MailShadowG enables safe, sound migration from Exchange to Google or Google to Exchange
Here’s another interesting tidbit about MailShadowG: it permits users to sync data from their Google account to Outlook/Exchange and vice versa, giving users the ultimate e-mail freedom of choice. Users can move between both worlds, run both environments concurrently, or can migrate from one to the other and back again, at will.
Because MailShadowG keeps both worlds continuously in sync for as long as it’s running, you no longer have to force your users to perform knife-edge cutovers between Exchange and Google, or between Google and Exchange. Yes, there are differences between the way each system stores and categorizes data, and differences in certain data types and fields. However, migration is much easier on the user and on the IT department with MailShadowG because it allows the user to get used to the differences at their own leisure.
For IT departments, running both concurrently for some period of time helps to avoid the myriad support calls from users who have yet to gain a personal understanding of the sometimes subtle differences in data and operation between their Outlook/Exchange and Gmail environments.
Studies typically estimate the cost of the average support call is $25, and that the average employee places about 5 helpdesk calls every year.
If MailShadowG can save even 1-2 of those calls, the product has paid for itself in support costs alone, let alone the access to increased storage and continuity and the reduced infrastructure expenditure involved. Now that’s a true bargain.
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MailShadowG provides disconnected access to Gmail, Google Contacts and Google Calendar by caching Google content in Outlook for offline operations
Checking e-mail requires Internet access; writing e-mail doesn’t. Unfortunately, with web-based e-mail services you are severely limited in responding to e-mails – unless you want to write a bunch of word documents, then do a cut and past job once you get Internet access again. But how efficient is that, really?
On the other hand, Exchange-based e-mail coupled with the Outlook client gives you offline access to your e-mail, the ability to write e-mail and then store it in you outbox until your back online again. Wouldn’t it be nice to have the same functionality with a service like Gmail?
MailShadowG provides disconnected access to Gmail, Google Contacts and Google Calendar. MailShadowG acts as a third party that caches Google Apps content in Outlook for offline operations. This very literally removes the tether required to manage your Google content.
Now the same functionality you enjoy with an Outlook/Exchange setting can work with an Outlook/Google application.
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MailShadowG maintains full e-mail continuity to Outlook even when Exchange is unavailable.
We’ve all experienced the frustration of losing Outlook connectivity because the Exchange server is unavailable, or has gone down. We’ve come to accept it as one of the frustrating facts of doing business.
Just one case in point – an event manager recently posted a notice about the death of an associate’s mother to all the associate’s team members on a Friday afternoon. Not noticing that Exchange was unavailable, she shut her computer and went home for the weekend. Her message remained in the outbox until the following Monday morning. The notice didn’t get to the team members until the funeral was over—too late for them to send their condolences or to try to attend. Unfortunately, this scenario is all too familiar – the business proposal, critical presentation or timely notice that has to be sent out through an alternative method, or even worse, sits in the Outbox unnoticed until the deadline has passed.
However, one of the really exciting aspects of MailShadowG is that it automatically detects Microsoft Exchange unavailability (as seen by the Outlook client) and offers users the ability to send outbound e-mail through their configured Gmail account as an alternative delivery option.
The user can configure how long to wait if Exchange is unavailable before sending queued items in the Outlook outbox through Gmail, or you can set the system up for immediate delivery through Gmail if Exchange isn’t there. The e-mail gets sent with your Gmail address in the “From” field and is moved to the Sent Items folder.
If the recipient responds, the response is delivered to the Gmail address and MailShadowG will also deliver it to the Outlook inbox, even if Exchange is still down. Imagine the possibilities! As long as the Internet is present, e-mail continuity continues, with or without a connection to Exchange.
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Managing one address book is challenging enough, but keeping your contacts’ information in various locations only compounds the problem. And, it’s not likely you’ll have just work contacts in one and personal contacts in another. So, why not just merge all your contacts in one location?
