Information Technology Strategic Planning
Projects
Project Title:
Email Improvements
Project Advocate:
Richard Kogut
Project Manager:
Bobby Bliatout
Project Overview:
This project encompasses several improvements to email services which are planned to be implemented essentially concurrently, although they may be separated out should deployment challenges dictate that course of action. The project will reduce the risk of outages of the email service, and provide expanded capacity and a change in the way that SPAM is handled.
The email server and existing email will be migrated from the current server at Castle onto a new server at Telecom that will use the Storage Area Network (SAN) as the email store. The new email store will allow us to increase the quotas for all users to 1 GB. Most of this aspect of the project will have little impact on day-to-day use of email, other than potential access issues during the migration itself, and the appearance of more space of user email.
Changes in SPAM handling will, however, significantly change the user experience, and will require user education and actions. Currently as email arrives at UC Merced, it gets examined and tagged with a header before being delivered to a user’s Inbox on the mail server. The header categorizes the email as either vanilla, SPAM or bulk (bulk emails are usually unsolicited advertisements from legitimate vendors, as opposed to SPAM which is typically objectionable and/or fraudulent). It is left to user to configure their client email applications (such as Outlook, Thunderbird, Macintosh Mail, etc.) with a filtering rule if they want undesired email to be automatically moved out of the Inbox. Current user documentation explains how to set up filters for email tagged as SPAM.
With the new model, a new SPAM folder will be set up on the mail server for each user, and email tagged as SPAM will be automatically moved into it without any set-up or actions on the part of the user. Users will need to periodically inspect the SPAM folder for potentially incorrectly tagged email, and purge the unwanted messages. Beyond the changes on the email server side, users will have the potential to continue to perform further filtering on the client side to redirect BULK email.
Key Stakeholders:
Entire campus.
Benefits:
Increased email quota will allow for longer and higher amount of email retention on the server side. Server-side SPAM filtering will reduce the need of email client applications rule-based SPAM filtering configuration. Server-side filtering will reduce network traffic and speed up inbox folder presentation to email clients because all SPAM will be stored in a separate folder. This will be of particular benefit to users of multiple devices and/or clients to access email, especially those with PDAs and those unaware of or intimidated by the steps needed to be taken to set up filter rules.
Project Deliverables:
1. New mail server with hot spare with manual failover
2. Allocation of 1 GB of storage for staff, faculty and students
3. Server-side SPAM filtering for the entire UCM community
4. User documentation about accessing and maintaining SPAM IMAP folder, how to set up filter rules for BULK email, how to report incorrectly tagged mail (to change future handling), and commentary on the potential interaction and/or trade-offs of using the JUNK features available in many popular email clients. Other documentation about email should be improved as needed, including how virus-laden or suspicious files are handled, size limits, etc.
Initiative(s) Supported:
Related Projects:
Milestones:
- Infrastructure setup (hardware, software installation, configuration) and testing.
- Migration of user email.
- Change of quotas in LDAP and campus announcement of (at least) new quotas.
- Roll-out of SPAM handling changes and documentation.
Costs & Funding (Capital & Operational):
tbd
Project Team:
* Bobby Bliatout -- Project Manager
* Stan Stavitsky – Technical lead
* Enrique Flores – Resource to Stan (infrastructure setup, configuration and integration of messaging) software
* Jodon Bellofatto – testing of new mailboxes and SPAM filtering
* Crystal Wuebker – WEB documentation
* Wayne Vangyi – end-user documentation on using and maintaining SPAM folder and impact to end user systems.
* Rich Kogut – review of and potential assistance in documentation creation; coordination of user communication for roll-out.
Issues/Risks:
Risks of not implementing:
1. Continuing dissatisfaction from users re quotas and SPAM handling.
2. Decreased availability of the email service and running out of space.
Implementation
1. Mail will exist on both mail stores while being migrated, and the external DNSs may take several hours to get mail.ucmerced.edu IP change to propagate
2. Clustering software will be installed on the new server, but actual implementation of clustering is beyond the scope of this project.
Potential implementation difficulties:
1. Issues affecting LDAP upgrades may affect email project timetable.
2. Availability of designated storage in quantities needed.
3. Lack of in-house expertise with new technologies.
4. Updating email quotas in LDAP needs to be done carefully, respecting Cabinet members who have no quota limits, and hitting the right affiliations.
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If you have any questions, problems, or comments, please contact the IT Help Desk via email at helpdesk@ucmerced.edu, via phone at 209.228.HELP (4357), or visit them in the Classroom and Office Building room 132A.