1. Finding the Balance: Centralized and Distributed IT Models Case Study: Princeton University IMAP and Exchange Mail Services Dan Oberst CSG 01.08.04

2. IMAP Mail Services  Situation circa 1996: IBM Mainframe Mail (PUCC/RICEMAIL) Unix-based:  Terminal (ucb mail/pine/elm/mush)  POP Service (Eudora) Novell-based Pegasus Mail Departmental and Personal Mail Servers:  Unix - POP/ucb mail  NeXTs, Macs, etc.  Central support service for sendmail configs

3. IMAP  1997 Testing, IMAP/LDAP implementation  1998 July 14 th Production rollout IMAP-enabled the campus Huge data integration & implementation issues Lesson: Avoid Bastille Day!  Ultimate Success 1999 Pegasus, IBM Mail phased out End of sendmail config support Departments encouraged to use central service

4. Move to Central IMAP  Uphill struggle: Email as O 2 (prolonged outages not healthy) Software issues delayed server upgrade  Ultimate success: Features worth it (attachments, lookups) Ongoing communications efforts essential SPAM blacklist, disasters brought in holdouts  Dept. conversions STILL happening Electrical Engineering - 2003 Molecular Biology - ?2004 CS – Never?

5. Central IMAP Success  “No longer interesting” to depts.  Software matures  Economies of scale: Servers  Redundant/failover  Lower support/user costs Software updates: Virus/SPAM filtering Staffing depth Vendor support

6. Central Exchange Service  There go my people. I must follow them, for I am their leader. -- M. Ghandi  In August 2001, 5 departments request that OIT run a centralized Exchange Server  Windows 2000 conversion was being planned  Combined W2K/AD/Exchange Project launched  OIT agreed to fund initial hardware  Funding model to recover staff costs “Value Added Service” @ $7.50/mailbox/month  Ongoing hardware covered through migration

7. Exchange  HUGE success: OIT gained credibility Broader support for W2K/AD conversion  Few domains, separate forests (e.g. CS) Fees seen as reasonable  Users get integrated calendar features  Support costs are higher than IMAP Current usage ~700 mailboxes Hired Exchange admin (staff are happy) New services (e.g. Blackberry @$10/mo.)  Issues – outages; MS Support costs

8. Exchange  WIN-WIN Departments didn’t want to roll their own OIT didn’t want to have to bail them out Funding model was viewed as equitable  Hard to justify with central IT dollars  Depts. covered marginal cost of service  Overall cost to university was less  Depts. perceive improved productivity Central IT viewed as supportive and flexible