Microsoft Exchange Server 2010Customer Solution Case Study

State Government Streamlines IT, Reduces Costs with Communications Solution

OverviewCountry or Region: United StatesIndustry: Government—Regional and state

Customer ProfileWith its capital in Helena, Montana is the fourth largest state in the United States by area, with its nearly 1 million residents concentrated in cities that are often separated by large distances.

Business SituationThe state wanted to provide employees with the most up-to-date messaging system, reduce email storage costs, and better support the communications of its increasingly mobile workforce.

SolutionThe state upgraded to Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 as the foundation of a unified communications solution that will soon include Microsoft Lync Server 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010.

Benefits Simplifies IT management Improves usability, supports mobile

workers Reduces IT costs Provides a foundation for future

enhancements

“With Exchange Sever 2010, we are able to move to less expensive storage hardware that still meets performance needs, which will be a source of savings for years.”

Hunter Coleman, Systems Engineer, State IT Services Division, State of Montana

The State of Montana continually strives to offer its employees up-to-date communications and collaboration technologies so that they can, in turn, provide citizens with the best possible service. To promote this goal, the state upgraded the foundation of its unified communications infrastructure to Microsoft Exchange Server 2010. Microsoft Lync Server 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 will also be deployed later in 2011. For IT staff, previously cumbersome tasks, such as those for compliance and mailbox restoration, have been reduced from hours to minutes. Employees benefit from the easy access to Exchange Server 2010 through their mobile devices and Microsoft Outlook Web App. And the state will save money on hardware by using virtualized Exchange Server 2010 server roles and implementing less expensive storage systems that support larger mailboxes.

SituationThe government of the State of Montana provides essential services to nearly 1 million people spread across 147,000 square miles. To make these services possible, the state relies on its State Information Technology Services Division (SITSD), which is responsible for maintaining the IT systems used by 12,000 employees in 26 agencies located at 600 sites.

“We are required by law to offer state agencies with critical infrastructure services, such as email, Active Directory Domain Services, the state’s consolidated network, and telephone systems,” explains Chris Kuntz, Bureau Chief for Enterprise Systems for the State Information Technology Services Division, State of Montana. “We also operate essentially as a hosting service for state agencies that buy additional services on an as-needed basis.”

Prior to 2008, Microsoft technologies had been purchased through select agreements on an ad-hoc basis by individual state agencies and by SITSD. There was no standardization on the desktop, with the entire organization running different versions of Microsoft Office. Managing data compliance policies, implementing legal holds (retaining all of an agency’s communications covering a specified period of time), and retrieving previously archived mailbox data were also time-consuming tasks.

Overall, the result was a decentralized, heterogeneous environment that was difficult and expensive for SITSD to manage. To address these issues, the state piloted a comprehensive unified

communications (UC) solution built on Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, and Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007 as part of a state-level Microsoft Enterprise Client Access License (ECAL) agreement. The project was a complete success, showing how UC could reduce email administration time in half and bringing cost-effective new communication capabilities to state employees.

In late 2009, when SITSD was preparing to open a new centralized data center, the state wanted to offer employees the latest communications and collaboration capabilities from Microsoft. Specifically, the state sought an enhanced solution that would reduce costs, better support its increasingly mobile workforce, be easier for SITSD to manage, and build on the state’s existing IT infrastructure investments.

SolutionIn December 2009, the State of Montana began planning for and testing an upgrade to Microsoft Exchange Server 2010. “We wanted to synchronize the Exchange Server 2010 migration with the opening of our new data center, and we thought it made sense to undertake both projects at the same time,” says Hunter Coleman, Systems Engineer for the State Information Technology Services Division, State of Montana.

Several business drivers led the state to choose Exchange Server 2010, with cost being among the most important. The savings result from the decreased time and effort required to manage Exchange Server 2010, more efficient use of less expensive storage hardware that still permits larger

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“The idea that we can increase mailbox space but not incur any additional costs is a huge win. We get happier customers, and they don’t pay higher storage fees.”

Chris Kuntz, Bureau Chief for Enterprise Systems, State Information Technology

Services Division, State of Montana

mailboxes, and reduced server hardware costs through virtualization.

Also, the state’s ECAL status was an important factor in making the upgrade project largely cost-effective. “Our Microsoft licensing agreement took away the complexity of managing licenses between Exchange Server versions,” says Kuntz. “Before, we typically delayed upgrading by about five years, which denied employees access to new features and to the productivity benefits they bring.”

