University Business - October 2011 - (Page 34)

Storage Costs and Maintenance Cloud storage costs are part of what comes gratis. Storage costs for an onsite mail solution add up when you include powerful server hardware and many disks. “And if you are using a licensed mail server such as Exchange Server, there is a significant cost there as well,” says Brown. When Hamilton College officials break down those costs annually, its previous SunOne solution (later acquired by Oracle and renamed Oracle Communications Suite) cost approximately $40,000 per year, not to mention half of one full-time employee for support, according to David Smallen, vice president of IT at Hamilton. Like storage, maintenance is mostly the responsibility of the cloud provider. Abilene Christian has not experienced any maintenance-related issues such as unreasonable amounts of down time, says Roberts, adding that he never needs to worry about Gmail’s down time. Saint Leo University had a similar experience with its Microsoft solution. Windows Live has no maintenance costs except for staff time spent dealing with password and initial account setup issues. These issues can come from Windows Live, the Colleague system, or both. What it boils down to is that the student may not have registered yet or someone might have mistyped the student’s name into Colleague creating the account improperly, Lloyd explains. But, these issues take less time than if the school was maintaining the hardware and anti-spam and anti-virus software, such as with MS Exchange. “And login/account issues come up no matter what email system we use,” says Lloyd. People’s fears around moving email to the cloud are like the fears of old world sailors around traveling to the edge of the world. Concerns Over Cloud Migration Most schools don’t seem to have many cloud email woes. At Abilene Christian University, the primary concern was to protect email. “One way to do that is to control everything yourself,” says Roberts, “but those concerns are more emotional than rational. It is like feeling that your money will be safer in your mattress than in the bank. The bank is really better at keeping your money safe than you are. And Google is better at email than we are.” Administrators at other schools concur. “We have seen far fewer spam and phishing emails reach our users since switching to Gmail,” says John Duff, chief information officer of Eckerd College (Fla.). “People have been phished and given out their passwords to phishers,” says Lloyd, “but this happens more in MS Exchange than with Windows Live.” Lloyd’s concerns have been mostly around confidentiality issues. “But the policies of Microsoft and Google follow anything that would be necessary for confidentiality. And the student emails don’t carry student grades and things that are confidential,” Lloyd says. Still, there are precautions to consider before entering into a contract with a cloud provider. “Vet the cloud vendor thoroughly,” advises Rennie Muzii, a managing director in Marsh’s FINPRO practice. Technology companies try to have as little liability as possible when entering into contracts. Generally, the law will say that the cloud provider has to be as responsible as the university because it is an extension of the school’s business, Muzii assures. Also confirm the provider’s ability to live up to service level agreements (SLAs) and that insurance would cover errors and omissions, in case there are issues. Even that may not be enough, Muzii says. “A large technology company may have limited liability. The school should get an exception to that for breaches to confidential information so that they are covered.” If someone has violated email privacy, particularly faculty and staff email privacy where confidential information is concerned, there are state and federal laws guiding how the school responds. “If the email is not sitting in the school’s system, the institution is reliant on the cloud provider to enable eDiscovery,” says Jim Leonard, a senior executive in Marsh’s FINPRO practice. So be aware of a cloud provider’s provisions for eDiscovery before you commit. Insist on a contractual right to the servers that store institutional data. Cloud versus Traditional Email: Institutional Experiences* Compared Institution A A B C B&C Email Product MS Exchange (formerly using) Windows Live (using now) Webmail (formerly using) SunOne (formerly using) Gmail (using now) Price $15/person Free $120,000/year Unknown Free Deployment Time 6 months 6 months Unknown Unknown 6 months Storage Costs Included in price Free Included in price $40,000/year Free Maintenance More staff hours Fewer staff hours More staff hours More staff hours Fewer staff hours * Individual institutions’ experiences vary widely based on a number of factors, such as student population, whether faculty and staff were also converted, and what the costs of planning and any integration and migration were. Overall, most schools would find cloud email significantly more affordable. 34 | October 2011 universitybusiness.com http://www.universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - October 2011

University Business - October 2011
Contents
Editor's Note
College Index
Ad Index
Behind the News
Sense of Place
Viewpoint
Human Resources
Cloud Email
Tuition Setting
Campus CFO
Independent Outlook
End Note

University Business - October 2011