I managed to get my hands on the list of suggestions being made to save NCSU IT money. I'd like the feedback of current and former student's opinions on the proposed suggestions.

Quote :

"...Academic IT Directors met with Marc Hoit to discuss a directive that he had been given by the Provost and the VC for Business and Finance to reduce IT spending by $1,000,000. Marc stated that to realize the saving the initiatives will reach into the colleges. He is to produce preliminary plans in roughly the next 60 days and be able to demonstrate the savings by the end of two years. He plans on discussing this issue with the deans at their next meeting. A number of areas for potential savings were discussed: 1.Central email - All faculty and staff email will be provided through WolfWise. All servers run by departments and colleges would be retired and the Cyrus servers supported centrally will be re-tasked for other services. The implication is that even those who would not migrate from Cyrus because they do not have or want a calendar would be moved to WW. This would not include student email which is likely to be outsourced. Expected saving $500,000/year 2. Student Owned Computing- By instituting a laptop requirement, the majority of computing labs on campus could be closed. All Unity laps supported centrally would be phased out and the majority of college labs not supporting specific instructional needs that cannot be addressed through VCL would be closed. Expected saving $1,000,000/year 3. Unified Web Service Environment - The University has over the past few years been implementing guidelines governing web content and appearance. We were told that there are in excess of 1400 servers providing web services and more than 50 FTE creating web content. Through consolidation of hardware and personnel, savings could be realized while more closely aligning content to guidelines. Exceptions could be granted for specific web development that might require servers run by a unit/college. Expected saving $500,000+/year 4. Virtualized Desktop Environments - ...the use of a virtualized environment would lead to changes since applications would be running on servers and the local machines would effectively be functioning as access devices. Savings not estimated 5. Unified Storage and Centralized HPC - ...no concrete details on scope, implementation, or savings. "

3/19/2009 6:29:36 PM

1 and 3 should be implemented immediately - 2 is questionable but i agree with it being phased in

3/19/2009 6:35:22 PM

#1 is a great idea in theory, but WolfWise is pretty much universally hated and will wind up costing the university more money from everything I've heard. It's a program that's being perpetually pushed back and back because it doesn't meet any actual needs.

As someone in a departmental web services group, #3 is terrible. It might sound good in practice, but ITD/OIT (for the longest time) was so far behind the curve as far as web technologies were concerned that it's laughable.

[Edited on March 19, 2009 at 8:00 PM. Reason : .]

3/19/2009 7:59:37 PM

1 - This is pretty much already going to happen. No way OIT supports 3 mail systems and most of the other groups are already giving up on running them.

2 - I think a laptop requirement is stupid. Not every curriculum has significant computing needs and when a single lab machine can mean a bunch of students don't have to buy a machine, I think that's money well spent. They 1 million/year number is overboard, as I'm not sure you could expect half that in savings.

3 - This is really messy. The 1400 servers isn't right. Its 1400 vhosts, and alot of the "servers" are just a web server running on someone's desktop. I think in just migrating all the content into a centralized environment, you'd lose any hardware savings on the increased backup/storage costs because alot of the small sites aren't even being backed up currently and are on crappy hardware. You might be able to save money on staff time in the reeeeeally long run by moving to a CMS and having all of the developers using common frameworks and such. But the migration is a looooong one. Rerwiting all of the Cold Fusion/PHP/Perl/JSP/etc. just to consolidate would take years. If you move alot of the smaller web servers into VM's and look at cpanel-ish stuff for little sites (which they are looking at), you can save some money, but not a ton.

4 - FYI - This is a VDI for staff machines. Not faculty, labs, or grad students. At around 4000 staff, if you drop the cost from $1200/4 years to $300/6 years, it will easily save a bunch of money even above the server/licensing costs and the network can handle it. The problem is that Data Center 1 is badly in need of a retrofit, Data Center 2 isn't gonna be able to handle that size of a influx of servers and Data Center 3 just got pushed back till at least 2012. So I'm not sure how much would be saved after that. That being said, it probably should be done either way.

5 - Centralized HPC is almost already being done except for a couple groups who aren't exactly wasting money. Most of the smaller cluster's are build with leftover hardware so you are only talking about space/power savings, which though useful, aren't at the scale they are looking at. Unified storage sounds great in concept but most of the "little people" aren't spending alot on their external USB hard drives. Moving the data into a professionally run storage environment would be great for ensuring that research data doesn't get lost and that people don't lose their work, but I think the savings comes out in the wash.

