4-page Case Study - Posted 10/28/2006

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Emory University

Emory University Increases Efficiency, Lowers Costs with Unified Messaging Solution

Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Emory University educates more than 11,300 students in nine major academic divisions plus graduate and professional schools and centers for advanced study. The university’s multiple enterprise messaging systems, including Microsoft® Exchange Server 2003, support nearly 26,000 mail¬boxes. In an ongoing effort to keep up with the latest communi¬cation and collaboration technologies and to move toward a standardized messaging environment, Emory deployed a beta version of Exchange Server 2007 Enterprise Edition. New unified-messaging, calendaring, and mobility features will help increase users’ satisfaction and productivity. The university is also simplifying IT management and improving system performance, security, and compliance—all while cutting storage and other back-end costs in half and lowering the total cost of ownership.

Situation

Founded in 1836 and located in Atlanta, Georgia, Emory University has 11,300 students and 2,500 faculty members, who represent all regions of the United States and more than 100 countries. It is home to nine major academic divisions, numerous centers for advanced study, and a variety of pres¬tigious affiliated institutions. In addition to Emory College, the university encompasses a graduate school of arts and sciences; pro¬fessional schools of medicine, theology, law, nursing, public health, and business; and Oxford College, a two-year undergraduate division located on the original campus in Oxford, Georgia.

Emory currently has multiple enterprise messaging solutions that support nearly 26,000 faculty, staff, and students. Currently, only about 1,200 administrative staff use the e-mail, individual and group calendaring, and scheduling functions provided by the Microsoft® Exchange Server 2003 communi¬cation and collaboration server. The Active Directory® service, a component of the Windows Server® 2003 operating system, provides a central location for managing and securing those employees’ accounts, com¬puters, and applications. Those 1,200 employees access their Exchange Server 2003 information using a variety of pro¬grams, such as the Microsoft Office Outlook® 2003 messaging and collaboration client. And Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access makes it possible for those users to access their e-mail, schedules, and other information through just a Web browser and an Internet connection. Emory also uses Internet Information Services version 6.0 to support a scalable Web application infrastructure.

To help its users communicate and collabo¬rate effectively, the university’s IT department keeps up with new messaging products and technologies, and it continually expands and enhances the university’s messaging systems. For example, over the next several months, Emory plans to migrate about 3,000 users’ mailboxes to Exchange Server and then another 4,000 to 5,000 mailboxes in the following year. The purpose of the migration is to give users up-to-date and versatile communication tools, an endeavor that requires using the latest software.

Solution

In May 2006, Emory was invited to deploy a beta version of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Enterprise Edition. “We were very interested in Exchange

AutoDiscover will help reduce help-desk calls that are related to Office Outlook configuration by 25 to 50 percent. It offers the potential to make life easier for both users and IT technicians.  John Ellis Director of Client Technology Services Emory University

In July 2006, after two months of research and planning, the university began setting up an Exchange Server 2007 pilot environment. For this phase, Emory worked with consul¬tants from Microsoft Services and from a third-party IT partner. “The partner brought in its ‘Exchange Rangers’ to oversee the installation of Exchange Server 2007, which made the process much easier,” says Ellis. “Microsoft Services also helped us prepare for installation by examining our Active Directory structure and performing system health checks. That was very beneficial.”

Emory set up a load-balanced configuration of two computers for the Client Access and Hub Transport server roles, two computers for the Mailbox server role, and one computer for the Unified Messaging server role. These back-end servers run the Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition operating system. Additional servers in the initial deployment run Windows Server 2003 Standard x64 Edition. Initial obstacles during setup—such as Outlook Web Access not working with Outlook Anywhere (RPC over HTTPS), and correctly setting up e-mail routing—were overcome in just a few days.

“From the beginning, we set up the pilot environment as if it were the foundation of a production-ready system,” says Ellis. And in September, that preparation paid off when Emory transitioned the environment to include 200 employee mailboxes. Users access their mailboxes through Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 and Outlook Web Access, using Outlook Anywhere. Many Emory employees also use mobile devices such as Palm Treo, Moto Q, and a variety of other Windows Mobile® powered smartphones and Pocket PCs.

