ICON UK 2014 - Shaping Collaboration at the University of Zurich

© 2014 Belsoft AG | www.belsoft.ch | Universität Zürich | www.uzh.ch
Shaping Collaboration at the University of Zurich
Sandra Bühler, Belsoft AG www.belsoft.ch
Roberto Mazzoni, University of Zurich, IT Services www.id.uzh.ch

Agenda
§ The speakers
§ The University of Zurich
§ Challenges, Requirements & Why IBM Notes® ?
§ A technical approach
§ What helped and why we are still happy
§ IBM Connections – a long, long journey
Sandra Bühler & Roberto Mazzoni: Shaping Collaboration at the University of Zurich - ICON UK 2014

Sandra Bühler - Introduction
sandra.buehler@belsoft.ch
@SandraCH
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandrabuehler

My office… as often as I can

Roberto Mazzoni - Introduction
roberto.mazzoni@id.uzh.ch
@davoser
https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertomazzoni

Not far from Sandra’s
preferred office – but ..

University of Zurich - Introduction

University of Zurich - About
§ Established 1833, first mentions date back to 1525
§ The largest university in Switzerland with over 26,000 students
(as an international comparison: Oxford: 20,000 students)
§ Alumni of the University of Zurich include 12 Nobel Prize laureates
(W. Röntgen, A. Einstein, E. Schrödinger, K. A. Müller, et al.)
§ Rated 56 in the “Academic Ranking of World Universities 2014“
§ Worldwide rank 33 in “Clinical Medicine and Pharmaceutics”
§ Worldwide rank 25 in “Life Sciences and Agriculture”
§ Member of the „League of European Research Universities“ (LERU)
§ Schrödinger supercomputer ranked 96 in November 2009
§ http://www.uzh.ch/about/portrait/annualreport/UZH_FactsFigures_2013.pdf

University of Zurich – Mission Statement
§ pursues scholarly research and teaching and provides related services
§ strives to provide exceptional quality in these areas and measures itself against the
highest international standards
§ is aware of its responsibility in maintaining and offering a wide range of academic
disciplines
§ grants as high a level of independence and shared responsibility as possible to its
students and staff, and promises equal opportunity on all levels
§ nurtures the intellectual, professional, and personal development of its students and
staff
§ is committed to a participatory management style
§ offers its staff modern contracts and working conditions

University of Zurich – Mission Statement -> 2nd Glance
§ is aware of its responsibility in maintaining and offering a wide range of academic
disciplines
§ grants as high a level of independence and shared responsibility as possible to its
students and staff, and promises equal opportunity on all levels -> BYOD
§ offers its staff modern contracts and working conditions -> on very old and the
latest and from IBM not yet supported HW & SW

University of Zurich - Finance

University of Zurich – Structure
§ People – including guests approximately 35’000 members
- over 26’000 students
- 562 professors
- 3’237 academic personnel
- 2’062 administrative personnel
- approx. 800 private lecturers / nominal professors
- approx. 2’000 assistant lecturers
- numerous guests
§ Decentralized and self-governed – 180 self-governed units
- 7 faculties
- approx. 150 institutes
- about 15 competence centers
- numerous associated institutes

University of Zurich – Structure -> 2nd Glance
§ People – including guests approximately 35’000 members
- 562 professors
- approx. 800 private lecturers / nominal professors
- approx. 2’000 assistant lecturers
§ Decentralized and self-governed – 180 self-governed units
- 7 faculties
- approx. 150 institutes
- numerous associated institutes

IBM Notes® @ UZH – History
§ 2005
- The university's IT strategy retains the evaluation of a groupware containing the usual
suspects: email, scheduling, contacts, tasks, mobile synchronization
- Opting for document management, synchronous communication, workflows
- Replacing the old solution for approx. 35’000 users
§ 2007
- Open tenders
§ 2008
- End of evaluation, final decision done by the university management
§ 2009
- Internal “Going live” with IT services
§ 2010
- Official “Going live” and migration of the 40'000 users (yes, we found some more...)

IBM Notes® @ UZH – History -> 2nd Glance
§ 2008
- End of evaluation, final decision done by the university management
§ 2009
- Internal “Going live” with IT services
§ 2010
- Official “Going live” and migration of the 40'000 users (yes, we found some more...)
§ Huge and successful migration to Domino/Notes in Switzerland -> and (almost)
nobody knows…

Challenges, Requirements & Why IBM Notes® ?

Challenges
§ Faculties/Institutes have very high degree of autonomy in the name of "freedom for
research and teaching".
§ The instruments for the academic usage ranges from magnetic resonance imaging
(MRI), super computing up to devices suitable for outdoor use in extreme conditions.
(Sounds strange, but believe us... they want them all to collaborate...)
§ Software needed for academic usage is built on a broad range of operating systems,
some of them very exotic. (Do you really believe OS/2, AmigaOS or OpenVMS is
exotic? Don't even dare...)
§ Academic work is international, public, interdisciplinary and strongly networked. (like
a good massively multiplayer online game...)