I think at least a couple of these are good ideas and would benefit the university. Some have been talked about for years its just not gotten done. But unfortunately, I don't see the pure $ savings OIT is looking for coming out of that list.

3/19/2009 8:55:36 PM

2 doesn't actually save any money.

3/19/2009 9:00:47 PM

it makes the university not have to spent it though

3/19/2009 9:04:37 PM

1 - I think they should just outsource all email if they're going to outsource any. Google FTW.

2 - This idea is really shortsighted. How do students get access to specialized software that they need for class and research? Things like the VCL are great for CPU intensive work, but suck ass for high data volume work. Futhermore, with a laptop requirement, the university would be more or less obligated to provide personal computer support.

3 - This idea could be awesome if done correctly. As someone who helps maintain a webserver for a university research group, I'd love to see the university offer the tools of even the most meager third party web host.

3/19/2009 9:19:44 PM

I'm not sure how consolidating email saves any money. Migrating users from Cyrus to GroupWise will actually increase costs given that it will require more hardware and more licensing fees. To save money on email, the university should simply outsource faculty/staff email to Google, which is what we are doing with student email. This would result in a significant portion of the $1 million if not the entire thing when the number of people dedicated to WolfWise support and their associated salaries are included.

Student owned computing may save some money in some areas -- but the campus doesn't have the wireless infrastructure needed to completely support such a move and provide access to much of the software needed, so we would need to spend additional money in order to provide that infrastructure (access points, more switches, other potential hardware costs which are recurring given the lifecycle). Also, most students already start college with a laptop or computer, yet lab usage hasn't significantly declined in most areas.

The consolidated web services platform idea is a horrible one. Even if it is outsourced to a third-party hosting system, Drupal or WordPress won't provide a complete replacement for much of the web services that exist on campus. The thought is that we could save money by cutting web developer positions -- but it's based on the idea that many web developers simply update content, when in reality they often do nothing with departmental or college content. Many of the current administrative applications are web-based (see MyPack portal) -- could that be implemented in Drupal?

The virtualized desktop environment idea is one that seems good, but I remain skeptical about the potential savings. For it to work, I would imagine we may need network upgrades, some significant server hardware on the back end, software costs for the virtualization platform, and someone to manage and support it all. You can get a Dell PC for much less than $1200, and I'm not sure the total cost of a single seat for the virtualized platform solution would be that much cheaper over a typical lifecycle.

Centralized storage, if it can be provided at a REASONABLE cost, is a great idea and centralized HPC is something that should be a no-brainer and is something the new VC of Research is focusing on.

3/19/2009 9:54:57 PM

College of Engineering has been trying to do 2 for 5 years, and while lots have laptops, it hasnt replaced any labs.

the solution to 2 is 3. They would take the labs and make you always use VCL or remotly use the applications like solidworks works on campus with personal computers. Matlab works the same kinda as well.

3/19/2009 10:10:33 PM

Unless they're going to make all the software available in the labs available for download, the labs will always been needed.

3/19/2009 10:14:13 PM

Quote :

"I think a laptop requirement is stupid."

3/19/2009 10:42:42 PM

Quote :

"1 - I think they should just outsource all email if they're going to outsource any. Google FTW."

yeah, i'm not terrified of google like so many others are...attempting to do in-house what another company already does exceptionally well is a waste of money and time

username@ncsu.edu + gmail = FTW (yes, i realize you can already kinda of do this, but that's not what i mean)

3/20/2009 8:24:44 AM

1 definitely
2 no wai, vcl leverages these. when machines EOL just make them terminals into vm's/blades hosted elsewhere
3 too much cost and hassle to implement and no way of enforcing it. every department will still think they're special and make another separate entity
4 isn't there already a vcl?
5 definitely need to go down this path

[b]6[/6] take some damn money away from chass IT. I've watched the labs in the chass buildings change machines on a 2 year cycle and update LCDs on the same cycle. you don't need high powered machines on the bleeding edge of performance for text editing.

3/20/2009 9:10:43 AM

You can take care of both 1 and 3 by switching to Domino :smug:

[Edited on March 20, 2009 at 9:49 AM. Reason : btw this is not a joke domino can literally do all of this.]

3/20/2009 9:29:00 AM

How many computer labs are there, anyway?

