Staff email migration to Microsoft Exchange 2010

November 2009

Overview

Crosfields School’s staff email was migrated from a limited hosted Exchange 2003 system to an on-premises Exchange 2010 server, complete with secure Outlook Web Access for offsite access.

Need

The school’s existing staff email system was provided by BT MyOffice, which provided a cut-down hosted Exchange implementation offering only POP3/SMTP access and a limited Outlook Web access client. Staff using Outlook had to follow technical instructions to configure access manually, while those using webmail were frequently stung by a 5-minute auto-logout while writing long emails.

There was no central address book, no shared calendar support, and no ability to save login credentials (which were not synchronised with the school’s Active Directory). Emails with substantial attachments were very slow to send and receive due to the limitations of the school’s broadband provision, which at the time was an ADSL connection with 6.5Mbps downstream and 400kbps upstream. Mailbox storage was allocated from a shared pool of 1GB, with the typical staff allocation being 100MB, which necessitated the frequent archiving (or more commonly, disposal) of historic email by staff.

A new email system was sought to address these complaints.

Considerations

• The elimination of a timed auto-logout while onsite was deemed essential.
• A central address book was highly desirable. Although email addresses were typically in the format of FirtnameLastname, users frequently had problems mistyping the names of other members of staff, using nicknames instead of full names, or vice-versa.
• The ability to quickly distribute email internally (particularly with attachments) was highly desirable.
• Senior management in particular expressed a strong desire to eliminate the frequent need for mailbox archiving in Outlook due to the quantity of mail they received.
• Auto-configuration of Outlook was desirable to encourage more users to take advantage of existing Outlook licences and reduce the need for assistance from IT Support.
• An easier to remember web address for picking up webmail from home was a frequent request from staff.

Solution

• Chiefly due to the desire for full Outlook compatibility (including AutoDiscover), Exchange 2010 was selected for the new mail system. Zimbra Standard Edition was also considered, but was more expensive to purchase than adding Exchange licensing to the school’s Campus Enrolment licensing.
• An on-premises solution was chosen as this offered the best arrangement for increasing speed of internal mail distribution given the school’s broadband capability.
• As there was no additional server hardware available, the school MIS server (which had been over-specified by the supplier) was converted to a Hyper-V host, and the MIS server and new single-server Exchange implementation run as virtual guests.
• A default mailbox size of 1GB per member of staff was able to be provided due to the existing storage capacity of the server used.
• Exchange 2010 eliminated the issue of auto-logout due to the use of better idle-checking in the web client.
• Existing mail was imported via POP3 for web client users, while existing Outlook users underwent a scripted import of their local .pst files.
• Access to Outlook Web Access was configured for automatic (Negotiate/NTLM) login on site, in order to provide single sign-on. External access was configured for forms authentication over SSL, with a branded login screen.

About Crosfields School

Crosfields School is an independent day prep school in Reading, UK. It currently has around 510 pupils aged 3-13. James Schlackman has been the Network Manager at the school since June 2009, supporting a network of around 140 workstations and 16 servers, based on Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2.