Microsoft live@edu Vs Google Apps for Education.

[PiqueABoo]

so can one amend the powershell to do this for all students in one command?

 

No. You'd very likely need a few lines of PS to enumerate mailboxes that belong to students and point that command at each one...

 

.. that I'm not interested in making because I don't want access to everyone's mailboxes, just individual mailboxes when a very good reason for doing that arises.

[nadeem]

thanks, I expect if I bothered to learn any PS I could just point it at a csv file with the mailbox names in

[RabbieBurns]

I have a ps script I use to iterate through a csv file for something different, all it would take is replacing 1 line.. Ill dig it out next week for you.

[zag]

Is there any way to integrate live@edu with sharepoint 2010 as a single sign on?

 

Also when people moved over from exchange, what did they do? I imagine I would use exmerge to archive the mailboxes to .pst files then reattach manually for people who wanted to keep their old emails in the full outlook client?

Edited October 11, 2010 by zag

[jamesb]

so can one amend the powershell to do this for all students in one command?

 

$csvfile = Import-CSV C:\students.txt
foreach ($badstudent in $csvfile) {
    add-MailboxPermission -Identity $badstudent -User admin -AccessRights fullaccess
}

[nadeem]

$csvfile = Import-CSV C:\students.txt
foreach ($badstudent in $csvfile) {
    add-MailboxPermission -Identity $badstudent -User admin -AccessRights fullaccess
}

 

thanks for that

[dave.81]

I've looked at this in the past but wasn't convinced by the idea. Now however looking at massive cost saving across the college this is now coming back onto the agenda.

 

Those schools that have taken up either, how much bandwidth does this take up? Being a rural school we dont have access to huge amounts of bandwidth.

 

Have you moved to this completely and done away with desktop version of Office/OO?

 

What about backups of stuff? In theory you would need very little onsite storage if all is being hosted externally?

 

This brings up so many questions...

[zag]

I've looked at this in the past but wasn't convinced by the idea. Now however looking at massive cost saving across the college this is now coming back onto the agenda.

 

Those schools that have taken up either, how much bandwidth does this take up? Being a rural school we dont have access to huge amounts of bandwidth.

 

Have you moved to this completely and done away with desktop version of Office/OO?

 

What about backups of stuff? In theory you would need very little onsite storage if all is being hosted externally?

 

This brings up so many questions...

 

We have not moved yet but as you say the benefits are starting to look massive.

 

Bandwidth isn't an issue for us with email, its tiny in the grand scheme of things. You can test it using hotmail, its the same system.

 

We don't want to move to apps, just interested in the email for now.

 

I'm guessing that Microsoft have backup data centers in place, I've never heard of them loosing any actual data. Their data-centers are not just single servers, they are clusters of servers with automatic failovers. I'd be much more confident of them keeping data than us hosting it, thats for sure.

 

Offsite email hosting is the way forward, its just a question of when.

[PiqueABoo]

Don't know about Sharepoint & SSO.

 

Also when people moved over from exchange, what did they do? I imagine I would use exmerge to archive the mailboxes to .pst files then reattach manually for people who wanted to keep their old emails in the full outlook client?

 

AIUI you don't get Import-Mailbox which is how I get multiple PSTs into Exchange 2007+. You can configure Live@edu to do POP or IMAP aggregation (& IMAP in bulk) but that wouldn't get them Calenders, Contacts etc. There is a commercial bulk migration util called MailPortal Migrator (free for single mailbox use) and might be some others, I don't know.

 

Otherwise I suppose yup, if your users are up to it, you could get their Outlook connected to Live@Edu, also open their PST from the old system and have them drag and drop things they want to keep to their Live@Edu mailbox.

 

I'm guessing that Microsoft have backup data centers in place,

 

The Live@edu email is apparently in Dublin and fails over to the Netherlands.

 

I'd be much more confident of them keeping data than us hosting it, thats for sure.

 

Ditto.

Edited October 11, 2010 by PiqueABoo

[CyberNerd]

Also when people moved over from exchange, what did they do? I imagine I would use exmerge to archive the mailboxes to .pst files then reattach manually for people who wanted to keep their old emails in the full outlook client?

 

With Google you just run the exchange migration tool, run it overnight and it migrates email, calendars, contacts...

https://tools.google.com/dlpage/exchangemigration

There must be an easier way for @edu users than above, surely?

[PiqueABoo]

There must be an easier way for @edu users than above, surely?

 

I haven't found it and doubt vendors would be selling products for bulk migration if a free way (besides writing lots of EWS code) existed.

