The Hapara team are experts at extending and integrating with Google Apps. We want you to have a smooth implementation and to get the absolute best out of your Google Apps platform. We have developed an extensive set of methodologies, processes, and tools to streamline your business planning and roll-out. These range from ROI models, to data migration tools, to enterprise management products like Access Manager.
We have developed at Google Apps total cost of ownership (TCO) model to give you a solid understanding of the likely financial benefits of a Google Apps implementation.
Beyond a solid return on investment, a Google Apps business case benefits from a few specific business productivity improvement use-cases to illustrate the value of the platform. We can help you identify the likely candidates and highlight their business value.
In the initial phases of the project we can provide advice regarding the likely project resource requirements.
Our Hapara specialists will work with your technical team and your existing service providers to ensure that your business transitions smoothly, that technical stakeholders are "on the same page" with regard to what is happening and why, and that technical delivery risks are identified and appropriate mitigation measures put in place.
Solution architecture for a Google Apps implementation must cover several distinct phases:
- initial pilot, where the existing infrastructure and email systems must remain largely untouched,
- "core" migration, where likelihood is high that both your existing systems and Gmail will inter-operate for a period of time,
- decommissioning, where the existing infrastructure is gradually removed and systems transition to business-as-usual status.
Our team can help you to establish an initial pilot for Google Apps or Access Manager.
Google Apps is easy to pilot for a small subset of your users. Our approach to piloting Google Apps rests on a clear understanding and agreement regarding the outcomes of the pilot, and the measures used.
The pilot process is often used to validate the initial assumptions regarding organizational change, i.e. the effort required to enable your staff to become more productive using Google Apps, and can also validate the technical integration approach and any identified risks.
Your approach to the pilot will need to balance the need to minimize the impact on your existing systems (i.e. using a non-invasive approach to integration) with the need to provide pilot users a representative environment to test. We will work with you to find the right balance.
Ensuring a smooth migration for your users is critical for a successful roll-out. Our Hapara consultants have worked on migrations from 50 users to over 46,000. We understand both the technical processes, and business change impacts.
Initial Phase
In the initial phase of deployment, we will evaluate your directory service for consistency, and help your team to address any issues. Migration is scripted and tested. Synchronizing Google Apps with your internal systems requires a reasonably clean directory service; our experience has been that this accounts for the largest chunk of implementation effort.
Deployment Tranches
Picking your first migration group is important. At one large enterprise client, the decision was made to start with the executive team and their personal assistants - admittedly over our strenuous objections. The decision turned out to be brilliant: the extra effort that went into testing to make sure that things went smoothly for the CEO paid off in a smooth transition, and the executives learned exactly what their staff were about to face and became project champions.
We split the deployment phase into tranches, grouping users along geographical or business-unit boundaries. This simplifies the training and other organizational change activities, and reduces the risk (and effort involved in a rollback, if one were required).
The migration process for each tranche is identical; we rely on a range of Google, third-party, and Hapara tools to maximally automate the process. The migration is handled by a technician who initiates each step (selection of users, provisioning of Google Apps accounts, changes to Active Directory records, migration of mailbox content, etc.) and reviews the results.
In a large migration we fully expect to see errors: some may require user intervention (email messages over 25MB can't be moved to Gmail for example), others may force a rollback (Exchange admins just took the server down for maintenance without telling anyone!).
The tranche migration process is refined throughout the deployment phase to take into account any conditions that can be handled automatically.
Mop-up
The last phase of deployment is mop-up - this is the last deployment tranche, which clears up any accounts that could not have been moved to-date and may require manual intervention on our part.
Our Hapara consultants will work with you to identify all crucial parts of the project. For example, cost savings of Google Apps can evaporate if you do not plan for and actually decommission the legacy systems.
Although this seems obvious, there are often a few "difficult" accounts left, or a legacy system dependency hasn't quite gone away, that keep the old infrastructure in play.
Our solution architecture approach specifically addresses the decommissioning phase to ensure you realize the benefits of the migration. We can also provide assistance with scripting the decommissioning process to remove user records from Exchange and update the directory services.
The transition to business-as-usual involves finalization of the transfer of knowledge, and operationalization of key processes. Although Google Apps greatly reduces the technical aspects of ongoing maintenance of your messaging and collaboration systems, management of the policies and appropriate usage of the platform can be a challenge. Our Google Apps capability model provides a holistic view of the organizational roles and skills necessary for sustaining Google Apps in-house.
Google provides online support resources through forums, help guides and known issues. Depending on your service level and support requirements we can provide you with ongoing Google Apps technical assistance.
The ongoing support tends to focus on issues related to changes in client infrastructure or integration requirements rather than Google Apps. Unlike Google Support, we are able to help you troubleshoot internal infrastructure problems that impact your Google Apps platform.
