Google Apps and the like…

Common Solutions Group Fall 2007 Meeting @MIT

Workshop Team

► Steve Worona, Educause ► Bruce Vincent, Stanford ► Donna E. Tatro, Princeton ► Dennis M Maloney, CU-Boulder ► Jim Jokl, Virginia ► Klara Jelinkova, Duke ► Jim Phelps, UW, Madison (for doing our survey)

Agenda

► 1:30 Introduction - Dennis Maloney & Jim Jokl ► 2:00 Policy issues - Steve Worona ► 2:30 Survey and sage thoughts - Bruce Vincent ► 3:00 Break ► 3:30 Discussion, Klara Jelinkova and Donna Tatro ► 5:30 Adjourn

“Goggle Apps and like” is:

► Primarily for student email ► No-fee email and calendaring ► The way to save/repurpose $$$s ► Up-to-date feature set ► Improved services ► Software as a Service (SaaS) – tbd ► One-way street?

Gartner - May 12, 2006 report

► ► ► “By 2010, the majority of student and alumni mailboxes will be provided by public portal sites on a no-fee, hosted basis (0.7 probability)” PROs     No-fee service Large percentage of students forward to personal email accounts Student email/calendaring feature set needs are limited Ajax-based client with IM, social software, etc CONs      Limited email/calendaring feature set Uptime guarantees Service support Security and Privacy FERPA

Marketplace Players

► Google ► Microsoft ► Mirapoint ► Zimbra, oops, now Yahoo… ► Yahoo ► No institutional email…

Players Motivation*

► ► ► ► ► Targeting email accounts for life Highly desirable demographic Site anchor for selling other services Email viewed as launch point for exposure to social networking apps Application exposure ~ pull-through *Gartner report

Comparison of Google and Microsoft*

Functionality IMAP POP Free/busy calendar lookup Resource calendars Tasks Mailbox size Spam filter Other apps SLA Google No Yes Yes Yes No 2GB Yes SaaS 99.9??

Microsoft No No Yes Yes Yes 5GB Yes Email client, social networking none

Decision Points

► Opportunity and real costs ► Client-driven service model ► IdM ► Security ► Privacy ► Functionality, features, and services ► Promise of SaaS

Interesting note from our IA

► ► ► ► ► ► ► Google.

In particular Google apps that store things online, make them public, and default to public access – I hear this is a problem with Google Presentations.

The price is right for HE, so it will be used. Making sure sensitive info doesn’t get there is a definite problem – user behavior control is the stiffest of challenges.

Managing tools like this, and like “Connect to my PC” or other Web hosted services will be a challenge, and most users will not be able to evaluate the risk – but the price is right, so they will flock to many of these.

Just an add-on to the discussion from the other day. How do you stay ahead of right-priced and undoubtedly useful apps with serious security side effects? Who tests/buys/evaluates/etc.? Seems like a great opportunity for a center/research function somewhere that everyone can chip in on and share results, although I suppose SANS and some of the orgs probably serve part of this function. Timeliness and relevancy to local issues is the problem area with such a service.

Cheer, Your friendly IA IT guy

And Here’s Jim…

The UVa Announcement

► Student email will be migrated to commercial providers next semester ► Two new choices available   Google Apps for Education Microsoft Windows Live @ EDU ► Students will be able to continue to forward their email wherever they want

Messaging at Virginia

► Background: Existing Environment        IMAP infrastructure with WebMail and POP access to the message store Multiple email clients supported IronPort anti-spam very effective 2 GB quotas for students 50 MB maximum message size Oracle calendar licensed for students Small percentage of off-site forwards

Some Reactions at Virginia

► “Rarely is a decision by the University met with near universal praise. The decision to outsource student e-mail accounts to Google and Microsoft might be the exception.” ► “There is some concern among students that services like Gmail and Microsoft Live are less private than WebMail. To an extent, though, the students who worry about Google reading their e mail are the same ones who play Pink Floyd albums backwards and complain about Martians reading their thoughts between reruns of The X Files.”

Some Reactions at Virginia

► “Students exceedingly concerned with keeping their correspondence secret should forgo e-mail altogether and use the old fashioned method of invisible ink and dead drop sites. Everyone else may rest assured that Gmail's privacy policy is no different than that of WebMail or any other popular service provider.”

Some Reactions at Virginia

► “It would be better if the University continued to provide traditional e-mail service for current students itself.”    Concern of potential future changes in policy (e.g., stopping POP and holding your email hostage) Recommends using POP and keeping a copy of your own email locally Suggests students also consider providers other than Google or Microsoft

Key Features & Limitations (beyond applications)

► @third.yourdomain.edu addresses ► White-list control to enable guaranteed delivery of messages to/from students ► Permanent email addresses that do not change when Students transition to Alumni ► Single sign-on integration ► Limitations:  20 MB maximum message size   Migration tools Advertising displayed for Alumni

Provisioning and Mail Routing How It (will) Work

User Main UVa Email Routing System Enterprise LDAP Directory PubCookie New 3 rd Level Alias and Forwarding Management Application Provisioning Trigger Remote Service API

Windows Live @ edu Integration

University directory 1 2

Authenticates to portal HTTP with link to email

3

Click the link

8 Student’s PC with Browser 9 10

Redirection with SLT

11 12 4

Internal Portal ID Windows Live ID

5 6

SOAP call (SSL)

7 University Web-portal server

Redirection with SLT Redirection with ticket for service provider Redirection with ticket Redirection with ticket for service provider SLT

Windows Live ID SOAP Service Windows Live ID Login Service Windows Live Mail Service

Google Apps for Education Integration

Shibboleth Integration

► Google Apps for Education   Their response to us was no for Shibboleth 1.3

Shibboleth 2.0 integration tested by USC ► Windows Live @ edu  Demonstration code of Windows Live integration via ADFS exists ► Work done by University of Missouri and Oxford Computer Group

Some References

► Google Apps for Education   http://www.google.com/a/edu/ http://code.google.com/apis/apps/start.html

► Microsoft Windows Live @ edu   http://get.live.com/edu http://get.live.com/edu/sysreq