3/20/2009 9:48:48 AM

Quote :

"College of Engineering has been trying to do 2 for 5 years, and while lots have laptops, it hasnt replaced any labs."

couple points:

- coe has had a laptop expectation for the past few years but not a requirement. it's close and sounds like semantics but the idea is basically: since 2006, the % of coe freshmen bringing a laptop has been 94%, 99%, 98%. so if faculty want to use laptops in class or assign something, they can be reasonably expect that everyone in their class has their own computer. and there are workarounds for the few who don't. the main point is that if you don't want to or can't bring a laptop for any reason, it's not going to keep you from getting an engineering degree. there are still non-laptop lab sections of E115.

- we really don't want to institute an actual laptop requirement unless there's a good reason, meaning widespread use of the machines in classes. that being said, many schools are doing this. some of those rating agencies (like princeton review) use laptop requirements as a positive when evaluating schools, which i think is ridiculous since it doesn't take into account whether the students actually use the damn things. i've seen surveys from a university which will not be named -- they required all students to buy a thinkpad, and the students and parents were not happy once they realized that there really wasn't a point to it at all. some of them never used them in class at all. if we ever institute a laptop requirement i'd hope it's for a better reason than OMG TECHNOLOGY.

- the idea of a laptop policy in the coe was never to get rid of the labs. in fact, when we talk to parents & students at open house, orientation, etc, we explicitly say that we are not trying to get rid of the labs.

3/20/2009 9:50:39 AM

^ one thing, since profs really dont use laptops in class/labs, and most of the avg students dont use them to take notes on, everyone having a laptop means less attention in class as they are always on facebook, tww, etc...

(and yes this is posted while im in class, not paying attention)

3/20/2009 12:48:28 PM

I'm hoping they choose Google for email... I'll probably graduate before it happens though.

3/20/2009 12:58:29 PM

1- sounds reasonable although I think the univsersity should allow alum to keep their email accounts after graduation. This is pennies in the pond.

2- Is complete ass. Although I think by accomplishing #4 we could save a lot by eliminating the need for so many computers in the many labs that could just as easily be done by VCL. In EB 2 there are probably at least 100 dell computers sitting in random labs (not the main computer)that sit unused and locked away 90% of the time.

3/4/5- sounds good.

3/20/2009 1:11:50 PM

^^^ yeah, that's up to the individual faculty member to decide. they can come up with a policy if they'd like. as long as there have been crossword puzzles there have been distractions in class. one instance where it gets tricky is when one student's laptop affects others. like when you're trying to pay attention and some d-bag between you and the instructor is watching fullscreen videos or something else distracting.

my personal opinions on it are

- if you can learn without paying attention, that's up to you
- no one can force you to pay attention, regardless of whether a laptop is involved

[Edited on March 20, 2009 at 1:15 PM. Reason : =]

3/20/2009 1:14:53 PM

If they weren't so gung-ho about GroupWise and would just outsource to Google or Microsoft instead that'd solve the money problem right there. The groupwise servers are already constantly going down with the tiny amount of evaluation users using it, i can't even begin to imagine how it'll hold up when it starts getting some real use - it's just a nightmare waiting to happen.

3/20/2009 2:08:45 PM

They need to require tablets like MIT (well, I think they just strongly encourage students to get one but I'm not sure) if they want to get kids to use notebooks that are actually useful in class, IMO. They are eff'in invaluable after you get used to one.

3/20/2009 2:09:54 PM

^^ Yes, ditch GroupWise.

3/20/2009 3:27:53 PM

Quote :

"I'm not sure how consolidating email saves any money. Migrating users from Cyrus to GroupWise will actually increase costs given that it will require more hardware and more licensing fees. To save money on email, the university should simply outsource faculty/staff email to Google, which is what we are doing with student email. This would result in a significant portion of the $1 million if not the entire thing when the number of people dedicated to WolfWise support and their associated salaries are included."

Having gmail for faculty/staff is a huge security/support issue. Very very bad decision in my opinion. Faculty/staff/administration MUST stay on campus where the data is in protected hands. Email is so critical an issue these days to trust to an outside service which has no promises for any SLA. Wasnt it just this past week where a lot of gmail users had no email for an entire day?

I do believe centralized mail services are a must, however. The problem with any centralized service is that it cannot do everything for everyone, and departments have to compromise. At UNC we have a large centralized email service, but many departments choose to run their own email services, mostly exchange, for their own reasons. It would take an edict from the chancellor to do away with redundant servers. That process is broken in many universities, so departments are free to silo themselves from everyone else to get exactly what they want. Its a huge problem.

However, outsourcing things outside of the university is not as good as it sounds. At UNC, we tried this past year to outsource blackboard. BIG FAILURE. It came back to campus within a couple months, and I dont know if they are going to try it again anytime soon.


