Overcoming Challanges As a Team - Migrating to Google Apps

Google Enterprise reached out to us regarding a University that was looking to move to Google Apps from Domino.  We met with our client and gathered the scope of the of the project which included moving approximately 15,000 students and faculty.  It also included some Single Sign-On (SSO) technology that needed to work with existing student systems.  SSO solutions are commonly used at the intranet level, but extending these solutions beyond the intranet and into the cloud has been problematic and has led to the proliferation of non-interoperable proprietary technologies.  Therefore, one of the challenges in creating Single Sign-On system for our client was using their existing student credentials for signing on without having to manage user-names and passwords within Google.

 

Our solution was to synchronize users from active client's directory into Google Apps using a LDAP sync and then implementing Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) to pass credentials.  SAML served as a standard for exchanging authentication and authorization between security domains; that is, between an identity provider, Google, and a service provider, our client. 

 

Using our client's existing web pages, we had to pass the credentials to Google and create the custom code in the background to take a user name and password from our client's website and pass it to Google to allow accreditation to occur.  We worked with their team to implement SAML and developed custom code in order for SAML to work with their existing student portals.

 

Our solution helped our client's end users to be able to access all services provided with the same user-name and password being able to log-in and access Google.  Our team, in collaboration with our client managed to successfully migrate directory services to Google without causing end user confusion.

 

Strategic Services Make us Part of the Team

Our client found us by reading about advantages of Managed Services for IT operations.  It also helped that through word of mouth they heard good things about us.  They reached out to us asking about helping them develop the next-generation technological platform and strategic planning to handle the next phases of growth and prevent business disruption as they scale.

 

Our strategic consultants stepped in and created an IT Steering Committee which analyzed our client's organization as a whole.  We created a Roadmap which itemized what our client had in place and what needed to be improved.  We associated each one of those strategic initiatives with their associated costs to deliver.  We then worked with our client to prioritize them as taking into consideration factors such as dependencies, risks and overall cost.  After reviewing our client's business strategy and assessing their environment, we developed a technology strategy to serve our client's immediate needs.  Our team assisted in building a five year IT budget that took into consideration the items that we had mapped out.  Clearly mapping these initiatives out enabled our team to have visibility over what had been accomplished, our client's budget, and where there was overspending so we could adjust quicly.  We also developed an IT Steering Committee composed of key members of our client's team. Under our leadership, this project management team oversaw the development of our plan that aligned with their strategic objectives.

 

During our initial engagement, our Strategic Services team created a technology strategy for low-maintenance, and cost-effective IT operations.  Using this strategy, we wanted to start by simplifying our clients messaging platform.  We helped them move from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps without a hitch.  Google Apps was immediately embraced by our client's employees and franchisees who were able to collaborate with each other no matter where they were.  Taking the same strategic approach, we also consolidated the technology infrastructure in other areas to reduce costs in much the same way.  Leveraging SaaS lowered our clients maintenance costs by over 80 percent by reducing the hardware footprint and its associated maintenance.  As our client grows, they do not need to make additional capital investments in infrastructure.  Using SaaS as a strategy, allows small and mid-size companies to have access to new technologies without blowing their IT budget.

 

Our ultimate goal for our client was to help them implement an solid infrastructure, to lay the foundation for growth.  We help our clients simplify IT operations so they would focus on what they do best.  As a result of our initial engagement, we have gained our client's confidence and respect in our ability to help them proactively meet their growth objectives using technology.  We have become their trusted advisor and technology leader and are proud to be a part of their team.

Lower Cost for Easy and Accessible IT

One of our clients discovered that the IT systems in all of their 102 stores and 5 distribution centers, including the corporate headquarters, was starting to get outdated.  More particularly, the cost of upgrading the existing email messaging platform was going to exceed the budget.  Our suggestion was to move to Google Apps, which worked with employees’ existing email client software.  This upgrade also eliminated additional hardware investments in servers.  Google Apps includes Spam filtering and email archival, which allowed the company to manage email without investing in a new in-house server.  Typically moving to Google Apps over a similar in house Microsoft solution will cost a third less per employee.  To further help with the budget, we helped the client develop and implement a SaaS strategy to help reduce total IT budget.

We live by the mantra of simplifying IT.  By switching to Google Apps, its an interface that is easily used and understood by our client’s employees.  Training the employees on the new system was next to zero.  Google Apps is also an easy tool for creating team project websites.  When we had that tool up, we saw that our client’s employees started building websites around projects they were working on.  For example, one of our client’s projects  was to have trainers at the stores who would illustrate how to use particular equipment by going through a training with every customer interested in buying the product.  This idea was great, but trainers had to switch to multiple locations during the day and it was almost impossible to coordinate schedules for all of them via email.  Without any help of IT, our client’s employees were able to utilize Google Apps, create a trainer management website, facilitate all of the schedules, calendars, and forms that were needed for this service, and use this website as CRM tool. We gave our client simple, easy and accessible tools that can be used by any user, and not just IT staff.  

Executive Luncheon: CFO's & Technology Best Practices. Netsuite and 2nd Wind Fitness.

On October 29th 2008, Agosto held it's first in a series of executive luncheons. The subject of this event was CFO's and Technology Best Practices.  Tom Kelly of 2nd Wind Exercise Equipment presented NetSuite and how he transformed 2nd Wind's operations through the use of key business applications delivered through SaaS.  Gary Pokorn from NetSuite also joined us to demonstrate and answer questions about the NetSuite platform.

If you missed the presentation, please contact Agosto for more information or watch the video below from the luncheon. Thank you - Agosto.

CFO's & Technology Best Practices from Irfan Khan on Vimeo.

Here is the slide presentation that Tom Kelly ran through. It's hard to see the Tom's slides in the video so click along using the presentation below.

Agosto / 2nd Wind Fitness implement Netsuite

View more documents from durranii.

The next Executive Luncheon in our series will have a featured speaker from Google. Tom Mills, Head of Midmarket Sales will be presenting Google and the Enterprise: How is Google changing the way businesses use email, collaboration, and office applications?. There is limited availability for this event so sign up soon. Oh and yes lunch is included, come for the lunch stay for the education.

Register here for this event: Register

More detail about this event: Executive Luncheon - Google and the Enterprise

Google Video - Enterprise Video Sharing

Now that Google has launched Google Video, an enterprise YouTube, as part of Google Apps, I can talk about the pilot that we've been running at 2nd Wind Exercise.  2nd Wind has 325 employees and over 100 locations across 9 states.  As one might imagine, training can be very difficult and expensive.  We participated in a pilot with Google Video to leverage a YouTube-like private video sharing platform for sharing videos across the enterprise.  We're publishing training videos, important corporate announcements, newly placed TV commercials and even some humorous content.  Since the interface is built off YouTube.com, most users already know how to use the tool.  Here's the video we shot for Google: Aric Bandy