India Infoline : Google Apps Implementation

Managing an internal messaging and communication system for 11K+ users can be
a nightmare. One has to maintain consistent service delivery levels and that too
at a reasonable cost, and be able to scale up as more users get added. Moreover,
adding new features in such a system and minimizing calls to the helpdesk are
the other challenges.

To combat these challenges, India Infoline migrated their messaging system to
Google Apps Premier, meaning everything moved to the Cloud. So besides email,
the users had all the Google apps at their disposal-chat, audio/video
conferencing, calendars, and many more. Mobile usage improved substantially as
Google Apps are easily accessible on smartphones. The system eliminated problems
of consistent delivery and scale. Since the apps are easy to use, and provide
self-help, calls to the help desk were reduced considerably, thereby reducing
service costs. Bandwidth usage reduced dramatically as people stopped
downloading attachments automatically. The biggest challenge was adoption
amongst users, as users don't like change. Technically, the challenges were
adapting the network to new loads and ensuring security. Then of course,
migrating 11K users in just a week and that too without any downtime was the
other challenge, which the company managed to overcome. Since even the folder
structures of all the users were also replicated, they found everything as they
expected to when they entered the new mailing system.