4-page Case Study - Posted 10/28/2006
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Los Angeles County Cuts Messaging Costs; Employees Stay in Touch in Real Time
Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) provides various programs and services to more than 80 school districts and educational agencies. For four years, employees used Microsoft® Exchange 2000 Server with Microsoft Outlook® 2000 and Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 messaging and collaboration clients to manage their calendars and share e-mail messages. LACOE recently worked with Dell IT Infrastructure Services to deploy beta versions of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, and Windows Mobile® powered smartphones. The results have been positive for both employees and IT staff. Mobile users are thrilled that they can now send and receive mail in real time, and remote users are impressed with the enhanced features of Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access and Outlook Anywhere. For the IT staff, Exchange Server 2007 is easier to manage and helps them enforce compliance guidelines.
Situation
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I’m looking forward to using continuous cluster replication because it provides an affordable disaster-recovery solution and saves us the cost of purchasing a third-party solution.  |
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Robert Dotson
Senior Network Engineer
LACOE |
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Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) is one of the largest regional education agencies in the United States. LACOE provides a range of business, financial, and educational services to 81 school districts, 13 community college districts, and 10 educational agencies throughout Los Angeles County. Dedicated to eliminating educational barriers, the mission of LACOE is to provide services and programs that help students meet or exceed state and national academic standards.
Since September 2002, LACOE has used Microsoft® Exchange 2000 Server Enterprise Edition as its messaging solution. Exchange 2000 Server runs on two server computers that are set up as an active/passive cluster. The operating system is Microsoft Windows Server® 2000 Enterprise Edition. More than 3,000 employees use Microsoft Outlook® 2000, Microsoft Office Outlook 2003, or other messaging and collaboration clients to send and receive e-mail messages, manage their calendars, schedule meetings, and share files.
Increasingly, more LACOE employees work remotely and depend on mobile devices, such as smart phones and Pocket PCs, to stay in touch. “We were looking for a platform that would provide some built-in control and support of these mobile devices and also support users at remote sites,” says Robert Dotson, Senior Network Engineer in the Network Engineering and Applications group at LACOE. In addition, LACOE wanted a solution that made it easier to comply with regulatory guidelines and supported archiving of e-mail messages.
Solution
LACOE was satisfied with Exchange 2000 Server and never considered switching to another solution. The Network Engineering group planned to migrate to a newer version of Exchange Server when funding permitted. Dell IT Infrastructure Services, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, had worked with the Network Engineering group at LACOE in the past. Dell helped make the arrangements with Microsoft for LACOE to deploy a beta version of Exchange Server 2007.
To prepare for deploying the beta software, Network Engineering set up a test lab using a simple server configuration. “We consolidated all of the server roles—Mailbox, Client Access, Hub Transport, and others—on a single Dell™ PowerEdge™ 2850 server computer running Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition,” says Dotson. The group also deployed the beta version of Microsoft Forefront™ Security for Exchange Server, a new product that protects the e-mail infrastructure from spam, viruses, and worms. “We installed and began testing the beta version of Exchange Server 2007 in July 2006. Currently it is deployed in production to about 120 users,” says Dotson.
As part of the deployment, some mobile users are testing Treo 700w Smartphones that run the Windows Mobile® 5.0 with Messaging and Security Feature Pack (MSFP). “Some of our users are testing Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access, and a couple of users are testing Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 on their PCs.”
Benefits
The Network Engineering and Applications group at LACOE is impressed with the results it has achieved using Exchange Server 2007 and the new Outlook features. “Transitioning from Exchange 2000 Server to Exchange Server 2007 has been seamless,” says Dotson. “Users in the pilot program have been very pleased with it. When we fully deploy the solution, I think it is going to be extremely well received.”
Because Exchange Server 2007 offers so many new features for enhanced communication, easier management, and cost savings that LACOE will use, the group anticipates both short- and long-term benefits. “The best part is that we shouldn’t need to upgrade anything as we begin to move toward implementing new features,” says Dotson.
Enhanced Communication and Collaboration for Users
The support that Exchange Server 2007 offers for mobile devices was a deciding factor for LACOE. Dotson is pleased that Treo users are now able to take full
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All the compliance features of Exchange Server 2007—monitoring message content, journaling, and sending copies of messages to managed folders—have worked well. |
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Robert Dotson
Senior Network Engineer
LACOE |
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advantage of the devices’ latest features. With Direct Push Technology enabled, users no longer have to worry about synchronizing their mobile devices with Outlook. Users receive new and updated e-mail, calendar, contacts, and tasks as soon as they arrive on the server. “We have a technician who does a great deal of traveling, and he loves the fact that he doesn’t have to print his calendar anymore; it’s up to date on his mobile device at all times,” says Dotson.
