Fast-Track Migration to Microsoft Exchange Server Generates $1.5 Million Annual Savings
Due to strict SEC merger regulations, Capgemini U.S. was required to separate all shared services from Ernst & Young LLP, including email. Capgemini-US decided to take advantage of this juncture to migrate its 7,000 users from a Lotus Notes mail environment to the Microsoft Exchange 2000 platform – but they had just four months to do it.
- Country
- US
- Alliance partner
- Microsoft
- Solution
- Application Development & Integration
- Business Intelligence
- Infrastructure and Security
So, they called in Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS) to help. Within the tight timeframe, Capgemini-US and MCS designed, built, tested and populated the new mail environment, which streamlined operations from seven locations to a single datacenter in Toronto. With this migration to Microsoft Exchange Server, Capgemini has increased operational efficiency, reduced administrative workloads and boosted staff productivity, while realizing savings of $1.5 million per year.
Situation
In the fall of 2002, Capgemini-US found itself faced with an important messaging decision. When Capgemini had purchased the IT consulting arm of Ernst & Young to form Capgemini, the SEC ruled that the new organization must separate completely from Ernst & Young by May 2003. Among other things, this meant that the company would need to establish a new, autonomous messaging platform and migrate its employee email accounts. With the deadline approaching, Capgemini-US had to act quickly.
Capgemini-US had been using Lotus Notes as its primary messaging platform for seven years. They decided to take advantage of this juncture to migrate to Microsoft® Exchange 2000. “The corporate direction of Capgemini is to bring all individuals onto a common mail platform globally,” explains Bryant Foley, Regional Messaging Manager for North America. “We chose Exchange as that common platform because of the large number of our clients using Exchange, the other Capgemini regions on Exchange, and our focus on the Microsoft Office® solution for collaboration.” Four of the company’s other regions are already running Exchange, and two others are in the process of migrating.
“It made a lot of sense for us to migrate to a centralized Microsoft Exchange platform,” continues Foley. “Our servers were near end-of-life and needed to be replaced. We were already using Microsoft Windows® 2000 Server and Active Directory® for file and print purposes. The migration would let us standardize on one directory system, allowing for single sign-on and easier integration with applications and data systems. Lotus Notes was a siloed application within our environment – to share data or interact with other systems required costly customization.”
The migration was not only on a tight timeline, but was also very complex. Capgemini was supporting 7,300 Lotus Notes users in three different email environments. The largest, with 6,200 users, consisted of 12 servers spread across hub sites in Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, Cleveland, Atlanta and New Jersey. Another 800 user accounts were housed on two servers in Clark, New Jersey, with 300 more on a hub in Chicago. Capgemini-US also has another set of 300 users on a Novell Groupwise platform in Kansas City. Adding to the complexity is the fact that the employees using the systems – the majority of whom are consultants – are highly mobile, working remotely across the US, Canada and Mexico.
The migration was also complicated by the fact that Capgemini was using Lotus Notes not only for email but as a platform for as many as 3,000 software applications such as document management and other collaborative tools. The company also needed to separate out these applications and migrate them to Microsoft SharePoint Server (a project managed by another internal team.)
Solution
A premier IT Consulting business itself, Capgemini operations could have pulled people from the field and tackled the project internally. But given the aggressive timeline, limited bench resources, and complexity of the migration, they decided to add Microsoft experience to the project team. So, they commissioned Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS) to assist with the architecture design, implementation, and support efforts.
“We only had two months to set up the entire environment, so we wanted to have the right subject-matter experts in place,” explains Foley. “It was nice to have someone who knew what they were doing right when they jumped in. Plus, MCS had resources behind them. We knew that if we ever ran into a question or snag, they would be able to pull the answers together quickly, or escalate immediately to the highest level of support.”
MCS Engagement Manager Rod Crider adds, “MCS provides a packaged service offering called ‘Quick Start,’ which allowed us to walk in the door with 40-50% of the work done – planning, design, and documentation.” MCS got this head start by leveraging an asset it calls Intellectual Capital Exchange (ICE), a searchable database of past projects and deliverables. ICE enabled the MCS consultants to run a query on every Lotus Notes to Exchange migration, get a comprehensive listing of completed projects, and readily identify and retrieve any relevant documents and deliverables.