Several security-enhancing and time-saving features for IT administration helped drive the decision to adopt Exchange Server 2010. These include Role Based Access Control, which is a permissions model that avoids the need to modify and manage cumbersome access control lists. The state can use it to closely manage, at both broad and granular levels, what administrators and employees can do by aligning their permissions with the actual roles they perform within state government. Similarly, SITSD cites two features that help to save time by automating basic administrative tasks: the ability to manage the Exchange Server environment remotely by using the web-based Exchange Control Panel (ECP) and the ability to write more flexible scripts using the improved Windows PowerShell 2.0 scripting environment (also known as Remote PowerShell). And in the future, SITSD may take advantage of Federated Sharing features in response to employees’ requests to more easily collaborate with external recipients, vendors, partners, and customers by sharing their calendar availability and contacts.

The state deployed Exchange Server 2010 in a pilot production environment in February 2010 and then began a phased rollout to the rest of the state in April. Migration of all the state’s 14,000 mailboxes was completed in mid-July, followed by the decommissioning of older servers. The project was fully complete in August.

Most employees access Exchange Server through either the Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 or Microsoft Outlook 2010 messaging and collaboration client on their PC. However, many mobile employees use a web browser instead, taking advantage of Microsoft Outlook Web App (formerly Outlook Web Access). “We have a lot of employees who connect from home but who might not have Office Outlook,” says Kuntz. “We also have Fish, Wildlife, and Parks staff who don’t have full-time connectivity to the state network but who drive a lot and may be able to get to a Wi-Fi hot spot. Similarly, our Highway Patrol uses Outlook Web App exclusively in their cars. It’s an absolutely critical technology for us.” Other mobile workers are also able to access the system through native email clients running on mobile devices that support Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync. In fact the State has standardized on using Exchange ActiveSync as the exclusive connection technology for mobile devices.

Filtering security is provided by Microsoft Forefront Online Protection for Exchange as part of Exchange Hosted Services. In early 2011, the state also began upgrading to Microsoft Lync Server 2010 for conferencing, instant messaging, and presence, which will be finished in June. SITSD is planning a full deployment of Lync

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“Our Microsoft licensing agreement took away the complexity of managing licenses between Exchange Server versions. Before, we typically delayed upgrading by about five years, which denied employees access to new features.”

Chris Kuntz, Bureau Chief for Enterprise Systems, State Information Technology

Services Division, State of Montana

Server 2010 to be ready for all agencies in July. Next, it will upgrade to Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for collaboration, which will be finished later in 2011. The result will be a fully upgraded, modern UC infrastructure.

BenefitsBy deploying Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 as a key element of an updated unified communications solution, the State of Montana is simplifying IT management while improving usability and better supporting mobile workers. The state is also reducing long-term IT costs through less expensive storage systems, and it has created a foundation to support future communication and collaboration enhancements.

Simplifies IT ManagementThe SITSD team appreciates Exchange Server 2010 for the way it helps simplify IT management tasks. Coleman says, “We’re getting rid of the storage group concept and replacing it with mailbox databases that are more autonomous in the Exchange Server environment.” This approach helps streamline legal holds, for example: “In the past, we’d have to hold communications for more than just the affected government agency because multiple agencies were part of the same storage group. Now, there’s only one such database per agency. Managing legal holds was certainly something we could do in Exchange Server 2007, but it took more manual effort.”

Karl Mitschke, also a Systems Engineer for the State Information Technology Services Division, State of Montana, adds, “Before the upgrade, communication databases were backed up onto tape, and we might

have to keep hundreds of tapes per agency per year. Now, we use disk-to-disk backup, and the recovery of the databases, or even just a single mailbox, is fast—no more than 45 minutes—versus potential all-day efforts, compared with previous versions of Exchange Server.”

Improves Usability, Supports Mobile WorkersThe state is using several features in Exchange Server 2010 to offer its employees a better communications experience, especially for mobile workers. For example, popular enhancements in Outlook Web App include support for most major web browsers, conversation view, the ability to drag messages and folders, and the ability to scroll through a long list of email messages without loading separate pages. Joel Hardamon, Systems Engineer for the State Information Technology Services Division, State of Montana, says, “In general, with every successive version of Exchange Server, it seems that more and more of the full Outlook client features are being added to or replicated in Outlook Web App. And that has been a good productivity boost for us.”