In October, Emory worked with a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Enabling Technologies, a global IT consulting practice specializing in speech-enabled applications, as well as e mail, voice-mail, fax, instant-messaging, and messaging-compliance applications. Together, Emory and Enabling Technologies began integrating the unified-messaging server with the university’s Nortel SL 100 and Avaya S8700 private branch exchange (PBX) phone systems.

In each of three independent sites, Enabling Technologies installed two Intel PBX-IP Media Gateways (PIMGs). In two of these sites, the PIMGs were connected to Avaya Definity PBX systems through T1/ISDN/QSIG links, while at the third site, 16 analog channels and serial SMDI links were used to connect the PIMGs to a Nortel SL 100 PBX.

“Configuring the unified-messaging system was pretty simple,” says James Reed, Lead Microsoft Exchange Server Administrator at Emory University. “We benefited from expert help from both Microsoft and Enabling Technologies professionals, who made the process easy for us.”

“Even though the voice mail needs of Emory went well beyond a simple single-gateway, single-site configuration, the installation was still relatively painless,” adds Vaylor Trucks, Installation Engineer at Enabling Tech¬nologies. “Once the hardware was installed and configured, setting up the software was straightforward. In just one day, two of the three sites had working test mailboxes, and in just one week, three dial plans, three auto attendants, and several test mailboxes were all configured and working properly.”

Benefits

With Exchange Server 2007, Emory University is simplifying the management of its IT systems and gaining a very reliable messaging and collaboration infrastructure. New and improved calendaring, unified-messaging, and mobility features promote anytime, anywhere communications that will improve user satisfaction and productivity. The new solution also uses resources more efficiently, which will contribute to a lower total cost of ownership (TCO), and it supports higher performance, tighter security, efficient routing and filtering of messages, and flexible compliance policies.

Simpler IT Management

Web browser access, phone access, voice mail in the inbox—all of these features are important for our users, who have diverse jobs and diverse needs and need to be able to work from anywhere.  James Reed Lead Microsoft Exchange Server Administrator Emory University

One such time-saving feature is AutoDiscover. Exchange Server 2007 automatically and dynamically completes all inputs required for a logged-on user to initiate a connection. If connecting through Outlook Anywhere, the user is required to enter only an e-mail address and password, not the name of the server containing the user’s mailbox. If a mailbox is later moved, AutoDiscover elimi¬nates the need for users to update their mailbox settings with the new location. “AutoDiscover will help reduce help-desk calls that are related to Office Outlook configura¬tion by 25 to 50 percent,” says Ellis. “It offers the potential to make life easier for both users and IT technicians.”

Another helpful feature is the Exchange Best Practices Analyzer (BPA), which is now included in Exchange Server 2007 and runs automatically as part of setup. BPA examines an Exchange Server deployment and determines whether the configuration is set according to Microsoft best practices. “The Exchange Best Practices Analyzer is very, very useful,” says Reed. “We’ve been using it with both Exchange Server 2003 and Exchange Server 2007. It’s ideal not only for troubleshooting problems, but also for identifying configuration changes that will avoid problems.”

Also, during the transition from Exchange Server 2003 to Exchange Server 2007, IT managers don’t have to worry about getting the two systems to communicate with each other—the systems are designed to coexist. “Compatibility with the previous version was actually one of the requirements that had to be met before we would have considered adopting Exchange Server 2007,” says Ellis. “We would not have been willing to maintain an entirely separate production environment.”

More Reliable Operation

The latest version of Exchange Server includes features that enhance reliability, even during emergencies. “We want to move toward a business-continuity model,” says Ellis. “That is, in case of disaster, we want to have business continue as normal. As part of this goal, we’re planning to install Exchange Server at a remote site and use continuous local and clustered replication to provide high availability.”

Local continuous replication improves system reliability because data is continuously replicated across multiple disks on a single server. This practice establishes an auto¬matically updated second copy of the production database on the local server. In the event of a disk failure or data corruption, it’s easy to switch to the copy. Cluster con¬tinuous replication similarly copies data from one physical server to another in a clustered environment, even if the servers are in sepa¬rate geographical locations. However, even without these disaster-recovery preparations, Emory is already seeing uptime of more than 99 percent in its deployment of Exchange Server 2007.

