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Q&A details from the Webinar - Migrating 10,000+ Users to Google Apps

Q: Can you give us an idea of how many Notes applications you have? Were those migrated or saved in anyway?

A: We have hundreds of Notes applications but they are used by a smaller subset of users, many of these are applications are planned for decommissioning. Some of them will be migrated to Google Sites or Groups.

Q: Did you let the users keep their Lotus and Outlook client software?

A: No

Q: Is this correct? Are you only using or planning to use only the web client of google apps?

A: Yes

Q: Did you use a global address book for shared contacts?

A: Yes

Q: Does Johnson & Diversey feel that Lotus Notes adoption failure was due to lack of training and user preference for Outlook Client? How much "more" training was provided in comparison?

A: There was no failure of Lotus Notes adoption. We could not deploy the LN client to all our users because 60 % of our users and planning the installation for them was not practical in the original project plan. User satisfaction of the Notes client was in general low. The Gmail client was adopted faster by people because a large majority were already familier with Google (they had personal Google accounts). Average training given was 4 hours through classroom and webex. The admin assistant staff had longer training.

Q: Did this solution integrate user authentication with Active Directory (or SAML) or was the auth totally through gmail username/password?

A: We have meshed set up of Active Directory and Novell e-Directory with a consolidation in the e-Directory. Using DSS against e-Directory we could achieve an Account synchronization. A second tool allowed us to do a password synchronization between e-Directory and the Google-stored password (this becomes important when accessing Blackberry and standalone Googletalk clients). For general access to email we are using SAML against e-Directory.

Q: Has China shutting down google caused you any issues.

A: No

Q: What was the increase in support (raw or %) and for how long after release? I assume moving from Lotus to Google caused some chaos - resulting in support.

A: Less than 300 tickets were Google related. We planned for 2 weeks of 7 X 24 Google specific help desk that was discontinued within 3 days due to lack of ticket volume.

Q: What is biggest headache this has given to organization?

A: The Google project has enhanced our ability to enforce security standards. This has annoyed some people who were using external applications integrated with our legacy e-mail systems and undermining the security policy.

Q: How are you managing coexistence? What is supported?

A: There was no coexistence after the early adopter group for JDI. When required, we provide tools like Lotus Free/Busy to enable it.

Q: How much did you guys have to pay for the onsite support?

A: We are using standard Google support. The onsite project support was negotiated as part of the Google contract. Actual pricing information is confidential and the property of Google and JDI.

Q: How are you saving money by keeping the Domino applications and client licenses and moving to Google?

A: Lotus Notes licenses is a small part of TCO. There are many other costs such as network, server, support staff, (our IT support is outsourced) etc. We do not have to maintain a DR, or the storage, or the backups for our email implementation. In addition, implementation of e-Discovery and email policies do happen at a fraction of the cost.

Q: How do you address mail enabled Lotus Notes application? Particularly for regulated Notes applications (e.g. FDA)?

A: Most applications integrated with the Lotus Notes mail system were connected through our external SMTP gateway. This Gateway is now connected to Google / Postini.

Q: How does Google Apps handle shared calendars, resource booking (conference rooms), and Public Folders?

A: Please check Google documentation, this is a standard feature. The Public folders are replaced by Google Sites.

Q: How does JDI handle this scenario - confidential email goes out to 1000 users IN ERROR..needs to be retracted. Can this be accomplished?

A: This was not a high priority feature for us. There is an undo send feature that can offer limited protection. The JohnsonDiversey best practice for confidential information is password protected / encrypted document.

Q: Is Firefox required for Google Email/Apps? Why did JohnsonDiversy install Firefox?

A: No, but tab-enabled browsers provide a better user experience. We chose to use Firefox because we could not upgrade IE to higher versions due to other application dependencies.

Q: In Google Docs there are many useful templates, have you made use of these? Also, some of them are "read only" which seem to defeat the purpose of a community template.

A: Google has the ability to filter out types of addresses (common name vs smtp addresses), we are using that.

Q: How did you resolve Lotus Notes database infrastructure in your migration to Google Apps?

A: We only moved mail and calendar to Google. Lotus Notes is still in use as application platform.

Q: What do you do with your Domino groups?

A: We scripted - using the SMTP addresses in the Domino groups we recreated the groups in e-Directory (can be done in AD as well). Then using OU membership we can automate mailing lists.

Q: Is the entire transport connection to Google Apps encrypted? and is the data encrypted during storage?

A: https can be forced for the domain. Interested in knowing how Groups are being kept updated. Data is NOT encrypted at rest...instead it is 'sharded' (e.g. broken up in tiny bits) and stored on between 6-9 data centers.

Q: Were you able to retire your Notes infrastructure? If not, what cost reduction was possible (in %)?

A: We have already retired some components such as Sametime servers, others will retire in the next 12 months. The majority of savings are coming from non-license costs and cost avoidance of capital investment needed for improvements in infrastructure and e-discovery.

Q: Can you share costs of the rollout? As a % of your annual operating cost?

A: We cannot share cost data. But the total cost of Google migration was significantly less than cost of the Lotus Notes upgrade or migration to MS Exchange. The operating (Run ) cost for Google are estimated to be about 50% less that that for alternative solutions.

Q: How long did you use Lotus Notes?

A: Longer than 8 years.

Q: There have been a few vulnerabilities and breach of data with google apps. We you concerned about this before implementation?

A: Yes. Our implementation of Google compensates that with various uses of SAML and some configuration choices of Google. Based on our overall analysis, Our Google Apps provided adequate security for our business.

Q: Any concern around features / functionality during this project?

A: Both MS Exchange and Lotus Notes products have many features that Google does not have and Google brings in many capabilities that the legacy products do not bring in. The overall value proposition provided by Google was better than the other products.

Q: Were notes applications migration part of the scope of the project?

A: No

Q: Was SSO used to simplify user logins, and were Groups sync'd with an internal directory (Active Directory or Domino's Address Book)?

A: FIDs and passwords are synced with our enterprise directory infrastructure

Q: Does google apps support meeting room reservations?

A: Yes

Q: What is the strategy for Google Docs rollout?

A: Self training, user empowerment and lockdown for document sharing outside JD domain.

Q: What type of directory service does JD run? Can Google Apps access a company's internal LDAP or AD directory for a single access control point?

A: e-directory / Active Directory. Yes

Q: When a major issue occurs whom is responsible for escalation/resolution? Google or Appirio?

A: During the project, JohnsonDiversey/Appirio/Google worked as team. Post-project, JohnsonDiversey works directly with Google.

Q: I've heard that there is an add-on service for legal/e-discovery features for $7/user, what does that entail?

A: Postini is the Google e-discovery tool. This was one of the best tools we saw in the market.

Q: Which SSO vendor did JohnsonDiversey use?

A: Ping Identity