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Email Outsourcing - 2009

Introduction

At a union General Meeting, UCL UCU voted to oppose proposals to outsource email and calendaring services. 

We want to know your views. 

We believe this is a very important matter that has not been properly consulted upon. Below are some reasons why we believe that the proposal should be opposed.

  • Cost. Much of the management case is that Microsoft are offering a commercial service to UCL for 'free' for three years. However the future cost of Microsoft's service is unknown after this period has elapsed (this is called 'end-loading' of charges). No costed study has been undertaken to improve existing in-house email and calendar provision to a similar specification. An outsourced service that ultimately costs more than an in-house solution will have to be paid for through cuts elsewhere.
  • Alternatives. Email and calendar services could be standardised and centralised where appropriate on a consensual basis without recourse to outsourcing. However the majority of staff use Oracle rather than Microsoft Outlook. We do not believe that alternatives to the current proposal have been properly considered and a 'like-for-like' comparison undertaken. (This can be seen by the relatively paltry offer from Microsoft. Microsoft are engaged in loss-leading to promote a new service. A UCL contract would be a coup, allowing them to promote this service in the UK HE sector. However the 'free offer' from Microsoft is only for three years - cf. Cambridge turning down a 'free for life' offer.)
  • Future privatisation. There is anecdotal evidence that outsourcing is being discussed for other areas in IT and it is believed by staff that outsourcing of email and calendaring will be 'the thin end of the wedge'.
  • Consultation. Consultation has so far been extremely 'top-down', starting with the Provost and Heads of Department, and there has been a general lack of transparency and debate.
  • Risk. Staff across College have raised serious questions regarding the security and reliability of the new service. Questions regarding privacy and security are being addressed by 'due diligence' working groups, but the criteria for membership of these groups is unclear and they do not include trade union representatives. Issues of staff training and service accountability remain unanswered. 
  • Control. Outsourcing means, specifically, that direct control of UCL email will be delegated to Microsoft. On a day-to-day basis this means that Microsoft staff must be contacted to fix service problems and retrieve data. In the longer term Microsoft may for example choose to move their 'data warehouse' and/or call centre from Ireland to another country.
  • Lock-in. The provision of a Microsoft service by Microsoft themselves increases the chance that UCL will be 'locked in' to Microsoft services and software platforms, if not this particular contract, indefinitely. Once the service has been outsourced UCL will not have staff actively working on the technology and bringing it back in-house will become very difficult indeed. 
  • Motivation. This project is seen by UCL as a way of providing a unified calendaring system to all staff. Currently around 2,000 out of 8,500 staff use an electronic calendar (mostly Oracle, see above). UCL wishes all staff to actively use a unified calendar on a daily basis so that UCL can tell the Home Office that they are carrying out their 'tracking and monitoring' responsibilities as a Sponsor for non-EU staff under the Points Based Immigration Act. 

Note: we have asked UCL to publish the report Desktop and Collaboration Infrastructure review and Proposals for future convergence options which we refer to below so that colleagues can judge for themselves whether our criticisms are fair. This report is not a confidential document, but it is as yet unpublished.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q Cost
How much will the scheme cost?
Q Reliability
Is the current service unreliable?
Q Maintainance and complexity of current systems
Is our email service 'increasingly difficult and expensive to maintain' as management claim?
Q Storage capacity
We're running out of space to store email. What about the future?
Q Physical space
OK, but what about space for all the disks and servers?
Q Compatibility
Will I be able to use HTML format email with pictures and fancy formatting with the new system?
Q Using Oracle Calendar with Outlook
Can I use Microsoft Outlook with Oracle Calendar?
Q Migration
What will happen to my Oracle Calendar data if we move to using Outlook?
Q Why do separate systems exist?
So why don't we all use the same diary solution?
 

Q - How much will the scheme cost?

No costings for the existing email and calendaring systems have been made available despite repeated requests. There are limited costings for the transformational project to outsource email and calendaring (estimated c. £500,000). 

There are no costings:

  • for the proposed Microsoft solution after the 'free' period expires (three years).
  • for bringing the service back in-house (presumably this would require the introduction of a Microsoft Exchange infrastructure) have been made available.


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Q - Is the current service unreliable?

There have recently been reliability problems with the central email system. These problems were caused entirely by problems with the recently introduced Institutional File Store (IFS) project (excerpt below).

" "The Institutional File Store is the entire storage space underpinning each and every mission-critical IS service, including email. A new bigger and more sophisticated file store was acquired in 2007; the previous file store components were running out of capacity and could no longer be maintained as the supplier of much of the equipment had gone out of business. Migration of user files and data was then carried out and was finally completed in late 2008 / early 2009 which is when the first problems started. There were erratic problems prior to the Christmas break rendering the central IMAP email service sometimes unusable for several days. There was also a second more serious albeit shorter outage on Friday the 13 March during which all IS services were unavailable for an entire day." 

