Why CSU is Moving to Exchange
History
Over the past seven years, two large user bases have emerged on campus in the area of electronic calendaring, specifically those using Oracle Calendar (formerly known as Corporate Time) and Exchange. Because of poor interoperability between these products, coordinating calendars of users of the different systems has been difficult, inefficient and time-consuming. Support of multiple calendaring systems has become increasingly complex with respect to server and applications support staff. The Electronic Calendaring committee considered three possible solutions to take advantage of existing user bases on campus: Oracle's calendar solution, Microsoft's Exchange, and our own RamPoint Portal. Important factors considered in the analysis included software robustness, usability for end-users, integration into the current IT environment, directions of peer institutions, and cost.
Motivations
The Information Technology Executive Committee's Advisory Council (IAC) was tasked with making recommendations for reducing the complexity of electronic calendaring on campus. During its assessment, the committee found that calendar solutions alone are not readily available; they are instead integrated into collaboration suites that include additional functionality such as e-mail and chat capabilities. In fact, the three calendaring solutions in use on campus (Oracle, Microsoft's Exchange, Rampoint portal) are all (or soon will be) integrated into collaboration suites.
Timelines
- ITEC voted unanimously in January of 2006 to endorse a plan that identifies Microsoft Exchange as the campus standard for electronic collaboration.
- In the spring of 2006, an implementation committee was formed to continue efforts to design the hardware architecture and develop an implementation plan which was presented to and endorsed by IAC in the summer of 2006.
- ACNS spent most of the summer and early fall of 2006 procuring hardware and software and building the Exchange system with the help of Microsoft in a Microsoft Rapid Deployment engagement which allowed CSU to move directly to the latest version of the product, Exchange 2007. General campus availability of the Central Exchange system began in October, 2006.
