GoogleApps used by over 8 million faculty, staff and students worldwide - over 2M businesses including Intel, Motorola Mobile, Konica Minolta, National Geographic and Jaguar Land Rover entrust their business to GoogleApps.

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Seeking Input and Deciding

• Academic Technology Steering Committee• IT Advisory Board (3 discussions)• IT Project Review Committee• Graduate Student Council • Academic dept stakeholders• Faculty Executive Committee• Sr. Deans• External IT Advisory Council• President’s Cabinet• University Hall admin assistants• Academic Department Chairs – DECISION

MADE• Based on Chairs feedback, sent out pre-

announcement of intent to Brown • Held open campus forums and

demonstrations to identify issues/showstoppers

• Roadshows to departments and groups seeking input

10

Success Factors and Lessons

Learned

• Strong senior executive sponsorship - President, Provost and EVP firmly behind initiative

• Strong, professional project leadership (Geoff Greene, Director of IT Support Services)

• Skilled rollout team of central IT staff, departmental staff

• Google Guides – students and dept staff experts

• Engaged Appirio - had significant experience in GoogleApps migrations in higher ed environments

• Promoted full range of GAE features and function to realize maximum benefits of the change

• Allowed departments and users not currently intensively using Exchange calendaring to be early adopters . “Just get out of the way (but don’t let anything break).”

• Built a high level of campus awareness, repeatedly trained in a variety of venues, provided online resources, tracked progress on migration website.

• Responded quickly to misinformation with facts and adjust FAQ documents accordingly

• Identified real issues and enlisted help to solve

• Watch out for calendaring on non-standards based mobile devices! – be prepared to replace and retrain

• Key users: admin assistants – don’t allow them to fail

• Timing is important and will impact whether a flash cutover or a phased rollout works best – intensive calendar use creates biggest constraints

• Set realistic expectations• It is ok if it is fun!

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Status

• Governance groups established

• All departments moved in June/July 2010

• ~ 11,370 out of 13,900 accounts moved so far

• Exchange server to be moved offline in mid-September

12

Sticky Points

• Differences in UI and workflow• Calendaring on Blackberries • Policy – required opt-in and click thru

on AUP• Persistent FUD about ads, privacy,

data ownership and security• Google and China (and others)• MX record and elimination of

Proofpoint virus/spam• Consolidation of all Brown addresses

into Google contact list• Translating group mailbox

approaches into Google tools• Google Groups administration,• Google Sites • Many, many new features + labs

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Warm Fuzzies

• Many, many new features + Labs

• Access from any browser almost anywhere in the world – No VPN required

• Freeing up resources for new use

• Powerful collaboration tools gaining traction

• Google’s informal mission statement – “Don’t be evil”

• Responsiveness of Google (delegation, FERPA support)

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Q&A?

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