There are a number of reasons behind these problems.

  • The new IFS was introduced to a primarily financial not technical timetable. Though extensive testing was undertaken, and migration to the new technology was carefully planned and executed, a longer period of pilot use and familiarisation might have prevented some of the problems that became apparent later in the project.
  • To achieve the required increase in storage capacity and to leverage the existing storage facilities, two new and sophisticated technologies were introduced: "storage virtualization" and "load balancing". These two technologies were provided via software and hardware bought from private sector companies. In practice when software bugs are discovered in these technologies IS staff often have no option but to rely on the providers to diagnose and fix the problem.
  • The relationship between technical staff from UCL and the suppliers of the various technologies that comprise the IFS has proved difficult to manage due to differences in opinion between the suppliers and staff as regards of where the problem lay and the responsibility for fixing the problem. 

These issues were partially acknowledged an in email from the Information Systems Director dated the 22 March 2009, following the 13 March outage and sent to all staff and students.

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Q - Is our email service 'increasingly difficult and expensive to maintain' as management claim?

The reasons for outsourcing email and calendaring keep changing. 

So let's start with the most common general claim (all quotes below are from the ISD review document Desktop and Collaboration Infrastructure review and Proposals for future convergence options unless otherwise stated).

" "Many of the current email systems are in need of significant levels of investment to ensure their continued operation. The ISD solution has grown to a point where it is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to maintain."

UCL does have a diversity of email systems, some owned by Information Systems, others by Departments or various groups. But these account for only a fifth of all the UCL email traffic.

These IS email servers are maintained by-at most-one and half full time equivalent staff posts. There has been no active development of UCL's central email service since around September 2007. What is remarkable is that UCL's email service continues to run reliably given that it has been starved of resources for many years.

" "In addition to central facilities there are 71 email servers in departments. Most are Unix based, but three departments use Microsoft Exchange 2000. Statistics may be viewed at: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/UCL-Info/Docs/dept-mail-stats/ "

Hidden within the statistics referred to above (gathered over a seven day period) are three mail domains that all use Microsoft Exchange technologies:

email statistics


These domains are run by UCL departmental IT staff from Management Systems (ADM), the Medical School and the Institute of Neurology (part of the newly formed Faculty of Biomedical Sciences).

It seems these departments, especially Management Systems, are the main driving force behind the proposal to adopt Microsoft technologies as the outsourced email and calendaring solution as they have a simple direct reason for doing so: their own Microsoft Exchange infrastructure is aged, unreliable and would be expensive and costly to upgrade. Their staff represent only a small minority of staff within UCL yet are both leading and managing the project and are overrepresented on the project due diligence working groups. 

A senior nUCLei board officer stated that:

" "The internal benchmark for collaboration services has been set by those UCL users of their current Microsoft Exchange/Outlook environment."

In other words, the majority are expected to switch to using the preferred technologies of the minority.

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Q - We're running out of space to store email. What about the future?

The Institutional File Store was sized to accommodate future email storage requirements and further capacity can be added.

Email traffic is not increasing 'exponentially' as some proponents of email outsourcing have suggested.
Even with the current system larger mailboxes can be and are regularly made available to staff on request.

None of these technologies can deal with untrained users' mismanagement of their email; a 20Mb 'in box' will cause performance problems with any email technology including Microsoft Exchange. An extensive email management training programme would be of some assistance here.

Future storage growth requirements will also be ameliorated by the introduction of new technologies such as EDM, the UCL Drop Box service and-most importantly-the new UCL Wiki service (a much better way for sharing files between users): http://wiki.ucl.ac.uk

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Q - OK, but what about space for all the disks and servers?

There is some truth in the assertion that UCL is running out of data centre capacity; specifically space to accommodate equipment, and electricity supply and related cooling demands.

However, it is also true that due to lack of funding, staff and training:

  • old equipment is often left in data centres for some time after it leaves active service;
  • new server virtualisation technologies (for example VMware) are not widely deployed in the production environment;
  • general consolidation projects are not undertaken and servers are often replaced on a one-for-one old-for-new basis despite the fact that new systems are much more powerful that those that they replace (and use more electricity).

Better management of UCL data centres and increased investment would solve these issues. There are hints that these issues will be addressed but no concrete proposals from management. In fact IS staff have led the introduction of new virtualization technologies in the IS development environment using the open source implementation of VMware.

The current outsourcing proposals will actually require the installation of an as yet unknown quantity of additional servers to interface with Microsoft's data centre in Dublin so the proposals will actually complicate and worsen the current situation.

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Q - Will I be able to use HTML format email with pictures and fancy formatting with the new system?

You can use your existing email client if you are using Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird or Macintosh OS X Mail. HTML email is displayed on all modern email clients without any problems-active content attacks notwithstanding (to which Outlook is particularly vulnerable). The College should provide training to help staff migrate from older email clients.