Dennis O’Reilly made this suggestion in his regular Worker’s Edge column in Cnet News entitled “Merge your Outlook and Gmail contacts”. He’s spot on; managing your contacts from one location is far better than “Alt-Tabbing between… Gmail inbox and the Outlook account on [an] employer’s Exchange Server.”
This is one of the reasons why MailShadowG fully synchronizes your contacts. But that’s not all… By synchronizing e-mail, calendar and contacts between Gmail and Exchange, you can better mange your data from one location – Outlook.
Now, not only do you have your contacts in one location, you can edit contact information in one and have it immediately reflected on the other.
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MailShadowG’s bi-directional, real-time synchronization between Exchange and Google prevents having to re-read e-mail
“But I already did that!” No one likes to have to be told something more than once – regardless of the topic. So, why would you have a duplicate system for your e-mail, calendar or contacts that doesn’t provide a complete synchronization?
There are potentially hundreds of different ways to establish a back-up system for your e-mail, a lot of them have been piecemealed together with the hope that it works. However, these systems are merely that – a back-up system. You don’t want to use them unless you have to… but, why?
Chances are your back up is only a repository, or catch-all, for all incoming or outgoing e-mail – there is little or not synchronization for what e-mails have been read, flagged or even categorized. When you fail-over to the new system you’ll need to go back through your messages and try to recall what you need to follow up on, or what e-mails you’ve already read.
The MailShadowG proprietary system synchronizes all e-mail, which includes marking what items have been read and flagged. But why stop there? This can be done bi-directionally. Therefore, you can be working on an Exchange-based e-mail and have the changes visible on the Google Gmail – vice versa. And all this done in real-time.
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Tracy Scott, the VP of Marketing here at Cemaphore, was recently interviewed by Brad Baldwin of Rocky Mountain Voices, and provided a demo of Cemaphore Systems’ MailShadow for Google Apps. The product is sometime referred to as MailShadowG, and bi-directionally synchronizes with Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Contacts through Microsoft Outlook to Exchange.
Watch the video below to learn more about MailShadowG’s functionality.
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What are the steps needed to take over the enterprise? What would change this from an idea to reality?
It’s an increasingly intriguing question. At Cemaphore, our entire business is based on the ways to enact and improve e-mail continuity, whether it be for enterprises, SMBs (the vast and currently underserved community) and even consumers. We’ve spent the past seven years with our own feet in the trenches with the enterprises our MailShadow technology currently serves.
We see the pain points of our current customers. As every company’s reliance on e-mail increases, we fully recognize the level of infrastructure required to adequately solve the growing disaster recovery and continuity needs of our enterprise customers.
These are the reasons that have compelled the very existence of MailShadowG. With more than 2,600 Beta registrants, the market has certainly indicated this full integration of Gmail and Outlook in the cloud is a giant step in the right direction.
However, what would it take for Google to fully take on the enterprise? Is it even a possibility? MailShadowG certainly increases the enterprise’s functionality in this regard with the addition of the Outlook client. On this front, however, still more work is required for elements such as advanced provisioning, delegation of authority, Global address list support free/busy designation, tight Blackberry Enterprise Server support, Active Sync support, further functionality in tasks, notes, etc.
As our role in advancing e-mail continuity in the cloud gives us a fairly unique perspective. Thanks to Google’s stellar reputation for uptime, we’re convinced there’s sufficient reliability to consider the enterprise’s complete move to the cloud. Is there sufficient security? What about the Data Life Cycle? Is full Blackberry support necessarily required?
In our opinion, while the phenomena of cloud computing is changing the landscape dramatically for many aspects of IT, and especially for the aspects of e-mail continuity, the final call is not ours to make – at the present, it’s still the responsibility of our customers (with our guidance, certainly) to decide how far their reliance on cloud computing should go.