As another example, employees are no longer required to choose only BlackBerry mobile devices and connect to the state’s network through BlackBerry Enterprise Server. With Exchange ActiveSync in Exchange Server 2010, employees can synchronize a wide variety of mobile devices with their Exchange Server mailboxes. Although earlier versions of Exchange Server had this capability, the process has been streamlined and enhanced in Exchange Server 2010. Similarly, mobile state employees can

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synchronize e-mail messages, calendar information, and contact and task data, and they can manage their automatic-reply settings and access the company directory. And with new features in Exchange Server 2010, mobile device users can also enjoy conversation view, free/busy lookup (seeing a contact’s calendar availability), and SMS sync (viewing text messages on both the mobile device and in the Outlook inbox).

Finally, Voicemail Preview (text versions of voicemail messages delivered to the Inbox) is also a popular feature. “Those of us who are using Voicemail Preview love it because we’re able to scan through our messages so quickly. It’s fantastic stuff,” says Hardamon, noting that SITSD will soon make the capability available to all employees starting in July 2011.

Reduces IT Costs The state uses Exchange Server 2010 to reduce costs in several ways. For example, because Exchange Server 2010 reduces input/output (I/O) requirements for storage devices, the state can use cheaper storage hardware while still providing a high-performance email system with larger mailboxes. “In the short term, we’ve already saved some costs in terms of the number of spindles we need to meet I/O requirements,” says Coleman. “With Exchange Sever 2010, we are able to move to less expensive storage hardware that still meets performance needs, which will be a source of savings for years. By using Exchange Server 2010, we can increase mailbox size on a requested basis much more easily than we could in the past.”

Kuntz adds, “The idea that we can increase mailbox space but not incur any additional

costs is a huge win. We get happier customers, and they don’t pay higher storage fees.” The state’s goal is to maintain the current rate per month, per mailbox, while greatly expanding the current 50-megabyte standard mailbox size.

Also, in addition to gaining the usability benefit of supporting any Exchange ActiveSync-capable device, the state is using this feature to save money. “By retiring BlackBerry Enterprise Server in favor of Exchange ActiveSync technology, we’re saving [U.S.]$63,000 annually in maintenance, support, and licensing costs,” says Kuntz.

Summarizing cost savings, Coleman says, “Exchange Server 2010 complements our strategy to lower hardware costs, simplify hardware life cycle management, save electricity, and reduce our carbon footprint. Being able to run it in a fully virtualized environment has also saved us a lot of money on infrastructure.”

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“Exchange Server 2010 complements our strategy to lower hardware costs, simplify hardware life cycle management, save electricity, and reduce our carbon footprint.”Hunter Coleman, Systems Engineer, State

Information Technology Services Division, State of Montana

Provides a Foundation for Future EnhancementsThe state is using Exchange Server 2010 as the foundation for building a complete next-generation unified communications solution, with communication and collaboration features that will make employees more productive and state government more efficient. For example, the state is looking into implementing the infrastructure required to support Lync Federation and Exchange Federation. Coleman says, “We want to use Federation features to coordinate with people outside our government agencies to share calendars, meeting resources, and presence information. This will further speed the process of finding the right person at the right time, and it should all come together shortly after the upgrade to Lync Server is in place.”

Kuntz concludes, “This summer, we’ll upgrade from Office Communications Server to Lync Server and from Office SharePoint Server 2007 to SharePoint Server 2010, and our employees will be moving to Office 2010. But upgrading to Exchange Server 2010 was the key first step that enabled us to create such a feature-rich, flexible, robust environment for unified

communications, document sharing, and mobility.”

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 can help you achieve better business outcomes while controlling the costs of deployment, administration, and compliance. Exchange Server 2010 delivers the widest range of deployment options, integrated information leakage protection, and advanced compliance capabilities, which combine to form the best messaging and collaboration solution available.

For more information about Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, go to:www.microsoft.com/exchange

For more information about Microsoft Unified Communications, go to:www.microsoft.com/uc

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For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about the State of Montana, visit the website at: www.montana.gov

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published May 2011

Software and Services Microsoft Server Product Portfolio− Microsoft Exchange Server 2010− Microsoft Lync Server 2010− Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010

Microsoft Office− Microsoft Office Professional 2007− Microsoft Office Professional 2010

Microsoft Online Services− Microsoft Forefront Online Protection

for Exchange Services− Microsoft Enterprise Client Access

License Suite Technologies− Active Directory Domain Services− Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync− Microsoft Outlook Web App