Challenges
§ The academic user has a very mobile working environment. (you remember the
terms “outdoor” and “extreme conditions”?)
§ Most people work for different Institutes/Faculties/Universities simultaneously and are
often sharing a full-time equivalent with other people. (Guess where we found the
“other” users, so the headcount went from 35'000 up to 40'000)
§ High fluctuation due to academic interchange and the nature of academic studies.
§ Most of them are university graduates... (“No, you can't use this mouse for bio-chemical
experiments... It's for your computer...”)
§ …. and so on
- Requirements
- Requirements
- Requirements
- Some more requirements

Free choice & No standard environment
§ People / institutes don't pay for the service, its free of charge, so they are not obliged
to use it. We have to SELL the service with persuasion, so it has to be „good“.
§ So let's raise the bar, as we have to meet the standards as expected by the users
(and provided by the old solution)
- High availability from every workplace
- Transparent service cloud needed
- Scalable & Fast
- Disaster-resistant (failover)
§ No enforcement possible neither for an operating system, a client nor for a version of
it
- Different deployed version of all (non-notes) applications
- What we try is to “enforce” at least a common “major” version of Notes

Free choice & No standard environment -> 2nd Glance
§ No enforcement possible neither for an operating system, a client nor for a version of
it
- Different deployed version of all (non-notes) applications
- What we try is to “enforce” at least a common “major” version of Notes
§ Big difference to “normal” companies. Please note the we “try to enforce” – but the
university of Zurich is not alone – same challenges with a lot of academic
environments and institutes
§ To put it positively: The free choice challenges of universities all over the world and
the solutions found can be the role models for companies that want to push and
support BYOD

Free choice & No standard environment
§ Lotus Notes support for at least the main operating systems
- 40 % Microsoft® Windows®, from Windows 2000 to Windows 8
- 40 % Apple® Mac OS, from 9.x to OS X 10.9
- 20 % other, mostly Linux® of various distributions and some exotic ones
§ Everything available in every bitness or flavor
§ How to „close the gap“ if no Notes® is available
- Not all systems allow a fat client, in many cases only a light-weight client as an
IMAP-only-client is possible.
- Or the OS is simply not supported
- Open protocols to support a lot of (native) clients where Notes/iNotes is not
possible or feasible (see later)

Role centric model & Multilingual
§ Not only the person is important, but their role is it too and it has to be separable
from the person
§ Need for non personal, shared collaboration resources accessible through access
rights
§ Mailfiles, Calendars, Contacts, Room/Resources, Applications, Databases, etc
§ Shared Mailbox: That's where mail-in kicks in
§ Switzerland alone has 4 languages of the country
§ Full support for different languages needed
- Combined with the role centric model this means that people need to have the
possibility to dynamically switch the language
- Not only multilingual templates
- Multilingual Mailfiles too...
- And that dynamically in realtime...

Multilingual -> 2nd Glance
§ Switzerland alone has 4 languages of the country
§ Full support for different languages needed
- Combined with the role centric model this means that people need to have the
possibility to dynamically switch the language
- Not only multilingual templates
- Multilingual Mailfiles too...
- And that dynamically in realtime...
§ The phenomenon of the empty inbox – there is an unofficial IBM fix for that ask your
local IBM responsible to get it, just before it will be part of the next Domino release

Openness of data
§ No vendor lock acceptable (sorry guys...)
§ Possibility to extract data after work done needed
§ Access to data from non proprietary client required
§ Open protocols (see later) to exchange/extract/import data
§ Guest users (Connection 5)

Part of the data on foreign systems
§ It is not possible for the users to have all their data they need for their work on the
IBM Domino/Notes system. Some data has to be stored on foreign systems
§ If we want that they use Notes/iNotes® as a sole system, it will have to support the
protocols to access the data on foreign systems.
§ Example
- IMAP implementation in Notes...
- POP3
- That's one of the main reasons we can't recommend Notes as the „one and only“
client

Interchange with non-IBM Domino/Notes-systems needed
§ The Notes/Domino systems have to connect with non-Notes/Domino-systems
§ Open standardized protocols are the key
- IMAP/POP3 - standard for mail
- iCal – standard to read calendar data
- ics - to exchange calendar data in file format
- CalDAV - standard for read/write access to calendar data incl. free/busy
- CardDAV - upcoming standard for contacts data
- ActiveSync - standard for mobile PIM synchronization
§ „Open Source & Standards are key to making our planet smarter and improving the way we live and work.
[...] IBM is an industry leader helping governments move toward greater openness and innovation. Our
commitment and perspective on intellectual property, open standards, and open source software emerges
from our experience in the marketplace and, equally important, from the direction in which we see
information technology taking the larger society.“
(http://www-03.ibm.com/linux/ossstds/ - Open Source and Standards @ IBM)