[enjay]

I'd be much more confident of them keeping data than us hosting it, thats for sure.

 

What about recovering it when someone accidentally deletes it or whatever? That is where local hosting has its advantages.

[zag]

What about recovering it when someone accidentally deletes it or whatever? That is where local hosting has its advantages.

 

I've never actually had that in all the time I've been working surprisingly. Most of the time its just in their deleted items.

[PiqueABoo]

Lot of experience but I've only had the "can you get my mail back from months ago" scenario once. In principle L@E "purges" deleted items after 30 days and users have another 14 to recover deleted-deleted (purged) items. What's not clear to me is whether that 30 days is based on: a) Date message received, b) Date message deleted and ends up in deleted items folder.

 

But I think 90-days or something thereabouts would be better.

[plexer]

Had an email this morning from the live@edu service to say they are killing off live spaces blogging on March 16 2011 and recommend that everyone uses wordpress.com however there is no integration whatsoever with live@edu and wordpress.com but blogging on MS will come back when they integrate sharepoint.

 

Ben

[enjay]

Lot of experience but I've only had the "can you get my mail back from months ago" scenario once.

 

Ditto. The more common request is "can you get back this file/email which I deleted 10 minutes ago".

[dave.81]

The more i read up about this the more interested and excited i get... i need to get out more! For the majority of our school the functions that Google Apps provides will be more than enough and the fact that all you need is a web browser brings a lot of our "stored" pc's back into use.

[enjay]

What are Google and MS like for support on these? How helpful are they, how quickly do you get a response, etc.

[RabbieBurns]

MS have a telephone and online help portal (free) (call answered within seconds and a call/email back within the hour if logged online)

 

Ive found the telephone not to be that great, due to my scottish accent and the call center for here being non-austraila based (read india)

 

HOWEVER

 

These are just the first level guys, and they are actually great at escalating it to the proper live@edu techs based either in Aus for me, or in USA.

 

Ive worked closely with the head live@edu guy for australia, via many long phone calls and LiveMeeting sessions (remote screen sharing). Really decent and patient bloke, and a great help.

 

Also, Ive had the help from 2 awesome folks from the USA, one from the East coast, who ended up getting her colleague on the West coast to assist as it was nearwe our timezone. When i eventually finished up with the call, and started chit-chatting, it turned out he was actually finished for the day and back at home, it was 10pm his time, but he had agreed to the meeting anyway to help us out..

 

10/10 as far as I am concerened for support

[CyberNerd]

Local UK number for Google apps issues. Only called them once and they fixed it straight away.

 

However, the new infrastructure applications which integrate IGoogle, Picasa, Additional services - Google Apps Help

are not supported by the Service Level Agreement. Google are looking at providing support for these additional options:

Support options for new services - Google Apps Help

 

edit: This is the core suite, that is covered by SLA http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/users/user_features.html

Edited October 15, 2010 by CyberNerd
addition

[altonPM]

I love live@edu, however, I want to spread the word about an issue. This is probably specific to the US, but Microsoft requires that the parent input a credit card number and to be debited $0.50 as a way to approve their child's participation. This is because we have a law here called COPPA which restricts what children under 13 can do online. Still, I think a credit card is a pretty terrible way to address that restriction, especially for a school-sponsored service.

[RabbieBurns]

I love live@edu, however, I want to spread the word about an issue. This is probably specific to the US, but Microsoft requires that the parent input a credit card number and to be debited $0.50 as a way to approve their child's participation. This is because we have a law here called COPPA which restricts what children under 13 can do online. Still, I think a credit card is a pretty terrible way to address that restriction, especially for a school-sponsored service.

 

Thankfully that doesnt happen here (australia) or afaik the UK..

 

But I agree, there must be a better way to implement it than entering a CC number (my google searches imply it isnt actually charged, its just verified as a valid credit card number?)

[altonPM]

my google searches imply it isnt actually charged, its just verified as a valid credit card number?

 

My Microsoft account manager thought that might be the case, but I did try it with my own child and the $0.50 was charged to my card. They say a portion is donated to charity. It's a very small amount of money, but I think the money is beside the point.

[enjay]

My Microsoft account manager thought that might be the case, but I did try it with my own child and the $0.50 was charged to my card. They say a portion is donated to charity. It's a very small amount of money, but I think the money is beside the point.

 

50C is a very small amount of money, but take a small amount from a large number of people, and you end up with a lot of money - especially if only some of it is donated to charity.

[zag]

alton, just out of interest what kind of school is it?

 

Still no word on a sharepoint 2010 single sign on solution yet for live@edu.