Innovative Email Solutions

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Innovative E-mail Solutions A Management
Perspective Trinity College Dublin
John MurphyInformation Systems ServicesTrinity
College Dublin7th March 2007 IUISC With thanks
to the Systems Programmers, IS Services, TCD.
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Overview

• TCD Current Email Service
• Some Statistics
• The Problems
• Approach taken
• Exchange Hosted Services (EHS)
• New Student Email (Google Apps)
• New Staff Email (Exchange 2007)

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Current Email Service

• 6 Years old
• 2 x Compaq DS20E Clustered Servers
• 2 x 666 MHz cpus, 1GB memory on each server
• Postfix on Tru 64 UNIX
• Compaq HSG80 SAN with 1.4TB of RAID disk
• Significant Upgrades of memory disc space over
  lifetime to facilitate growth

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Current Email Service

• 2 External MX (Redhat Linux)
• 2 Internal MX (Redhat Linux)
• Spam Assassin
• Vexira
• Mymail imap web access over https
• Clients various POP and IMAP applications for
  Mac, PC and Linux

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Current Service Stats

• 20000 user accounts
• Daily stats
• 200,000 incoming messages
• 150,000 POP connections (Outlook, Eudora, etc)
• 350,000 IMAP connections (Webmail, etc)
• User disk quotas 80-120MB

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Problems..

• Servers - old and costly to support
• SAN - end of life
• O.S. (Tru64 Unix) no longer developed
• Storage is at full capacity- no facility for
  further expansion.
• Mymail web access - poor quality limited
  features
• Poor logging, reporting, auditing.
• Backup and recovery problems
• Limited Security features
• Bombarded by SPAM

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Approach taken

• Change in culture required
• Buy-in sought from Senior Management at the
  university
• Buy-in sought student population
• Buy-in sought from our own staff
• Decide on priorities
• 1. Reduce SPAM and VIRUS attacks on existing mail
  service
• 2. Introduce new student email service to reduce
  load on existing mail service and increase
  services provided to student population
• 3. Introduce new staff email service with
  enhanced features

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Mail Delivery and SPAM at TCD
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Exchange Hosted Services (EHS)

• Why? Desperation losing battle with SPAMMERS
• Better/Cost effective/staff release
• Staff were starting to move away from email
  service because of SPAM
• Number of SPAM per day
• 92 SPAM detected / 99 virus protection
• Implemented Dec 2006 hugely successful good PR
  for IS Services

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EHS- How does it work?

• Low risk 30 day trial
• Managed Service spread over 12 MS data centres
  world-wide
• TCD email routed through EHS for cleansing by
  changing the configuration of Mail Exchange
  record
• No additional hardware or software required
• Multiple SPAM and VIRUS filters
• Platform agnostic
• SPAM is quarantined and users can view SPAM mail
  if they wish many dont
• If false positives detected then can be moved to
  inbox
• SPAM deleted after two week period

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(EHS) Teething Problems

• A small of power users have actually
  experienced an increase in SPAM
• Limited search features
• Accessing quarantine database can be slow
• No individual white-list function available
• Some false positives initially TAP/Ryanair
• First in country to adopt so we expected some
  problems

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Requirements for new student service

• Feature Rich
• Greater Storage
• Virus and SPAM free
• Greater performance and reliability
• Interface enhancements
• Accessibility issues resolved

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Google Apps -Key Features

• 2GB email storage
• Calendar Service
• Blogs
• Applications such as word processor and
  spreadsheet
• Shared documents and collaborative working
• Instant messaging

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Google Apps -How will it work?

• Retain _at_tcd.ie so username is student_at_tcd.ie
• Paid for by targeted advertisements but only in
  year 5 after students have graduated
• Students will opt in
• Existing email can be forwarded
• Service managed by Google
• 99.9 availability
• Accessibility issues addressed

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Benefits to College

• Major strategic initiative 1st university in
  Europe to make this move
• Email for life for all students
• No charge for service for students
• Guaranteed 99.9 uptime of service
• Recoverable if project fails or Google move on
• Can be extendable to staff for a price!

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Some drawbacks

• Despite assurances maybe privacy issues as email
  control no longer with TCD
• Tracking emails will be more difficult
• Limited control console for Trinity IT Staff
• Provisioning ensuring usernames etc are correct
  and properly setup
• Synching between TCD and Gmail.
• Issues such as who students will contact with
  problems

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Progress to date

• Testing of various routing options is now
  complete
• Admin console has been evaluated
• Test accounts setup and working
• Terms conditions agreed

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Gmail Login Screen
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Timeline

• Press release took place with Google this morning
• Service to be introduced to students in April on
  an opt in basis
• All students will have moved by 1st Oct 2007
• Existing student email service will cease 31st
  Dec 2007.

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Requirements for New Staff Service

• Scalable IMAP storage 1GB per user
• Integrated Online Calendaring and Email
• Support Mobility - wired/wireless, College
  Network/Internet
• Feature Rich - Contacts, address books, auto
  replies, forwarding, filtering, synch
• Implementation - Highly Available Redundant
• Reporting, Logging, Auditing.
• Security controls
• Support existing client Software

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Requirements for New Staff Service

• Also Desirable
• Integrate with current Microsoft Active directory
  for synchronised authentication
• Smooth transition from old system

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Why MS Exchange 2007?

• Feature Rich
• Enhanced Security
• Integration with Exchange Calendaring 2003
  already in use
• Integration with existing Microsoft SharePoint
  Environment
• Extensive use of Outlook client on desktops
• Centralised authentication leveraging existing
  AD infrastructure
• Resilient and available solution across a
  physically dispersed SAN via Exchange Replication

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Implementation Design

• In Conjunction with Microsoft Consulting
  Services..
• Deploy a 2 node clustered mailbox servers to
  provide a highly availability solution
• Deploy 2 Client Access servers for resiliency.
• Deploy 2 HUB Transport roles for resiliency.
• Physically Distributed SAN
• Deploy ISA 2006 server in DMZ added protection
  from the Internet.

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Implementation Design

• Compatible clients
• Outlook 2007, 2003, 2002
• Additional IMAP and POP clients.
• Outlook WEB access
• Active sync
• Outlook Anywhere (RPC over HTTP)

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Current Status

• Test Bed in Virtual environment includes Exchange
  2007 - AD OWA - Mailstores, Hub transport
  server
• Trialling Exchange Forefront - mail store virus
  protection
• Implemented Exchange Hosted Services filtering
  for spam and virus management
• Hardware platform built
• Work continuing with MCS
• Projected go live date June 2007

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Proposed Design
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Conclusions

• Early adoption of new technologies brings it
  share of rewards and problems
• There is a high element of risk involved that
  needs to be managed
• Phased approach not big bang
• Buy-in at all levels is required

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Thank You

• Links
• Exchange Hosted Services
• http//www.microsoft.com/exchange/services/service
  s.mspx
• Microsoft Exchange 2007 Case Study
• http//www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.asp
  x?casestudyid20108
• Google Apps at Arizona State University
• http//www.asu.edu/news/stories/200610/20061010_as
  ugmail.htm

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