Consider this interesting commentary by Robert Scoble in his recent Scobleizer blog:
“I’m convinced that Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, has a five-year plan to put Google’s foot inside the enterprise door. Enterprise users aren’t easy to switch over… But the early adopters have already moved. When I ask audiences what they are using now, I see more and more Google customers.
I can’t think of a situation where the enterprise didn’t eventually follow the early adopter crowd. It might have taken years, but they do follow eventually.”
As his case in point, Scoble discusses the role Cemaphore is playing in making the transition to Google applications and cloud computing easier. In his words, “Google’s synchronizer sucks, compared to Cemaphore’s… So, why is this important? Because it lets Enterprises slowly introduce Google’s Enterprise products in.”
We couldn’t agree more. The role Cemaphore plays in cloud computing is that we are working to drive and enable this critical category. For the SMB, this is imperative. Given our role in helping organizations achieve e-mail continuity for the past seven years has made it painfully obvious that the one viable and cost-effective option for these smaller organizations is to move that e-mail continuity to a SaaS model within the cloud, with zero infrastructure required.
But for a larger organization, where is the viable and appropriate cutover point? That answer is somewhat of a moving target as the options and technology for cloud computing continue to grow and evolve. We can point out that at least two major corporations are currently launching pilot programs based on MailShadowG. Watch this space for news on their progress.
Again, a knife-edge migration is never a good strategy, particularly for a large organization. For now, MailShadowG’s best use within the enterprise is as a complement to current DR and continuity plans, which on the whole continue to be expensive and largely inadequate.
When would cloud computing have the potential to take over the e-mail strategy of an entire Enterprise? The market will need to decide. We welcome your thoughts.
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By now I’m sure you’ve read the press. Starting with breaking articles by Robert Scoble and the NY Times on March 31, Cemaphore has been making some waves with the introduction of MailShadow for Google Apps™, the hosted application that integrates Gmail and Outlook messages, tasks, calendar items and contact lists entirely in the cloud.
The response has been beyond fascinating: Since that announcement, more than 2,300 beta applicants have signed up to test the new product. Among the throngs of responses we’ve found some surprises. While 80 percent of our respondents are SMBs with 1-500 mailboxes, a full 15 percent are from large organizations.
For SMBs, and particularly for small SMBs, the advantages of a hosted e-mail environment are obvious: the cost and the IT demands of maintaining a fully mirrored and protected Exchange infrastructure put those standard solutions outside of their reach.
However, it’s intriguing to think about what our large organizations are just now understanding: MailShadowG doesn’t speak to the opportunity to displace their Exchange environment so much as it gives that environment full and complete continuity, entirely in the cloud.
Think about it for a moment: If every Outlook transaction is fully and accurately also reflected in its Gmail equivalent, where is that data located? It’s in the cloud, where the storage is plentiful, the infrastructure is already managed, and the reliability is at a fully defensible Three Nines (.999 percent uptime). The amount of time that Google is down in a year can be literally managed in minutes, even including the time required for server and system upgrades.
Note the advice David Berlind gives TechWeb readers in his recent post of May 16:
One of the biggest e-mail concerns of large organizations is the need to further increase their policies for e-mail retention, given the increasing number of business-critical documents and pieces of information that are stored in e-mail.
This phenomena is definitely holding true for our beta customers: one of these large organizations in our program is managing more than 150,000 mailboxes. Another is managing 105,000.
Clearly, the need to reinforce e-mail continuity is a need that’s being felt more keenly than ever before. However, the infrastructure required to manage this continuity is a sharp knife, and it cuts in both directions. Should you use MailShadowG as an opportunity to discard Exchange? Our advice is a resounding “no” – or at least a strongly stated “not yet.” A knife-edge migration—especially for a large organization, and for a resource as critical as corporate e-mail—is never a good thing.
Instead, recognize MailShadowG as a critical continuity tool that is easy and inexpensive to implement—in a nutshell, the industry’s strongest new step towards the ultimate IT nirvana: Continuity in the Cloud.
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