hmmm.. sorry I've been reading this thread in reverse?<br><br>an interesting concept, and if you've mentioned any other<br>remote service provider rather the microsoft , then I'd say<br>brilliant idea. The fact that microsoft are even attempting large<br>scale hosting of important data scares the life out of me. Google, who are currently the world leaders of large clustering solutions, have solved lots of a low and high level engineering problems with their network. Miicrosoft have trouble with 16GB limit for it's JET database technology...hmmm....oh dear.<br><br>Another think to think about is politics and privacy, microsoft<br>don't really have a great track record with 'fair' business <br>practices, and I'd certainly not use the outsourced email<br>system for say developing post graduates projects, or <br>business incubator projects, for fear of seeing my idea/source code on the microsoft home page the following week.<br><br>I'd probably feel the same using any ones
outsourced email.<br><br>I was once involved in the these discussions once upon a time<br>in a professional setting; There were going to cluster exchange<br>and get clients to connect via the internet to them and outsource<br>email and administration. I started to ask some questions. <br>What if the internet goes down, either last mile or greater<br>routing problems (read denial of service). The management<br>gave me blank stares? <br><br>It does'nt go down they laughed. Were going ahead asap.<br><br>I walked out the office, and quit. ;-)<br><br>So, although there may be many pro's about outsourcing, <br>at the end of the day, if you start strimming back the IT<br>in uni, the uni sort of becomes a glorified cybercafe,<br>with not much expertise on the ground, that's gotta be a<br>bad thing.<br><br>I'd certainly look at a managed solution, which you can <br>host onsite, rather than in a remote datacenter, where<br>anything can happen. <br><br>It would be really great to
see, organisations choosing solutions<br>rather than coroporate brandnames at the end of the day. <br><br>okay, email support can be drag, but I used to run exchange<br>for living, and it drove me nuts. Before that I ran a unix<br>based email system, it was much more well behaved, and<br>treated me much better. Could you ever trust an email<br>server system them which was release as v1.0 as version 5.5?<br><br>what the hell? did reality just stop for a while.<br><br>outsourcing also may stop innovation, once your services<br>are leaked away you can't easily take them back. You<br>may save $$$ in the short run but in the long term you suffer.<br><br>You may get a good deal this year,but 4 years down the line,<br>then the vendor just goes and doubles the price of it's outsourcing, by that time, you don't have the skills or infrastructure in house to reign it back in. Scary thought.<br><br>When you not only own the infrastructure, but the code and<br>API's that go with it,
then your in control of software costs<br>etc etc. go on be brave, hire 4 open source coders! <br>and see what happens. <br><br>are they management chasing ghosts? has anyone at the<br>upper levels actually tried to calculate the costs saving in<br>both hardware and software if they went to either a different<br>vendor or the use foss? How many technicians/coders could be writing bespoke software for the uni, rather than firefighting<br>close source software problems, because they have no way of fixing software?<br><br>microsoft shops currently resemble motor mechanics that<br>can't open the bonnet, doors, or windows of your car. You'll<br>take you car to be fixed, they will scratch thier chin and go...<br>hmmm...yeah...better goto www.microsoft.com for a fix.<br>seems like a pointed exercise. When you involve vista, <br>the mechanic will even say, is that a car? I don't <br>recgonise it, it does'nt even have wheels?!!!!!<br><br>oh, I did'nt even mention security for
outsourced applications......whoa.... can of worms on the horizon.<br><br>When approaching the use of Foss in organisations, there<br>are lots of issues to concentrate on rather then the freeness.<br><br>you gotta look pasts the ethos and ethics, and get down to<br>the purely engineering side of open source/outsourcing<br><br>oh, p.s. can I have a larger email quota please ;-).<br><br>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-Xchange<br><br>or something like that... suse open exchange? <br><br>has anyone checked what other uni's are doing on outsourcing?<br><br>I think management should be required to wear ear plugs<br>on the golf course, so they don't come back to office with<br>'buzzword' bloat! ;-)<br><br>Laters,<br>Lee<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br> <br><br><b><i>Jason Cormie <Jason-lug@wormwood666.demon.co.uk></i></b> wrote:<blockquote class="replbq" style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"> For the last year we
have been on the brink of deploying "Windows Live @ EDU", <br>whereby student email will be hosted by Microsoft, giving much bigger mail <br>quotas than we could ever afford along with fancy bling features.<br><br> http://get.live.com/edu<br><br>As one of the Uni email admins I have to look at it with an unbiased view <br>solely on business reasoning. By doing this we lose a helluva lot of control <br>but gain an amazing amount of capacity and reduced management, all for "free". <br> This deal is aimed mainly at Unis with large,disparate, problematic mail <br>systems, as we have been an exchange shop for the last 10 years we don't <br>really fit that category, but the cost savings even for us are tantalising.<br><br>Personally I'm about 50/50 on the whole issue and won't voice opinion for or <br>against (yes, M$ is the devil incarnate turning people into factory moulded <br>consumers, etc, etc, but I have to be practical) The upper echelons of <br>university
management are still arguing for/against this sytem and thats <br>pretty much the only reason it has not be activated already.<br><br>This is quite a fundamental stab in the direction of Gordons previous <br>statement. Its the same as banks offering student accounts, get them at Uni <br>and they will probably be with you for life...<br><br>--<br>Jason Cormie<br>Senior Information Specialist<br>Central Server Group<br>Information Services<br>University of Abertay Dundee<br><br>_______________________________________________<br>dundee GNU/Linux Users Group mailing list<br>dundee@lists.lug.org.uk http://dundee.lug.org.uk<br>https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dundee<br>Chat on IRC, #tlug on dundee.lug.org.uk<br></blockquote><br><p> 
<hr size=1>
For ideas on reducing your carbon footprint visit <a href="http://uk.promotions.yahoo.com/forgood/environment.html">Yahoo! For Good</a> this month.