News

San Francisco Pegs Microsoft Exchange Online for E-mail Service

• By John Moore
• 05/18/2011

Both the city and county of San Francisco have chosen Microsoft's hosted Exchange service.

Over the next 12 months, San Francisco plans to migrate 60 departments and agencies to Microsoft Exchange Online. The transition already is underway, with a pilot group of more than 300 users on board with cloud-based e-mail. The adoption of Microsoft Exchange Online consolidates seven on-premise e-mail systems. Of the city's 23,000 employees, 15,000 use two Lotus Notes systems, said Jon Walton, San Francisco's CIO. Other users are spread out across five Exchange servers.

The city has agreed to pay Microsoft $1.2 million a year to provide e-mail service to 23,000 users. Walton said the fee represents a significant savings, which has helped the city's Department of Technology reach its 20 percent budget reduction target.

"There is some inherent cost in support, hardware, software, and infrastructure to run multiple e-mail systems," Walton said.

In addition, the move to Microsoft Exchange Online leapfrogs the city to a newer version of the technology, Walton said. And pushing e-mail to the cloud also boosts availability in the event of a disaster.

"It creates a disaster-resilient solution," Walton said, noting that e-mail messages and data would be protected in the event of a disaster in San Francisco.

However, cloud computing is subject to mishaps. Last week, customers of Microsoft's BPOS cloud service, which includes hosted e-mail, experienced an outage. Walton said he worked through the issue with Microsoft, which is providing service credits to the city in light of the outage.

Walton said the city considered three solutions for its e-mail upgrade: Google, Lotus Notes, and Microsoft's offering. Walton said Microsoft Exchange Online fit well with the city's IT strategy. He pointed out that San Francisco already uses such Microsoft products as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and Sharepoint. The city also deploys applications on Microsoft's Azure cloud platform.

"We really see it as the best fit for where we are going over the next five years," Walton said of the Microsoft e-mail cloud.

Over time, San Francisco may bring additional applications to the cloud. Other elements of Microsoft's BPOS suite include SharePoint and Office Live Meeting for Web and video conferencing. Walton said the city's initial contract with Microsoft covers e-mail and archiving services, but he added that expansion from that core system may occur. The options include SharePoint, instant messaging, and video conferencing, he said.