Microsoft Exchange Server 2010Customer Solution Case Study

Reduced Email Administration Frees College System to Deploy Rich Messaging Services

OverviewCountry or Region: United StatesIndustry: Education—Higher education

Customer ProfileKentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) is a statewide network of 16 colleges and 68 campuses. Based in Versailles, Kentucky, KCTCS has more than 108,000 students and 8,000 employees.

Business SituationKCTCS has just two people managing 186,000 email accounts and sought efficiencies to reduce the email management burden. It also wanted to enhance messaging services and cut storage costs.

SolutionKCTCS upgraded to Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 with Service Pack 1 and deployed Microsoft System Center products.

Benefits Eases administration, expands services Reduces storage costs by U.S.$213,000 Improves user experience Enhances email security

“We’ve had time to deploy Unified Messaging and start deploying Lync Server 2010. We wouldn’t have been able to take those on without the efficiencies provided by Exchange Server 2010 with Service Pack 1.”

Tammy Knowles, System Director, Computer Operations and Messaging, Kentucky Community and Technical College System

Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) offers classroom and online learning to more than 108,000 people across the state. To help its small IT staff manage a growing number of email accounts and to give students more flexibility, KCTCS upgraded to Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 with Service Pack 1. Simplified management tools help the two IT staff members reduce the time they spend on tasks such as provisioning users, tracking messages, and performing backups. As a result, they have been able to deploy new services, including Exchange Server 2010 Unified Messaging. Now employees use capabilities such as previewing a text version of their voice-mail messages. Users can also access their email from more web browsers. In addition, KCTCS has taken advantage of Exchange Server 2010 improvements to triple user mailbox size while lowering storage costs by U.S.$213,000.

SituationKentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) provides classroom and online learning opportunities to the citizens of Kentucky through a statewide network of 16 colleges and 68 campuses. Based in Versailles, Kentucky, KCTCS offers certificates, diplomas, and two-year associate degrees in more than 600 programs. It serves more than 108,000 students and has 8,000 employees.

Because faculty, staff, and students are located all over the state, email messaging is their primary means of communication. “Students use email for everything from communicating with professors to receiving their KCTCS bill to submitting technical support questions,” says Tony Eversole, IT Project Manager at Kentucky Community and Technical College System. “That’s why it’s critical that email be available and performing well at all times.”

KCTCS used Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 as its messaging platform, and two staff members managed a messaging infrastructure of 20 server computers and 186,000 email accounts, in addition to the organization’s Active Directory and communications infrastructure—a total of 130 servers. With only two people managing such a large infrastructure, KCTCS was eager for management efficiencies that would help its IT staff do more with less.

Email was consuming ever more time for Eversole and his colleague, Tammy Knowles, who is System Director of Computer Operations and Messaging at KCTCS. Because 40,000 new email accounts had to be provisioned each semester as the

student body turned over, the IT staff frequently tended to the storage area network (SAN) attached to Exchange Server 2007. “If we had problems, the SAN vendor required that we be on the latest firmware,” says Knowles. “But an enterprise SAN can be more difficult to manage, and not having a dedicated storage specialist in our organization made it more challenging to perform the initial configuration and proper maintenance.”

Overall, Knowles and Eversole wanted to spend more time providing students and employees with new communications services and less time performing mundane infrastructure tasks. KCTCS wanted to deploy unified communications features, such as integrated email and voice mail, and give users more control over their email environment. Students complained about limited web browser options for accessing email and limits on mailbox size.

SolutionKCTCS refreshes its data center hardware every four years, and as the 2009 upgrade approached, the IT staff decided to upgrade its email platform. Moving to Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 was the natural next step. “The only other option we considered was the Microsoft Live@edu service for student email accounts, but we still needed to have an on-premises email system for staff,” Knowles says. “We knew that with Exchange Server 2010 we could easily manage both on-premises and cloud-based email through the same management console.”

Microsoft Live@edu delivers a web-based email account to students using Microsoft Outlook Live. Other Live@edu services

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“We knew that with Exchange Server 2010 we could easily manage both on-premises and cloud-based email through the same management console.”

