If you are unaware, Google now offer a cloud based communication solution for Business, Education and Non-Profit organisations called Google Apps. This platform offers email, document management, chat and site tools all in a subscription based package.

I decided to migrate to the platform myself in August last year as I was moving to an Android based platform for most of my business tools and it seemed to make sense. There are also some considerable savings to be made when you compare this to an Exchange deployment.
When I looked at the specification I would need for my Exchange server :

• 64 Bit Hardware to run the Exchange Server
• Minimum 5 User licence Purchase
• Decent redundancy at the disk level, ie Mirror for the OS and then Mirror for the logs, Mirror for the database as per the best practice
• Subject Alternative Name Certificate (SAN) so that autodiscover, internal/external configuration would work correctly
• Possible review of Broadband if hosted locally.

I realised that running this locally as I would other services would not be an option based on cost, so I started looking at Cloud based options for Exchange and compared this to Google Apps. There are some good Exchange options out there but what really swayed this for me was the intergration with my new HTC Desire, simple pricing structure and storage capacity. At just shy of £34 per year per seat, it was hard to ignore. So I changed over, I can still use Outlook as my preferred email client and the sync tool supplied is great. All in all I am very happy with my decision.

I have since been sharing this success with my clients, and one in particular has been looking at cloud based email solutions as an alternative to our Exchange 2003 upgrade. We decided that Google apps would be a good fit for them, and after some planning, migrated the users over to the system. This coincided with a handset upgrade to the Samung Galaxy phone at Head office and we now have full intergration across all the devices, both home based desktops, work based desktops and the handsets. No more blackberry synchronisation requirements to keep calendars up to date (never really got on with Blackberries). This is a mixed environment with remote users running both Mac and Windows platforms. The Mac users are running the popular Office for Mac with the email client, Entourage. Windows and Outlook with the Google sync tool works like a dream....Mac not so well.

Here are some tips for anyone migrating a mixed environment.

• There is no sync tool for Mac. What you have to do is run secure IMAP connections over SSL into the account.
• Although tempting to use a Windows PC to connected the Exchange server to run an instance of the Sync tool and populate the stores, my experience wasn't smooth. I found that IMAP wouldn't pickup the mail store folder structure, and then when you try to recreate this structure Entourage will complain that folders already exist, even though I couldn't see them. Best to Export the Exchange structure to an .rge file (Entourage Archive) and pull this in. You can also drag folders off to the desktop and then back in to the new account.
• Even though the connection will not be receiving new email, best to keep the Exchange connection open. We migrated 25000 emails in 24 hours, nice to know we could reference this with a local snapshot pre MX record change.
• Everything needs to use Inbox as the root. Google Apps will not recognise files stored outside this, at least I couldn't make this do it. Outlook can build folders as parents at the same level as the Inbox, but unless you use Outlook, you won't see these. Log into the web based portal and you will see just the inbox and subfolders. Where is it? It's there alright, you just can't see it in the web portal.

Just teething problems really, and all in all this has been a great success. If you are considering other options, i would recommend this as something to look at. Cost wise it just works.  As for Google, it will no doubt continue to take over the world, but this has to be something to do with the tools and the quality it continues to produce.