I also understand at NC State that the network support is not edge to edge. If there were to be a service to centralize, it would be the network.

[Edited on March 20, 2009 at 4:10 PM. Reason : .]

3/20/2009 4:02:12 PM

^ Gmail for faculty/staff is no more of a security issue than Gmail for students. Student information is to be protected by law and there are plenty of students that work on sensitive projects.

3/20/2009 5:12:21 PM

As a general rule, staff/faculty deal with more sensitive information than students as a whole. I wasnt saying that no student emails are sensitive. I would argue that none of it should be outsourced. I think its a short sided stupid idea.

[Edited on March 20, 2009 at 6:27 PM. Reason : .]

3/20/2009 6:27:08 PM

just to make the point... i don't think you'd be correctly stating it to say that OIT is uniformly behind WolfWise. there are some that are in favor, many that are "meh," and many more that are "OMG please make it stop." But if the money is already spent to make it happen, and you're close to rollout, you don't stop.

3/20/2009 6:41:44 PM

Quote :

" But if the money is already spent to make it happen, and you're close to rollout, you don't stop. "

I don't know how "close" the university is to rollout. The date consistently moves back. Consider that the "rollout" of Oracle Calendar to students never really occurred after similar, consistent, delays.

I'm not sure throwing more good money after bad is the best decision at a time when you're also being asked to trim a million dollars in spending.

At least in some cases labs support student instruction and learning which is the ultimate mission of the university. To put that on the table as a possible cut, while turning a blind eye to an obvious money pit, GroupWise, which does not contribute to the university's mission is a mistake.

3/20/2009 7:48:49 PM

We're going to get it come hell or high water just because everyone in the provost's office doesn't want to have to switch to a new system

[Edited on March 20, 2009 at 7:58 PM. Reason : hell who knows, if they can keep the servers up for more than a few hours a day it could be nice]

3/20/2009 7:55:29 PM

Quote :

"Having gmail for faculty/staff is a huge security/support issue. Very very bad decision in my opinion. Faculty/staff/administration MUST stay on campus where the data is in protected hands. Email is so critical an issue these days to trust to an outside service which has no promises for any SLA. Wasnt it just this past week where a lot of gmail users had no email for an entire day?"

Other colleges and universities have been able to successfully outsource faculty/staff email -- why can't NCSU?

You have a good point that there are sensitive issues in faculty/staff email -- yet, how much money is it worth to keep it in-house? If NCSU can only come up with GroupWise as the obvious solution for employee email, and is unwilling to consider any other options, and it costs boatloads of money to implement, are you still in support of it?

3/20/2009 7:57:04 PM

Just because other colleges have done something, doesn't mean its a good idea. I'd need to see 'what' universities have done this that are considered IT leaders. Being in education for a while now, I've seen a ton of universities do monumentally stupid things w/r to IT.

I consider email mission critical. Unless you are a small shop, and simply cant afford the overhead, its hard for me to see justifying outsourcing of email for a large enterprise. When email is down, it is 'almost' like the network being down. Work stops. Hire good people and invest in the technology to make it work. Its not something that should be skimped on.

3/21/2009 12:32:34 AM

I don't really have a problem with outsourcing student mail, but fac/staff mail probably should remain centrally served on campus. For security reasons and general control/uptime issues.

3/21/2009 2:49:05 AM

^ & ^^ i'm not understanding your arguments here...you're suggesting that NCSU can do email BETTER than someone like google? we certainly can't do it cheaper, and it's already evident that we can't provide better features (space, etc.)...so your only valid argument is security and i'm not sure how much of an argument it actually is

so, for less money, you get SIGNIFICANTLY better service and features with arguably similar security...add to that the ability to utilize integrated services like google calendar and i don't understand why this is even a debate

the thing about staff/faculty email/calendaring, from the point of view of someone who knows, is that it's not just about NCSU staff and faculty...there are a number of organizations on campus that deal as much or more with non-NCSU partners (other universities, the federal government, industry, international organizations) and the inability to collaborate via a CENTRAL calendaring system (like that provided by thunderbird/lightning/provider for google calendar and specifically disallowed by a system like wolfwise) is crippling

3/21/2009 9:47:11 AM

Quag, I never said NCSU could provide email more cheaply than google. Support and security are big issues. I dont know what you do for a living, but I am closely involved with security at a high level, and its a big issue. Who owns the data is a big issue. Who is held responsible for insuring data is kept confidental is a big issue. What happens if there is a security whole that google doesnt plug in time leads to data getting out? They get to say 'oops' and give us a discount on next year's service? There would be little accountability.

