Limited by a hybrid solution
Prior to the adoption of G Suite, the MML had a hybrid service of Exchange and Microsoft Office 365. This service had space limitations in the mailbox inbox and experienced the permanent operation of the mail servers. Likewise, the administration of the email solution was complex, added to the constant spam checking and frequent identity theft.
In summary, the deficiencies were that:
- The service was installed on two servers, which made its administration complex
- By having a hybrid solution (Exchange and Microsoft Office 365), there were problems in email synchronization
- Previously, users had limited space, so they had a personal storage folder (.pst)
In this regard, Flor Huayhua, Infrastructure Coordinator of the MML, points out that “if at any time the servers stopped working (due to technical failures, electricity supply or whatever reason), the service would stop. "There is the gap that we needed to cover, added to the need to access the service from any service remotely."
Miguel Angel Caicedo, Head of Infrastructure, adds: “Storage capacity was one of the pillars for which we opted for a cloud solution like G Suite under the implementation of Xertica. We had too many complaints from officials with the mailbox full, without receiving emails. “Increasing storage capacity was a reactive and mechanical job.”
Starting the path to the cloud and its adoption
Xertica was in charge of the implementation of G Suite in the MML, as the beginning of its transformation process through the following steps:
- License activation: currently having 2,650 basic licenses and 350 business licenses
- Migration of MML accounts
- Enabling the G Suite console
- Total creation of email accounts
- Exchange Migration Process to G Suite
- Validation of acquired services
For Richard Mantilla, Head of IT Services, “G Suite was a good option in terms of space, availability, auditing, personal productivity tools, and chat and communication.”
The MML Infrastructure team summarizes the most used tools in their organization:
Mail: applied to all users who require this tool, facilitating their communication internally and externally in the institution. There is a capacity of 30G in basic and unlimited in Business, where institutional email is easily accessed from any device with internet access with the possibility of working offline and remotely.
Drive: here users store information in the cloud, having the option of organizing it by folders, where they can easily upload, download, create and/or update the documents presented there. The Docs and Sheets tool is also used, which allows several users to work collaboratively.
Sities: this tool is used to generate the Intranet that allows MML officials to share resources and systems among collaborators.
Calendar: This tool allows you to create events and share activities as well as see the availability of users (to schedule meetings) as available spaces.
Hangout: this tool allows easy and simple communication between users of the institution and external users through chat, as well as organizing it by groups.
Administrator Panel: to create/delete accounts, manage groups, configure the different options they present according to needs, as well as view the availability of the contracted service.
Identifying advantages
The MML teams see G Suite as a friendly and easy-to-access tool, both in institutional email and in collaborative tools. The possibility of sharing files without the need to backup a hard drive or expand servers is also an advantage, thanks to the power of Google Drive. In the past, Mantilla notes, “having limited space on our servers meant removing space from some to add to others, with access to email and shared folders that we could only access from our offices. If we had an urgent need to share files that exceeded the storage capacity that each official had, we had to resort to user-level tools (for example, Dropbox) and share the link among our colleagues. G Suite has taken that operational burden away from us.”
At the management console level, G Suite enables management control on user and group accounts with different security options. Likewise, since the MML manages two domains, you can have control over both in a single administration console. “The impact of the operation on MML institutional email users was positive in that they have greater accessibility to their email, more space in their mailbox, greater collaborative tools, as well as control of account administration, with high availability. 24/7 service and support”, concludes Flor Huayhua.
Adoption metrics during March 2020
- 23,750 files shared with external users.
- 84,816 files shared with internal users.
- 2,433 emails sent from Gmail.
- 59,597 emails received in Gmail.
- 62,122 MB in files stored in Photos.
- 2,077,499 MB in files stored on Drive.
- 6'333,931 MB in files stored in Gmail.