Tammy Knowles, System Director, Computer Operations and Messaging,

Kentucky Community and Technical College System

include Windows Live SkyDrive storage technology and Microsoft Office Live Workspace for the online storage, access, and sharing of documents. If KCTCS decides to move to Live@edu or another hosted Exchange Server option in the future, it can use Exchange Server 2010 to manage all email accounts.In December 2009, KCTCS upgraded its messaging servers to Exchange Server 2010 and the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system. In addition to providing the freedom to move to hosted student email in the future, the move to Exchange Server 2010 gave KCTCS new storage options for decreasing email storage costs and enhanced role-based administrative tools for reducing the burden on IT staff. “The timing was good for us because we got the newest Windows Server operating system along with the newest Exchange Server release,” says Eversole. “Plus, the stability of Exchange Server 2010 with Windows Server 2008 R2 was great.”

Two-Week MigrationThe upgrade to Exchange Server 2010 was quick and painless. “We were already familiar with so many features in Exchange Server 2007 that just got better in 2010—Windows PowerShell scripting, role separation, and so forth,” Knowles says. Eversole and Knowles easily moved some faculty and student mailboxes with the Online Move Mailbox feature, which keeps users connected during the process. Then they migrated most of the 186,000 mailboxes over the two-week Christmas break in 2009 when the colleges were closed.

In January 2010, KCTCS deployed a beta version of Exchange Server 2010 Service

Pack 1 (SP1). SP1 provided still more enhancements in messaging management, usability, and remote email access.

KCTCS is running Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Enterprise SP1 on its Mailbox servers and Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Standard SP1 on all other server roles. Its messaging infrastructure consists of 22 servers: 6 Mailbox, 6 Client Access, 4 Hub Transport, 3 Edge Transport, and 3 Unified Messaging servers. By upgrading to Exchange Server 2010, KCTCS was also able to eliminate its expensive SAN and move to less expensive direct-attached storage (DAS) with Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) disks.

Management ToolsEversole and Knowles are automating tasks with the Exchange Management Shell, a command-line interface built on Windows PowerShell technology. As a result, KCTCS was able to retire an old application that it used for provisioning users, and to change the multistep provisioning process to a single transaction.

In addition, the Exchange Management Console, a graphical user interface for administrators, provides simpler navigation and integrated management and troubleshooting tools. KCTCS used Exchange 2010 SP1 Unified Messaging Auto Attendants to record holiday greetings and set the time. “We have been able to delegate this function to specific people in the organization,” Knowles says. “In addition, the enhanced reporting capabilities in Exchange Server 2010 SP1 help us manage the messaging

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“The enhanced reporting capabilities in Exchange Server 2010 SP1 help us manage the messaging environment, including reports for call statistics and user call logs.”

Tammy Knowles, System Director, Computer Operations and Messaging,

Kentucky Community and Technical College System

environment, including reports for call statistics and user call logs.”

With the Role Based Access Control permissions model and the Exchange Control Panel, the IT staff has delegated some administration tasks to students, faculty, and staff. Now users can personalize their listening and viewing of voice-mail messages, track messages, and reset their personal identification numbers—tasks that previously had to be performed by the help desk.

KCTCS uses Microsoft System Center data center solutions to further simplify management of its Exchange Server infrastructure and improve availability and backup. Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 monitors Exchange Server 2010, and Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2010 backs up email to disk, with weekly backup to tape.

To improve availability, the college system is considering using database replication between its two data centers and within each data center with the Database Availability Group feature in Exchange Server 2010. A Database Availability Group is a set of mailbox servers that use continuous replication to keep database copies up to date and provide automatic database recovery from failures at the disk, server, or data center level.

To enhance email security, KCTCS deployed Microsoft Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server to provide tighter protection against malware and spam. “We standardized on Microsoft Forefront Client Security on our desktop PCs, so now we

have common security software across our environment and can use the same configuration on our messaging servers,” Knowles says.

Communications FeaturesImprovements to Microsoft Outlook Web App have been favorites with students, who can now access their email messages from a wider variety of web browsers. Faculty and staff can use the Voice Mail Preview feature to see a text version of voice-mail messages in their unified inbox.

The IT staff is also deploying Microsoft Lync Server 2010, which will enhance faculty and staff communications with presence, instant messaging, voice calls, and conferencing. This application will give employees even richer abilities to see one another’s availability and make contact using a variety of methods.

BenefitsBy upgrading to Exchange Server 2010 with Service Pack 1, KCTCS has simplified email management, freed up IT staff time, improved messaging services, reduced storage costs, and increased security.

Eases Administration, Expands Messaging ServicesBy using the simplified management tools in Exchange Server 2010 with SP1, Eversole and Knowles have saved time throughout the day, freeing them to provide new and better services to users. “We’ve had time to deploy Unified Messaging and start deploying Lync Server 2010. We wouldn’t have been able to take those on without the efficiencies provided by Exchange Server 2010 with Service Pack 1,” Knowles says.