Support is a big issue. People dont think about support until something goes wrong, and do you really think you are going to have someone at google working with you to fix a problem when something goes wrong in the same manner as a local resource? What happens to the google support person if they brush you off, or prioritize other issues they deem important? I cant say for sure, because I havent seen google's SLAs, but I doubt its the same type of response you would get from an on campus service.

Collaboration is always a big issue. I honestly love Exchange, but realize that is too expensive in most cases to provide to students. Almost all my outside meeting requests are exhange related. I care less about calendar security, because it is much less sensitive information than email. I would support any collaboration suite that interfaces with campus email, on or off campus. I hate UNC's collaboration suite with Oracle. Everyone on campus uses it, but it doesnt sync with any software I use to interface with my PDAs.

BTW... What happens if google either goes under or decides to discontinue the service? If anything, we've seen recently that NO corporation is immune. The university will be left holding the bag, trying to scramble to provide an enterprise class service that takes years to mature.

[Edited on March 21, 2009 at 11:03 AM. Reason : .]

3/21/2009 11:00:46 AM

Quote :

"What happens if there is a security whole that google doesnt plug in time leads to data getting out? They get to say 'oops' and give us a discount on next year's service? There would be little accountability."

So what happens if joe admin leaves a hole on your exchange/sendmail/whatever server? Email get's jacked and a you have a person you can blame? What good does that do exactly? The data was still leaked. I'd be far more inclined to think google sees more threats daily and has more developers pushing code changes daily than any other commercial or opensource solution. Google has far more to lose with security issues than a single university, so they can obviously make it more of a priority and dedicate more resources to it than a university.

Quote :

"Support is a big issue. People dont think about support until something goes wrong, and do you really think you are going to have someone at google working with you to fix a problem when something goes wrong in the same manner as a local resource? What happens to the google support person if they brush you off, or prioritize other issues they deem important? I cant say for sure, because I havent seen google's SLAs, but I doubt its the same type of response you would get from an on campus service."

Same argument for support, essentially. A select few people wanting to keep their job for the state vs the bad press of google failing a major university? Which do you think is a stronger deterrent for poor service?

3/21/2009 11:14:16 AM

Quote :

" Support is a big issue. People dont think about support until something goes wrong, and do you really think you are going to have someone at google working with you to fix a problem when something goes wrong in the same manner as a local resource? What happens to the google support person if they brush you off, or prioritize other issues they deem important? I cant say for sure, because I havent seen google's SLAs, but I doubt its the same type of response you would get from an on campus service."

If you read the case studies, most universities that have outsourced student email have found that the support issues for students decreased since the Google service was far superior to the in-house service, and students found it more intuitive and easy to use. Would faculty/staff be that much different? In addition, if there's a concern about service being down for long periods of time and a Google support person brushing off that concern, then we also shouldn't be looking at outsourcing student email, since I believe it's also important for students to be able to get their email.

Regarding security -- currently NCSU allows users (including faculty and staff) to forward their email to any off-campus email account that they want. So any potential security issues that exist with Google are already a problem as many faculty now forward their emails off-site to Google as it is. Again, I'm not sure I see value in continuing to pump massive amounts of money in to something that a significant portion of folks don't like and won't use, while at the same time looking to make cuts to services that may be more beneficial in supporting the university's mission.

Quote :

"I hate UNC's collaboration suite with Oracle. Everyone on campus uses it, but it doesnt sync with any software I use to interface with my PDAs."

Then, I'm not sure you'd like GroupWise very much as it has many of the same problems.

3/21/2009 1:09:05 PM

hope no one wants to check their email on a mac or linux!

3/21/2009 6:00:08 PM

Couple points of clarification:

#4 has absolutely nothing to do with students or VCL or labs. It is primarily aimed at removing all of the staff machines on campus.

Student email vs. Staff/Faculty email re: outsourcing - Its not really a security or uptime or cost issue. The main differentiators are who owns the mail and what state laws apply to it. Student email is owned by the individual student, and there is alot of laws to protect it. Staff/Faculty email is owned by the state, and every piece of it falls into certain records retention laws and other issues. So if staff/faculty email is ever gonna get outsourced, there are a whole lot corner cases that have to be figured out first because Google or whoever isn't going to just give NCSU IT staff unfettered access to all of their back-end email systems. So while it might not be a a problem there's alot of lawyer time that has to go in before any decision on that can even be made.

