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California’s Email Consolidation Project will consolidate State email services to provide a more secure, robust environment at a lower cost to the State. As of July 2008, the State Chief Information Officer (CIO) appointed the eServices Office to coordinate this effort. Partners include the State CIO, State and Consumer Services Agency, and other State departments and agencies.
The eServices Office will create a consolidation team by mid-August, and will begin monthly email administrator meetings by mid-August. A project timeline will be established by the end of October. Policies and notices will be posted on this website as they are developed.
If you are interested in serving on the consolidation team or would like more information, please contact us.
Background
Email systems for California's State government are fragmented and costly. The current email system includes several platforms and more than 150,000 mailboxes. About 70 percent of departments use Exchange, 20 percent Lotus Notes, and 10 percent GroupWise. Email platforms are purchased, installed, and maintained on a department-by-department basis, costing the State several million dollars annually ($12-18 per mailbox).
Since there is a variety of email systems in the State, there is no common address book to take advantage of features like calendaring, common address book, emergency or security notifications. As a result of the uncoordinated email systems, the State is increasingly at risk for failure, virus attack, lost email, and extended interruptions. There are also no standards across departments, and there are often missed steps in adding security patches. This can lead to system problems and lost email.
Anytime there are new software patches or upgrades in software, operating systems, email server, or other infrastructure, staff at each department need to do the upgrade. Thus, they are done redundantly across agencies, and changes may not occur simultaneously.
Benefits
Consolidated email systems are developed with a common infrastructure, upgrades occur in one place, software patches for security are implemented across the board in a timely manner, and require less staff time to manage. Other benefits:
- Standardized look and feel
- Reduction in training time/cost for support staff as well as employees changing departments
- Improved security
- 24/7, 365 availability and live help
- Disaster recovery
- Overall cost reduction