Migration Process
As a first step, MCS helped Capgemini finalize the design for their Exchange messaging infrastructure. Once this blueprint was complete, the team tested the design in a lab environment. MCS then generated the scripting necessary to automatically transfer all user and account information contained in Capgemini’s Lotus Notes environment over to Microsoft Exchange. “This helped avoid typing everything from scratch manually,” explains Crider. MCS deployed some out-of-the-box Exchange migration wizards, and custom-wrote more scripts for Capgemini using Active Directory Scripting Interface (ADSI).
The MCS and Capgemini team conducted the migration to the new Exchange production environment over a single weekend – beginning on a Friday night and finishing Monday morning. All mail accounts were transferred smoothly via Capgemini’s Wide Area Network from Lotus Notes servers in seven sites to a centralized set of clustered Microsoft Exchange 2000 servers in Toronto.
“The migration went extremely well,” comments Foley. “MCS’s experience, careful planning, and thorough testing paid off.”
Capgemini is now working on deploying Internet mail capability for its users with Microsoft Outlook Web Access. This process has been complicated by security policies set at corporate headquarters, which require Capgemini-US to implement authentication using a Safeword Token by Secure Computing. In addition to Internet email access, Capgemini is also integrating the RIM Blackberry into its Exchange infrastructure. These initiatives will enable the company’s remote workforce to access email more easily, from any location.
Meanwhile, another Capgemini-US team continues to work on gradually transferring its Lotus Notes collaborative applications over to Microsoft SharePoint Server. Before the process began, the company was running more than 3,000 custom Lotus Notes programs; they have now worked this number down to just 250 business-critical applications.
Benefits
With the help of MCS, Capgemini-US succeeded in meeting its SEC deadline, achieving the feat of migrating 7,000 user accounts in approximately 90 days. “A project of that scale would normally take 8, 10, even 12 months,” explains Crider.
Change is often difficult, especially within a large organization, but an unusually high percentage of Capgemini’s employees enthusiastically embraced the switch to Microsoft Exchange and Outlook. Many of them were already accustomed to using the Microsoft email environment on home computers. Many of Capgemini’s consultants were also using Outlook at client engagements. “In fact, some people in the Capgemini field force were already using Outlook to access their Lotus Notes database,” adds Crider.
Now that they have their Exchange environment up and running, Capgemini is realizing a number of significant business benefits:
Increased Efficiency: the migration has greatly simplified Capgemini’s messaging infrastructure, with all mail and application servers now centralized within one location. This centralization has reduced the need for large WAN links once used for replication, removed the need for multiple support teams and infrastructures, and also located the mail solution closer to the entry point of the remote workforce.
Reduced Labor: A smaller infrastructure gives Capgemini’s IT staff much less to manage. Additionally, the company now no longer needs to maintain a second directory system. “It’s made things a lot easier for us in terms of provisioning of accounts and user-creation,” comments Foley. “We can now take advantage of the work that’s already being done by our Active Directory team.”
Improved Manageability: Capgemini is also discovering an increased ease of administration with the new environment. “Exchange is easier to manage, which is surprising because I was Notes-centric for eight years,” says Foley. “I personally am very comfortable managing Exchange with only three months of interaction. It took longer to feel comfortable with Lotus Notes administration.”
Increased Productivity: Capgemini staff have increased their day-to-day productivity through the integration of Outlook with their Microsoft Office desktop applications. They now have seamless integration between their messaging, word processing and task management processes. Furthermore, the company is finding that new hires are able to ramp up more quickly on Outlook than previous hires have on Lotus Notes. “Their productivity is greater out of the gate,” remarks Foley. He also says that the migration has eliminated message-formatting problems that had plagued them in the past.
Cost Savings: Finally, Capgemini-US reports that as a result of the migration, they are realizing savings of $1.5 million per year in licensing and administrative hosting costs.
“Migrating to Exchange was the right decision for Capgemini-US,” summarizes Bryant Foley. “We took advantage of a required separation activity to strengthen our collaborative solution. Our email messaging environment now interacts better with our clients and our other Capgemini regions, and better prepares our North America region to take advantage of future enhancements within Microsoft Office 2003.”
