College to switch to Google Applications 'as soon as possible'
By March 31, all Macalester students, faculty and staff should have access to Google Apps e-mail accounts
By: Amy Ledig, Managing Editor
Issue date: 3/14/08 Section: News
The switch from Oracle Collaboration Suite to Google Applications for Education has been accelerated from occurring within the calendar year to happening within the next few days, Associate Vice President of ITS Jerry Sanders said Wednesday. ITS plans to have everyone signed up and using Google Apps by March 31.
"Our tentative 'as soon as possible' means we intend to put on the web the ability to register yourself with Google Apps within the next few days," he said.
Vice President of Administration and Finance David Wheaton said that the college sped up the switchover process "because we don't think Oracle's stable enough. We don't want to live like this anymore."
"We made the decision to [switch to Google Apps] in February, before all this came down. This is not the sudden response to a crisis," he said.
The switchover has already started on some parts on campus - all ITS staff who had not already begun using the program during the Email Workgroup's search and evaluation process were moved over on Tuesday.
"Switching over means send and receive," stressed David Sisk, associate director of ITS, about the coming stage.
The move to Google Apps will be a three-part process, the first being getting all students, faculty and staff registered and using their new Google Apps emails. The second phase will be to switch over the mail OCS users have accumulated in their inboxes as well as address book information. This will occur "as soon as possible after phase one," said Kelly Bourke, telecommunications manager. The third phase includes the implementation of the calendaring feature.
"I think it's going to be a little frustrating because it's not going to be there all at once," Alumni Relations Assistant Janice Dickinson said.
E-mail addresses will remain the same, despite the program used to access e-mail changing.
When the power went out on campus Sunday, March 3, the server was brought down in a way it could not handle and operating system files were severely damaged. ITS has been working with Oracle technicians to try to remedy the problem, but there have been significant windows when OCS is unavailable.
"Our tentative 'as soon as possible' means we intend to put on the web the ability to register yourself with Google Apps within the next few days," he said.
Vice President of Administration and Finance David Wheaton said that the college sped up the switchover process "because we don't think Oracle's stable enough. We don't want to live like this anymore."
"We made the decision to [switch to Google Apps] in February, before all this came down. This is not the sudden response to a crisis," he said.
The switchover has already started on some parts on campus - all ITS staff who had not already begun using the program during the Email Workgroup's search and evaluation process were moved over on Tuesday.
"Switching over means send and receive," stressed David Sisk, associate director of ITS, about the coming stage.
The move to Google Apps will be a three-part process, the first being getting all students, faculty and staff registered and using their new Google Apps emails. The second phase will be to switch over the mail OCS users have accumulated in their inboxes as well as address book information. This will occur "as soon as possible after phase one," said Kelly Bourke, telecommunications manager. The third phase includes the implementation of the calendaring feature.
"I think it's going to be a little frustrating because it's not going to be there all at once," Alumni Relations Assistant Janice Dickinson said.
E-mail addresses will remain the same, despite the program used to access e-mail changing.
When the power went out on campus Sunday, March 3, the server was brought down in a way it could not handle and operating system files were severely damaged. ITS has been working with Oracle technicians to try to remedy the problem, but there have been significant windows when OCS is unavailable.
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Laura Kling
posted 3/26/08 @ 3:03 PM CST
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080324.wrgoogle24/BNStory/Technology/home
U.S.-based Google spotlighted the university as one of the first to adopt its software model of the future, and today Mr. (Continued…)
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