Email, Calendars, and Contacts on the Move
Beginning later this fall, the Georgia Tech community will be able to migrate its Zimbra email, calendar, and contacts services to a new mobile-ready Outlook-based solution as part of the Microsoft Office 365 implementation. This enterprise-class service will deliver better integration with Microsoft Office products, provide larger email storage capacity, offer strong data management, and enable secure sharing capabilities.
This service will be delivered through a secure hybrid solution consisting of the cloud-based Microsoft Office 365 and a locally hosted Microsoft Exchange server. Tech’s current Zimbra service will continue to be available to departments as well but will no longer receive service upgrades.
According to Jim O’Connor, Georgia Tech’s chief information officer and vice president of Information Technology, “We have simply outgrown the current Zimbra offering. This new service is part of a larger effort to integrate all of our voice, data, and video services into a single unified communications service offering, and it supports the continuously evolving needs of our students, faculty, and staff. Additionally, it truly aligns with the Institute’s 25-year Strategic Plan and the IT Master Plan.”
The plan to provide a more robust and collaborative email service was approved by the Strategic Technology Investment Committee (www.epmo.gatech.edu/stic), which consists of faculty and administrators from across campus. The committee’s goal is to champion technology that supports one of Georgia Tech’s strategic goals: the relentless pursuit of institutional effectiveness. In preparation for the move to the new email service, committee members have been presenting to many groups on campus, including the Faculty Senate Executive Board, to get feedback to be incorporated into this service migration.
Apart from the migration, a new service-level email data protection policy has been developed to govern the use of the email, calendar, and contacts features within the new solution. This policy, which is currently open for campuswide comment, will ensure that all Georgia Tech data is protected throughout the transition. It will also guide use going forward. Representatives from the implementation project team, led by the Office of Information Technology (OIT), are meeting with interested campus departments to identify a transition window and strategy to best address departmental needs. A number of departments have already offered suggestions for the implementation, including enabling the ability to store mail at Georgia Tech and forward to other services as well.
To learn more, talk with your OIT representative or visit emailtransition.gatech.edu.