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“When we made our last bulk database change, we wrote a one-line script that automated the process across all 64 Exchange Server databases. We now write scripts like this for all kinds of tasks.”

Tammy Knowles, System Director, Computer Operations and Messaging,

Kentucky Community and Technical College System

With the improved Exchange Management Console, Knowles and Eversole can more efficiently manage tasks. For instance, they can view all messaging databases in one window rather than drilling down through multiple screen views. Also, the Exchange Management Shell provides additional efficiencies on a range of administrative tasks. “When we made our last bulk database change, we wrote a one-line script that automated the process across all 64 Exchange Server databases,” Knowles says. “We now write scripts like this for all kinds of tasks. The time savings adds up to at least an hour a week.”

Eversole and Knowles are also able to forget about many administrative tasks that used to take several hours a week. Now, using the Exchange Control Panel, users can perform their own message-tracking, password resets, and other tasks.

With System Center Data Protection Manager 2010, email backups now run for 3–4 hours a night rather than 22 hours a day, and IT administrators no longer need to constantly move backup tapes around. “With System Center Data Protection Manager 2010, we have disk-based backup for the first time and also faster message restores and more restore points,” Eversole says. “We can monitor our messaging disk and tape backups from one console. Backup was a daily chore; now we forget about it.”

Reduces Storage Costs by $213,000With the upgrade to Exchange Server 2010, KCTCS was able to switch from a SAN to less expensive DAS storage and SATA disks, decreasing storage costs by U.S.$213,000.

DAS storage is also far easier to manage than an enterprise SAN, which requires expensive, specialized talent on staff.

By using cheaper disks, the college system was also able to increase student mailbox size, from 20 to 60 megabytes (MB). “Previously, if students hit the mailbox-size limit before they initialized their mailbox, they could not log on to Outlook Web App to clean out messages without IT getting involved,” Eversole says. “This procedure accounted for 90 percent of our help-desk calls, and they’ve nearly all gone away with the dramatically increased mailbox size.”

Improves User ExperienceStudents and employees are just as happy as IT staffers with the move to Exchange Server 2010 with Service Pack 1. In addition to the self-service administration options, they have larger mailboxes and richer communications functionality that shaves minutes from each day.

“The Unified Messaging features have been huge,” Eversole says. “We have about 6,000 voice mailboxes on Cisco Unity, and we’ve moved half of those to Exchange Server 2010 Unified Messaging, with more on the way. Being able to preview voice-mail messages in email is an efficiency benefit, and the minutes add up. Mostly, the benefit is in giving employees many more choices in how they handle communications tasks.”

Enhances Email Security The move to Exchange Server 2010 has resulted in a 30 percent reduction in spam, and the IT staff can more easily monitor spam and phishing pileups. “We’re plagued with phishing because we’re an educational organization, but with the Exchange

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“Being able to preview voice-mail messages in email is an efficiency benefit, and the minutes add up. Mostly, the benefit is in giving employees many more choices in how they handle communications tasks.”

Tony Eversole, IT Project Manager, Kentucky Community and Technical

College System

Management Console, we can see when there is a queue buildup and take action,” Eversole says.

Additionally, by using System Center Data Protection Manager, the IT staff has gained the ability to recover accidentally deleted email messages in minutes rather than days. Eversole says, “It’s just another way that we can deliver exceptional service to our users.”

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 can help you achieve better business outcomes while controlling the costs of deployment, administration, and compliance. Exchange Server 2010 delivers the widest range of deployment options, integrated information leakage protection, and advanced compliance capabilities, which combine to form the best messaging and collaboration solution available.

For more information about Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, go to:www.microsoft.com/exchange

For more information about Microsoft Unified Communications, go to:www.microsoft.com/uc

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For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about Kentucky Community and Technical College System, call (859) 256-3100 or visit the website at: www.kctcs.edu

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published December 2010

Software and Services Microsoft Server Product Portfolio− Windows Server 2008 R2− Microsoft Exchange Server 2010− Microsoft Forefront Protection 2010

for Exchange Server− Microsoft System Center Data

Protection Manager 2010− Microsoft System Center Operations

Manager 2007 R2

Technologies− Microsoft Exchange Server 2010

Service Pack 1− Microsoft Outlook Web App− Windows PowerShell

Hardware IBM System x3650 M2 server computers