Exchange Server 2007 also offers enhanced support for employees who travel or work in remote locations. “One of the main reasons we wanted to use Exchange Server 2007 is for the benefits that Outlook Web Access and Outlook Anywhere provide,” says Dotson. “The people who are using Outlook Web Access and Exchange 2007 love it.” But Dotson says that some users still prefer to use a full Outlook client. “For users who want the full functionality of Outlook away from the office, Outlook Anywhere is great.”
Easier Regulatory Compliance
When asked if Exchange Server 2007 will help LACOE with regulatory compliance and retention policies, Dotson answers “Absolutely. That was a primary reason for us wanting to move forward with Exchange Server 2007. We need to make sure we have solutions in place that ensure compliance.”
Exchange Server 2007 includes new features that enable administrators to establish and enforce regulatory policies on incoming and outgoing e-mail, voice mail, and fax messages. Administrators can dictate rules for journaling messages based on sender, recipient, or message content. Using managed e-mail folders, administrators can set a policy for retaining, deleting, or journaling.
Even with limited testing, Dotson is impressed with what he has seen. “All the compliance features of Exchange Server 2007—monitoring message content, journaling, and sending copies of messages to managed folders—have worked well.”
More importantly, these new features help LACOE accomplish its goal of finding an integrated solution for archiving messages. Dotson foresees using these new journaling features to archive messages, either to an Exchange Server mailbox or a Microsoft Windows® SharePoint® Services Web site.
Improved Management Capabilities
Dotson is enthusiastic about Exchange Server 2007 making his job easier. “So far, one of the best features is the Exchange Management Shell,” says Dotson. This new feature, which integrates with Active Directory® service, part of the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 operating system, provides a command line interface for system administrators to automate or batch routine tasks. “Once you learn the syntax, you can do practically any task using a script,” says Dotson. He put the scripting process to the test when he migrated users from the Exchange 2000 Server environment to Exchange Server 2007. “Using a script, we were able to filter out the users that were part of the pilot program. Then we scheduled the script to run at an off time. The best part was that we didn’t have to be there to see that the migration actually happened,” says Dotson. “It was wonderful. We migrated 120 users in a matter of hours—much faster than it would have taken before.”
Cost Savings
Dotson believes that several new features of Exchange Server 2007 are helping to lower costs for LACOE. First, support for 64-bit architecture will result in better utilization of resources. Second, Dotson predicts that the continuous replication feature in Exchange Server 2007 will help LACOE reduce costs. In a clustered environment, continuous replication copies the server configuration and data from the active to the passive server node. This provides a simple and affordable solution for disaster recovery. In the event of a disk failure, failover to the passive node is automatic. “I’m looking forward to using continuous cluster replication because it provides an affordable disaster-recovery solution and saves us the cost of purchasing a third-party solution,” says Dotson.
Improved Performance and Security
Having recently upgraded its hardware, LACOE anticipates that Exchange Server 2007 will yield better system performance. “With the 64-bit architecture, I expect to see better utilization of memory, and an even more reliable system,” says Dotson. “And from what I have seen so far, the load on the CPU from Exchange Server 2007 has been quite low.”
Dotson says that in today’s world, security is a priority for every IT environment. He likes the added security measures that Exchange Server 2007 provides. The group is considering implementing an Edge Transport server in the future and looks forward to using the full range of security measures that Forefront Security for Exchange Server provides. And with so many employees using mobile devices, Dotson believes the remote device wipe capabilities offered in Exchange Server 2007 will help the group keep tight control of these devices.
For More Information
For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com
For more information about Dell IT Infrastructure Services products and services, call (512) 728-3500 or visit the Web site at:
www.dell.com/services
For more information about Los Angeles County Office of Education products and services, call (562) 922-6111 or visit the Web site at:
www.lacoe.edu
Microsoft Server Product Portfolio
For more information about the Microsoft server product portfolio, go to:
www.microsoft.com/servers/default.mspx
For more information about Microsoft Exchange Server, go to:
www.microsoft.com/exchange
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published October 2006
