One of the things I pride myself on is my ability to break down the complexity of computers into simple everyday descriptions.  When I was asked to describe the problem that we are experiencing on our Exchange Server here is what I came up with:

All the e-mail at the university is stored in a database in an exchange environment.  This sort of database is similar to a file drawer in your desk that contains hanging file folders.  Each account is a hanging file folder and each e-mail is a piece of paper in the hanging file folders.  At this point there are so many hanging file folders in our drawer that we cannot remove any, nor can we fit any more in the drawer.  When we remove paper from the file folders, it is simply filled up with more paper in other hanging file folders.  So when the I.T. Department opens the file drawer all we see are hanging file folders.  If people remove paper from their folders, it assures more space for future paper, but there is no way in this current system to change our file system.

It made sense to me, I hope it makes sense to others.

Our Google Apps pilot group is off to a great start with around 22 volunteers already signed up. There is a wiki page for the migration process to move from Microsoft Outlook to Google Apps that will hopefully aid pilot group members in testing the full functionality of their CSP Google Accounts.

We had our second committee meeting yesterday regarding moving CSP’s e-mail to Google Apps. I feel that it was a productive meeting and that we are moving forward, but it would have been better to have more committee members there.  Here is a short recap of what was discussed.

• Pilot Group
  • We are asking that all committee members join the full pilot of Google Apps.
  • We are going to release the pilot to the campus community for volunteers to join in.
  • We hope to get a good sampling of different types of users to give this potential transition a thorough test.
• FAQ Page
  • We would like to compile a FAQ page to answer some of the most common concerns that have been expressed through the Google Apps blog
    
  • This FAQ page will also include some of the rationale behind considering this move (i.e. financial, server administration, reliability, legality issues with storing user data, etc.)
• Client Support
  • We discussed whether or not we would support a client. At this point we thought it would be ideal not to support a specific client, but this may be difficult to accomplish after leaving Outlook.
  • What sync tools are we going to support/purchase to handle syncing calendar and e-mail with mobile devices and or a client like Outlook.
• Insights from Macalester
  • Macalester College is also considering moving off of their Oracle e-mail solution to Google Apps. So, we are hoping to gain some insight from them on what they have discovered so far.
• Decision Time
  • We are looking at making the final decision to move on this or not in approximately 1 month.
  • If we decide not to move on it at this point, this will not rule out the possibility of doing it down the road, and we will continue to look at this option.

If there is anything that I missed, feel free to comment.