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Q - Can I use Microsoft Outlook with Oracle Calendar?

You can. Outlook can be configured for using existing College email services very easily and there is also a plug-in for Oracle Calendar (though this is not well publicised). More details here: www.ucl.ac.uk/is/diary/access.htm#outlook

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Q - What will happen to my Oracle Calendar data if we move to using Outlook?

Questions surrounding migration of existing Oracle Calendar diary and task data to Outlook have yet to be addressed by the outsourcing scheme's proponents.

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Q - So why don't we all use the same diary solution?

The following is advanced as an argument for outsourcing:

" "We have a fragmented approach to Email and Calendar provision within UCL which is complex and inefficient and does not provide the integrated, reliable, collaborative environment essential to a modern institution." 

There are several calendar and diary software packages used throughout UCL (The main two are Oracle Calendar and Microsoft Outlook) The large majority of UCL users rely on Oracle Calendar either as a WTS application, a web based application or a standalone package.

" "As noted in the Introduction, the presence of multiple calendar and e-mail systems is one of the primary inhibitors of more seamless collaboration within the University. The inability to book meetings across the enterprise is noted as one example of the impact of this inefficiency."

This is in fact the only clearly identified problem which can be found throughout the document except for the occasional mention of compatibility issues with "mobile devices". 

Some statistics follow:

Users of Microsoft Exchange with Integrated Calendar, email and address book, split into their various organizational domains:

  • Management Systems (ADM) 1017
  • Hampstead Campus (MEDSCH) 1062
  • MSC Prion Unit (PRION) 177

Oracle Calendar

  • 3533 registered users (May 2008)
  • 2134 Active users
  • Concurrent usage typically 300-400 users

A number of these accounts are duplicates for users who have to operate both Oracle and Exchange calendars

Why does Oracle Calendar usage receive more scrutiny than that of Outlook? Mention is made of an unknown number of Oracle users having to also use Outlook; a distinction between "registered" and "active" Oracle Calendar users and the maximum number of concurrent Oracle users is indicated. Comparable data has not been made available for Exchange users. 

This looks very much like 'spin'. The lack of comparable figures in an exercise that is supposed to be about reviewing every option equally is rather disconcerting. It suggests that the intention is to downplay the importance of the Oracle calendaring solution which is used by the majority of users in the college?

Oracle Calendar was originally deployed in UCL to achieve some form of interoperability between different operating systems (including UNIX and Linux systems).

The ISD review document notes Oracle have recently launched a new Collaboration Suite product called 'Beehive' but this has not received even cursory scrutiny by the reports' authors.

Why should the majority of users switch to a product used by the minority? The minority product users could reasonably be invited to join the majority. They can still use Outlook as noted above.


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MOTION: Email outsourcing - the high cost of low price? 

UCL UCU believes: 

  • That all forms of marketisation in the HE sector are a direct or indirect attack on our employment conditions 
  • Profits made by private sector service providers must come from a combination of attacks on staff's employment conditions, higher service costs (which will be passed onto College as increased costs to students and cuts to staffing and courses) and a reduction in service quality. 
  • That marketisation in the HE sector takes two forms: outsourcing services previously provided by College staff and hiring staff via external agencies on zero-notice contracts. 

UCL UCU notes: 

  • That proposals to outsource College email and calendar services to a private sector provider (Microsoft) have been formulated with little or no consultation with staff and students. 
  • That the technical arguments advanced by the scheme's proponents are at best disingenuous and that only superficial regard has been given to improving in-house service provision as an alternative. 
  • That the assertion that the new service will be 'free' does not take into account the large transition costs (including expensive consultancy services incurred to-date) and that ultimately the College will be charged an unknown fee for service provision (or a costly and disruptive return to in-house service provision). 
  • Questions regarding privacy, security, training and accountability remain unanswered. It is not even clear under which country's legal jurisdiction our email and calendar data will be kept. 

UCL UCU believes further: 

  • Careful and negotiated centralisation of some IT services is likely to be the most efficient model of provision, and this can be acheived in the case of email and calendaring without recourse to outsourcing. 
  • Further moves towards 'hosted' or outsourced service provision is an unacceptable attack on staff and students' interests. 

UCL UCU resolves: 

  • To instruct the UCL UCU Executive Committee to work with concerned members to publicise the email and calendaring outsourcing proposals and conduct a ballot of UCL UCU membership to determine the extent of opposition to the proposals. 
  • To campaign for sufficient staff, training and infrastructure investment to maintain and improve in-house IT services. 
  • To involve other campus Trade Unions and the UCL Student Union in a joint campaign to defend in-house service provision. 
  • To propose a motion to Congress based on the above. 
  • To facilitate the creation of an UCU IT staff group to deal with IT staff specific issues.

Passed at the UCL UCU General Meeting 24 February 2009