The project of migration of a corporate mail system in "cloud" of Google

On October 11, 2011 ALV Group LLC announced project completion of migration of a mail system of the company "the Algorithm. Fuel Integrator." on the Google Gmail platform. In the course of project implementation in the company "the Algorithm. Fuel Integrator." the modern Web infrastructure of message exchange available to employees irrespective of their location was created. The customer could also refuse essential expenses on updating of the IT infrastructure and had a connectivity of the latest mobile devices for the organization of remote work with corporate data.

Step to a cloud

The basic decision on transition to a new technology platform was made by the customer owing to the following reasons:

• The mail system applied in the company which is completely licensed a few years ago became outdated and did not support modern transmission formats of data and mobile devices which appeared recently – personal communicators and the iPhone phones. At the same time the provider, providing her a hosting, increased rates for the maintenance of mailboxes.
• The used servers did not conform to requirements of modern versions of the mail systems. The wear and age of servers did not allow to be limited to partial upgrade, and required considerable expenses on acquisitions of the new equipment.

Having studied a situation, specialists of ALV Group company calculated 3 possible options: a) a hosting of a standard mail system at one of providers; b) acquisition by the customer of own server and licenses with the subsequent implementation of a mail system; c) transition to Google Applications. The price of and option without the cost accounting on migration was about 3 times higher than in option, and option on condition of operation of 5 years at the price almost comparable with "in", required big additional costs on acquisition of the equipment and licenses. As a result on a ratio the price – performance the Google Applications option was selected.

Advantages to the customer

As a result of migration the customer received modern mail systems with usual functionality for collective work with mail, calendars and contacts and also synchronization of mobile devices - without considerable capital costs of purchase of the new server and licenses. Among new features which were not earlier, we will note a possibility of instant messaging from the client of Google Gmail and also representation of presence of employees at network. Further accumulation of functionality due to connection additional a component of the Google Application platform – Google Docs, Google Sites, etc. is possible.

"Migration corporate mail systems on essentially new platform – one of the most important directions of implementation of perspective "cloud" calculations", - Savinov Sergey, the CEO of ALV Group said. "We see huge advantages of this technology to the Russian companies, first of all - at the expense of a possibility of sharp expense reduction on implementation and service of corporate applications necessary for them".

"The option offered ALV Group allowed to pass quickly to work with the new platform and in full to use advantages of mobile technologies" — Alexey Burakov, the CEO of the company "noted the Algorithm. Fuel Integrator.". "We could avoid the expenses on upgrade of the equipment assumed earlier and began to pay only for really rendered services".