Greater Employee Satisfaction and Productivity

The new messaging solution will help users communicate anytime, anywhere, on a variety of devices—and do so more effectively—resulting in higher satisfaction and produc¬tivity. For example, with unified messaging, users can listen to voice mail and read fax messages within their Exchange Server inboxes. With Outlook Voice Access, they can access their Exchange Server mailboxes using a standard telephone. Specifically, through touch-tone or speech-enabled menus, users can hear and modify calendar appointments and listen to e-mail messages that are translated from text into speech, in addition to listening to voice mail and asking the system to dial entries listed in personal or organizational directories.

”Unified messaging provides opportunities to help our faculty and staff become more mobile and work more flexibly,” says Reed. “Employees are no longer bound to just a phone or e-mail to conduct their projects. They have the freedom to work where and when they want.”

To make these benefits available to mobile users, Emory is taking advantage of en¬hanced mobility features in Exchange Server 2007. “Before, we supported mobility mostly for higher-level university administrators,” adds Reed. “Now, we’re getting more faculty members, support staff, and doctors who travel and who need more flexibility in their work-related communications. Web browser access, phone access, voice mail in the inbox—all of these features are important for our users, who have diverse jobs and diverse needs and need to be able to work from anywhere.”

Emory believes that improvements in Office Outlook 2007 will also help users be more satisfied and productive in their work. “The Out of Office feature is now much more flexible,” says Ellis. “Search functions are faster, and calendaring functions are much richer. Over time, if we get everyone onto a common e-mail and calendaring system based on Exchange Server, we expect to see considerable improvements in productivity.”

Higher System Performance, Lower Costs

With Exchange Server 2007, Emory is experi¬encing high reliability, solid performance, and an efficient use of resources. The university expects these benefits to result in significant long-term savings that will reduce TCO.

For example, as a native 64-bit application, Exchange Server 2007 can access more memory, ensuring high performance and reliability as mailbox sizes and the number of user accounts grow. And reduced input/output requirements, made possible by larger memory caches, mean that Exchange Server 2007 makes better use of existing storage systems and gives administrators the option of using low-cost storage solutions. “We expect to get more return on our money because we can add many more users to our existing servers,” says Reed. “Plus, Exchange Server 2007 handles disk read and write operations much more efficiently, resulting in better use of disk storage space and faster database access.”

“With Exchange Server 2007, we think we will double the number of users per server,” adds Ellis. “I’m expecting to cut our storage and other back-end costs in half.”

More Efficient Routing, Filtering, and Compliance

Because Emory University is affiliated with medical institutions, it must comply with government regulations for privacy and security, such as those specified by the Health Insurance Portability and Accounta¬bility Act (HIPAA). Exchange Server 2007 simplifies regulatory compliance in ways that support the different needs of employees, managers, and messaging administrators. “We are currently configuring Exchange Server to support our HIPAA requirements,” says Ellis. “With the 2007 version, it’s going to be a lot easier. Built-in encryption is an example of a feature that can save us a lot of time and effort as we implement compliance and security policies. Other examples are Transport Rules, Messaging Records Management, Archive Integration, and Multi-Mailbox Search.”

For instance, Emory is in the process of deploying an Edge Transport server role, which accepts messages that come into Exchange Server from the Internet and provides important security, routing, and filtering functions. (This server role also provides antispam and antivirus support that Emory plans to implement using other means.) Administrators define Edge Transport rules that control the flow of messages and that help protect network resources and data by applying actions to messages that meet specified conditions.

“The Edge Transport server will support the many back-end servers and the many routing and send/receive connectors between our Exchange Server 2003 and Exchange Server 2007 environments,” says Reed. “Along with the Hub Transport role, this server role will give us flexibility in how we route our mail internally while still providing strong support for security.”

Reed adds, “The options we will have with the new compliance and security features in Exchange Server 2007 will provide us new ways to gather evidentiary support for the university’s attorneys. In the near future, these features will contribute substantially to the university’s compliance requirements and will likely get used a lot.”

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 Enabling Technologies products and services, call (800) 923-4310 or visit the Web site at:
www.enablingtechcorp.com

For more information about Emory University products and services, call (404) 727-6123 or visit the Web site at:
www.emory.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