1. Jeff McKinney Exchange to Mirapoint Migration January 11, 2006 Securing Email: Exchange to Mirapoint Jeff McKinney University of Maryland Dept of Electrical & Computer Eng.

2. Jeff McKinney Exchange to Mirapoint Migration January 11, 2006 Email at UMD  Central IT 50,000+ users All students & many faculty/staff users  Individual departments/colleges ISR, ECE – hundreds of users Many others  Historically many email systems  Moving toward single central system

3. Jeff McKinney Exchange to Mirapoint Migration January 11, 2006 ECE/ISR Environment – Previous  Email Infrastructure Exchange 2000 Server Active Directory on Server 2000 Outlook XP/2000  Users 500+ email users Most underutilizing Exchange features  Email  Basic calendaring Many large mailboxes – problem for central IT  Limited local IT Resources 3 FTEs including me Many responsibilities beyond email

4. Jeff McKinney Exchange to Mirapoint Migration January 11, 2006 General Issues  Unstable environment Weekly problems - misconfigurations  Difficult & time consuming to troubleshoot  Impacting email and calendaring  University environment – email client choice  Physical hardware old  Running out of storage  Cost of Exchange

5. Jeff McKinney Exchange to Mirapoint Migration January 11, 2006 Security Issues  Patch Tuesday testing requirements Delay patching while testing Significant changes each month  Many security related configurations General purpose OS & feature heavy Exchange Email being rejected due to RBL listing Cumbersome Anti-Spam & Anti-Virus  Integration / Administration issues Hacking Issues  Worms, trojans, etc.  Rebuild or restore on multiple occasions  Time consuming and disruptive to users

6. Jeff McKinney Exchange to Mirapoint Migration January 11, 2006 Options  Invest further in Exchange Upgrade hardware Add storage Upgrade software Improve test environment Improve configuration & audit regularly  Alternative solutions Simplify IT & reduce costs Most users don’t need all Exchange functionality Need primarily only basic calendar & email Must work with Outlook Need improved Anti-spam & Anti-virus

7. Jeff McKinney Exchange to Mirapoint Migration January 11, 2006 Mirapoint  Experience with other campus units  Rich user experience & branding  Secure & Simple Default configuration secure Very little to configure (or misconfigure)  Options are available but few changes required Checkboxes to force SSL No shell access, only mail services running Smoothly integrated & powerful anti-spam & anti-virus  Reliable  Relatively few critical patches

8. Jeff McKinney Exchange to Mirapoint Migration January 11, 2006 Simple Configuration Example

9. Jeff McKinney Exchange to Mirapoint Migration January 11, 2006 Migration  November 2004  Used Mirapoint ProServ for migration  Flash cut after test migrations  Full reconciliation post-migration  No data lost

10. Jeff McKinney Exchange to Mirapoint Migration January 11, 2006 Outlook & Client Support  Implemented standards-based approach (IMAP, POP, XML)  No email related issues & minor client config issues re: calendar  Retained group calendar functionality  Mirapoint proven as viable alternative to MS Exchange for enterprise-class users

11. Jeff McKinney Exchange to Mirapoint Migration January 11, 2006 Results  Pre-Mirapoint Server related email issues weekly Critical patches monthly, complex testing IT support 30%+ of an FTE  Post Mirapoint – Nov 2004 – Nov 2005 No server related email issues – it just works Critical patches quarterly/semi-annually Simple patch testing – appliance IT support < 5% of an FTE Calendaring is improving  Next Steps Coordinate with central IT Move to main campus Mirapoint setup?

12. Jeff McKinney Exchange to Mirapoint Migration January 11, 2006 Questions??

13. Jeff McKinney Exchange to Mirapoint Migration January 11, 2006 Copyright Jeff McKinney, 2006.  This work is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the author.