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January 17, 2013 By Brian Heaton
The Colorado project wasn't just an email migration. The state also consolidated disparate email systems, accomplishing everything in roughly three months. Approximately 26,000 state employees were moved to Gmail.
Kristin Russell, Colorado's secretary of technology and CIO, said the implementation was “very rapid” and felt it was best to employ a “light switch” approach where everyone is online with the new system at the same time, instead of moving each agency one by one at different times.
“One of the reasons why we chose to take that course of action was the fact that we knew at the end of the day, it really wasn't as much about the technology as it was about the change management of the users,” Russell said.
The state opted to move to the cloud for its email because its old system was deemed unreliable and too costly to maintain. Russell added that they felt moving to Google would increase information security for the state and the tools Google supplied would increase employee productivity.
Russell explained that whenever she mentions the state getting increased security by moving to the cloud, some people raise an eyebrow at how putting information up in the cloud is safer. But she said that early on in the process, Trull signed a nondisclosure agreement with Google and learned how their security was integrated into Gmail and Google Apps for Government.
Although Colorado employees have only been on the cloud-based email system for a few months, both Trull and Russell said most users have transitioned to Gmail well. While more than 2,000 help desk tickets were opened during the first week of the Google email system deployment, that number was significantly down by the end of 2012.
Russell added that most of the tickets the state's help desk received dealt with issues related to user training and general comfort using a new system.
Trull said that while the learning curve is the hardest thing to overcome in a system migration, he hasn't heard any complaints or issues regarding security compliance. He also revealed that the state just went through a Social Security Administration audit and passed it with flying colors with no recommendations regarding security.
Moving forward, Russell explained that the state plans to hire a service delivery manager specifically for the Google system. The person will evaluate the overall performance of Gmail for the state and will also be charged with identifying other ways Colorado can partner with Google in the future.
From a cost-savings perspective, when the announcement was made in March 2012 that Colorado was moving to Google for email and calendar services, the state originally estimated it would save approximately $2 million per year.
But when asked for an update to that savings number, Russell said that while the original figure was established from a forecasting standpoint, there were fluctuations in cost that weren't accounted for initially. As a result, the state is no longer reporting a specific number.
Russell explained that the additional level of security and encryption provided by ZixCorp has a cost assigned to it on a per-mailbox basis. So prior to the move to Gmail, estimates were made based on the general number of mailboxes that might need the extra encryption. But that number dramatically increased, adding to the overall cost.
For example, one Colorado agency was only planning to encrypt 900 users, but bumped it to 4,000 during the project. So a static savings figure is difficult for Russell to pinpoint with concrete certainty.
“We feel very confident that there will be future cost savings and cost avoidance opportunities,” she said. “A lot of our original projections … just had to do with email. It didn't account for a lot of the other costs we'll be avoiding down the road, should the state move to, for example, Google Docs, or Google Apps in general off Microsoft Office.”
You may use or reference this story with attribution and a link to
http://www.govtech.com/policy-management/New-Tool-Helps-Colorado-Better-Secure-Cloud-Email-Data.html
Zix has been around forever. The solutions are usually too cumbersome and as you can see above it is not transparent to the user and you still have to go through extra steps. What about your mobile email? Everyone reads their email on a mobile device, so how does that work? (or not work) We looked at both them and Postini for solutions but I think there are much better cloud based options available or coming soon....also the cost I am sure will be better for whatever comes along.
Sal, ZixCorp has provided email encryption for almost forever (15 years). With our experience, we’ve been able to develop innovative email encryption solutions and become the leader in this market. We are the only provider to offer a fully transparent experience; between ZixGateway users, no extra steps or passwords are required by the sender or receiver to exchange encrypted email, including on mobile devices. For recipients without ZixGateway, they can access encrypted email in a secure portal with two easy steps – click on the notification link, enter a password. Mobile access to encrypted email in the portal is just as convenient, offering one click access. For the state of Colorado, we deployed an extra layer of security to meet the standards of CJIS, which requires email with sensitive information to be encrypted in storage as well as transmission. The extra layer of security does require an extra password – but strengthens compliance with CJIS standards.
Very interesting article, although a little unclear on some key points. Has this implementation in Colorado been successfully audited by the FBI and deemed CJIS compliant, or is it just that the CISO "feels" that it will be compliant? Also, it's a shame that the author didn't disclose the cost per mailbox. It's hard to judge the value of the product without that crucial piece of information. Are we talking $1 per user per month, $10, $25, or what? Colorado also uses another encryption solution called CipherCloud with Gmail that claims to let users retain the ability to search their email boxes. How does search work with Zix? Again, very interesting article, but crucial details are missing.
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