Secure and Reliable Messaging for an Academic SettingBert DeSimone Communications Director for Enterprise Information Technology Services

Campus Overview America’s oldest state-chartered

university Founded in 1785 and located in Athens,

Georgia 45,000 students, faculty, and staff relied

on homegrown, campus-wide email known as “Arches”

Customer Challenges Homegrown email solution unreliable Required significant ongoing maintenance

and expensive hardware investments Lacked flexibility to add new messaging

services University needed solution that could

scale to 100,000 users

Arriving at a Solution Committee formed consisting of several

directors of IT to identify issues, alternatives, and make recommendations

Process involved discussions with several consultants, rigorous testing, and input from campus focus group

Evaluated proposals from number of suppliers

Arriving at a Solution Cont. Narrowed search to two solutions Mirapoint unanimous recommendation of

committee “Simply no room in this environment for

legacy email system. Mirapoint was the only choice.”

Process Documentation:http://www.eits.uga.edu/eval

Implementing the Solution Deployed Mirapoint Message Servers to

deliver POP and IMAP services for desktop users and Webmail for mobile users

Implemented Mirapoint web-based group calendar and address book for online collaboration (calendar still under evaluation)

Deployed Mirapoint RazorGate email security solution to secure incoming email traffic and guard against spam, virus, and hacker attacks

Role of the Newman Group Experienced implementation partner Management of migration process (no

trivial process) Negotiation and liaison with Mirapoint Continued role with support, upgrades,

and other issues that arise

Current Configuration/Services Two-tier configuration Front End: 5 Message

Directors/RazorGates on (support IMAP, POP, Virus protection, Spam detection)

Back End: 3 Message Servers (where mail is stored)

Small (1/1) development environment

Mirapoint Success Story Mirapoint delivered a reliable, secure, and

scalable solution for the University's 45,000 email users

Solution is both cost-effective and easy to manage

Provides flexibility to expand and enhance features