3/21/2009 6:34:48 PM

gmail for domains gives you the option of keeping content locally in addition to on google's servers for exactly this reason

3/21/2009 8:40:00 PM

Quote :

"take some damn money away from chass IT. I've watched the labs in the chass buildings change machines on a 2 year cycle and update LCDs on the same cycle. you don't need high powered machines on the bleeding edge of performance for text editing."

That's not the case at all. The machines that just came out of WN118 are 6yrs old. Only the boxes were replaced. You'll notice the old gateway LCDs are sitting on top of Dell boxes. The 1911 lab has 6yr old boxes, WN133 are about 5yrs old now. The Tompkins labs range from 2-5yrs old. And the Laundry lab machines will be 4yrs old in May. None of the LCDs are being replaced, only the boxes. They're also all modestly configured because, as you pointed out, many of the CHASS lab users do not use processor or graphic intensive software. That hardware is stretched out as long as reasonably possible. Even faculty and staff machines are around 6-8yrs after their purchase.
.......................

A lot of these could be done. But, the esitmated savings are very loose, and I don't think the actual amounts will be close to the estimates. The numbers are already a stretch even if you were just going to eliminate the services altogether. It will be even less once the cost of a new model is figured in.

I also question the time frame of 2yrs for some of these things.

There needs to be (and there will be) a much more in-depth look at the current models compared to the repsective alternative. Preferably one that doesn't involve OIT assuming the costs for colleges to run/provide certain services.


2 -From an IT perspective, assuming the cost benefit is there w/o a large compromise in instruction/student needs, it could make sense. But on a more general policy level/personal level, I don't like the idea of forcing students to buy computers, specifically laptops, and especially if it comes down to brands and models (which would be necessary for max. efficiency). The logistics are important here as well. Does the university set min. requirements or do the colleges? Students in COD would probably need better hardware than those in College of Ed. Does a central group provide support for the machines, or do the colleges? Can the VCL really handle that sort of influx? If not, what would it cost/take to get it to a point that it could handle the traffic. Not to mention, running certain software via the VCL sucks. - so, this could work could be great if done right... it could also be a nightmare.

3 - I don't think this could be finished and everything migrated in 2yrs. And as pointed out, there's no way there are 1400 web servers on campus. The cost of running the locally managed webservers on campus is nowhere near what they're rough estimate suggests. So, not that it won't help, but I'm not sure it's a realistic goal for the next 2yrs, nor one that will generate the savings that seem to be expected. The effort of doing this would probably be better focused elsewhere.

3/22/2009 11:35:29 AM

FYI, these comments are going to go to the faculty computer committee.

3/23/2009 7:26:58 PM

I'm surprised that Hoit is already trying to reach in the department's pockets. What's it been, 6 months? Earth to OIT, you have to provide the services first, then people will come. You don't have to push people around. If you build a service that meets business needs, people will line up.

Also, those savings numbers are bull.

3/23/2009 10:34:07 PM

^ Care to expand on your comments? I feel like I don't have the context to understand them.

3/24/2009 12:26:51 AM

Why not Live@edu for the campus email/calendar system?
http://get.liveatedu.com/Education/Connect/

3/24/2009 1:32:11 AM

^ IIRC, Live and Google are currently being reviewed as potential outsourcing options for student email.

3/24/2009 1:48:12 AM

you're right that they were evaluating both, but i think they've settled on google mail

which is a shame, since i think the MS product is a bit better

3/24/2009 7:57:27 AM

Yea, I don't see how you pick Gmail over Exchange Labs. We did a focus group with the students at UNC and we found a strong consensus that Exchange Labs was the best choice for students. Gmail is so well known, so it makes it seem an obvious solution, but you need to try both to make an informed decision.

Quote :

"Earth to OIT, you have to provide the services first, then people will come. You don't have to push people around. If you build a service that meets business needs, people will line up."

What I mean by this is OIT has refused time and time again to provide the technologies that the departments need and want. As a result, departmental IT organizations are huge. While this is a waste of money, you have to fix the problem at its root. If you provide the central resources that department's need, they will use them.

3/24/2009 8:51:27 AM

^ FWIW, NCSU did a student trial with both Google and Exchange as well.

3/24/2009 12:02:54 PM

That's interesting. What were the results?

3/24/2009 1:02:31 PM

^ Google apps.
http://oit.ncsu.edu/sites/oit.ncsu.edu/files/content/Student%20Email%20Initiative/NCSU%20Only/student_email_task_force_complete_report_3_17_09_p_10542.pdf

3/24/2009 1:41:33 PM