The Office of Information Technology is in the process of switching the University from the Cyrus open source e-mail system to Gmail, which is part of the larger software program Google Apps. After nine years of using the Cyrus system that provided Webmail service, the University has decided to partner with the Internet powerhouse Google to save money and time for the University and give students more software options.
The Google Apps for Education program includes not just Gmail, but a host of applications that will be available for students to use. Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Groups, Google Sites and Google Talk will all become accessible for interested users to download.
Stan North Martin, director of Outreach, Communications and Consulting for OIT, said initially the service is only going to be available to students, but should be extended to faculty and staff in the future.
Nick Young, member of the student e-mail implementation team, said the decision to switch e-mail services was based on students’ requests for additional e-mail storage space and the University’s desire to save money.
‘Google gives students over seven gigabytes of storage space for their e-mail, far in excess of the 50 megabytes allocation they now receive, ‘ Young said.
According to Young, Webmail was only an e-mail service and did not ‘provide an advanced collaborative environment like Google provides with its Docs, Sites, Calendar and Talk services.’
‘With Google, both students and the University get exactly what they want,’ Young said. Martin said Webmail service is provided by an open-source software program called SquirrelMail. ‘
SquirrelMail provides a way of accessing the campus Unity mail service, which is run by Cyrus, another open-source software company,’ Martin said. ‘The Unity mail service is the entire operation; the Cyrus mail servers, Webmail and the mail relays that process outgoing and incoming mail.’
According to Martin, one of the advantages of Google Apps is that the Google Company runs the program, whereas the University currently runs the Unity mail service.
‘Google will run the program for us, which will save the University money and time,’ Martin said. ‘The company has a good reputation with other Universities who have tried the program.’
Martin said the OIT department gathered information from students and departments on campus that relied heavily on e-mail, such as Registration and Records, in making the decision to use Google Apps.
‘We had a lot of feedback from students who already used Gmail and liked it,’ Martin said. ‘Everyone was generally supportive of the change.’
Ben Brendle, a freshman in engineering, said he is already a fan and user of Gmail.
‘I love Gmail,’ Brendle said. ‘When I saw that we were switching I was very happy, because not only is it simple but it also looks a lot more attractive than the Webmail we utilize now.’
Although the future of e-mail is uncertain, Martin said Google is a company the University can expect to stick with for the foreseeable future.
‘Google is constantly innovating,’ Martin said. ‘While the use of e-mail may be decreasing, the company is always creating new tools, such as the applications we will soon be using. As new Google products become available, we can take advantage of them because we are now linked with the company.’
Young echoed this vision of Google Apps being a positive investment for the University’s future.
‘The beauty of the Google Apps for our University service is that we will benefit from their innovations much more quickly than if we had to develop them internally,’ Young said. ‘We are looking forward to seeing how the University uses Google Apps to communicate and collaborate more effectively in the years to come.’
Another advantage of Gmail is that the program conducts its own anti-spam and anti-virus filters, according to Harry Nicholos, assistant director for Systems and Hosted Services.
‘The anti-virus software we are currently using is Sophos PureMessage,’ Nicholos said. ‘The way the software works is by recognizing pre-set words and codes to detect viruses and spam. If a virus is detected, the message will be immediately deleted. If the software recognizes a word that is set as a flag by the filter, then the message will go to spam.’
Young said Gmail is known for its integrated world-class spam and virus protection solutions.
‘When Gmail users report a particular message as spam, the system quickly learns to start blocking similar messages,’ Young said. ‘The more spam the community tags, the smarter the system becomes.’
The same advanced computing infrastructure that powers Google Search also tunes the spam filters, according to Young. Nicholos said an e-mail is not sent directly from one computer to another, but rather the message goes through a series of servers and relays before reaching the intended receiver.
‘With our current system, anyone with an @ncsu.edu email address will have their messages sent and received through one of 12 IMAP servers, such as uni48map.ncsu.edu,’ Nicholos said. ‘The message is then sent on to the universal mail relay system, where almost all e-mails go through the Internet. ‘
According to Nicholos, the receiver picks up the e-mail when its mail server recognizes the address. Martin describes the e-mail process as being made up of two servers — one for receiving and one for sending e-mails.
‘The SMTP, or simple mail transfer protocol, takes e-mails and routes them to the Internet,’ Martin said. ‘The IMAP, or Internet mail access protocol, receives e-mails by recognizing e-mail addresses.’
When a server isn’t available because it’s busy or can’t be reached over the network, the sending SMTP server will queue the message and attempt to re-try sending it a number of times, according to Martin.
‘This is why a message can end up in an inbox a while after it was sent,’ Martin said. ‘In addition, there are also protocols for how the server handles messages when someone’s e-mail box is over quota.’
According to the OIT Web site, when an inbox is full the server will send the e-mail user a warning and then continue trying to resend the message at 30-minute intervals for three days. If the space is still full at this time, the server will send the message back to the original sender and advise the person that the account is not being used.
Students are always able to increase their quota allocation online at http://oit.ncsu.edu/email/storage-quota. In addition, students can sign up now at http://google.ncsu.edu to be a part of the early Beta Service.
All students will receive e-mails before the start of next fall with instructions on how to switch from the campus Unity mail service to Google Apps.