Why Domino/Notes®
§ Clients
- Highly heterogeneous environment at the UZH (→ diversity / autonomy)
- Notes supports a broad client infrastructure at the different release levels
- The most important operating systems are supported for the full client
- OS X, Windows, Linux
- Strategic importance of the web frontend: iNotes covers basic to advanced functionality for desktop
up to mobile computers
- Works with a wide range of browser, supported for the most important of them
- Open technology
§ Server infrastructure leaves a very solid and sophisticated impression. (→ high
quality)
- Scalable!
- Very stable
- Also great flexibility in the host operating system for the servers
- Extensive documentation
- Extension possible with other IBM products

Why Domino/Notes®
§ Scope of function / flexibility
- Very broad (!) scope of function, very well covered to a great extent
- Coverage of demands with regard to „Accessibility“ and „Usability“ (→ equal opportunity)
- Potential for closing existing gaps (IMAP implementation, etc.)
- Open platform with possibilities for expansion and further development (→ self-management /
autonomy)
§ Costs
- Within a 3-5 year perspective with a favorable and transparent cost structure
- We got a big academic discount
§ License model
- The university treats all members (~40’000) equally and offers them all the opportunity to use the
system (→ equal opportunity)
- Flexible offer, well suited to the purposes of the UZH
- Supplier as implementation partner

A technical approach

Solution Overview
Administration
1
IMAP Proxy
1
Mail
1
Application
1
Test
1
Development
1
Traveler®
1
Sametime®
1
IMAP Proxy
2
Mail
2
Mail
3
Mail
4
Mail
5
Mail
6
Mail
7
Mail
8
Mail
9
Mail
10
Mail
11
Mail
12
Application
2
Test
2
Development
2
Traveler
2
Sametime
2
Internet
SMTP
Mail Gateways +
Anti Virus / SPAM
SMTP
Test Environment 1
Test Environment 2
Test Environment 3
Intranet
SMTP
IBM Tivoli®
Identity Manager®

IBM iNotes
§ Same procedure as everywhere else: How to cluster IBM iNotes and to keep it
transparent (as a service)?
§ We've chosen a simple solution:
§ Started with 3 clusters, running
5 clusters now
webmail.lotus 207.44
207.5
IP Dispatcher
idlmail01
207.42
idlmail02
207.43
idlmail01
idlmail03
207.42
idlmail04
207.45
idlmail05
207.46
idlmail06
207.47
Round Robin
idlmail01.lotus
207.12
idlmail02.lotus
207.13
idlmail03.lotus
207.14
idlmail04.lotus
207.15
idlmail05.lotus
207.16
idlmail06.lotus
207.17
IP Dispatcher
idlmail01
207.42
idlmail02
207.43
idlmail01
idlmail03
207.42
207.44
idlmail04
207.45
idlmail05
207.46
idlmail06
207.47
Redirect Round Robin
iwaredir.nsf iNotes
Port 80,443

Drawbacks and Opportunities: IMAP Task
§ How to transform that task into a transparent service (cloud)?
§ External solution with a open-source IMAP proxy called Perdition (and the nomen
wasn't an omen)
imap.lotus
pop.lotus
207.6
IP Dispatcher
idlperd01
207.48
idlperd02
207.49
Round
Robin
idlmail01.lotus
207.12
idlmail02.lotus
207.13
idlmail03.lotus
207.14
idlmail04.lotus
207.15
idlmail05.lotus
207.16
idlmail06.lotus
207.17
IP Dispatcher
idlmail01
207.42
idlmail02
207.43
idlmail01
idlmail03
207.42
207.44
idlmail04
207.45
idlmail05
207.46
idlmail06
207.47
LDAP-Map
Perdition IMAP/
POP3 Proxy
Domino®
POP3/IMAP
Port 110,143,
993,995

Drawbacks and Opportunities: IMAP Task
§ Could be a full session and history
§ Still not everything is solved
§ BUT ….
- Challenge: Can you cluster IMAP with Domino?
- Short answer: No
- Long answer: Yes, now, after a long ride, you can..
- IMAP_UIDVALIDITY
- IMAP Data Corruption
- Tools to fix
- Delegation of Mailfiles
- Yes, it works now for IMAP too!
- Sent/Trash/Draft Folders
- Yes, can be the same folder for IMAP and Notes/iNotes now

What helped and why we are still happy

IBM Notes Traveler
§ We are happy with the current solution as it works for all needed mobile OS
§ Works like a charm
§ Runs on Linux (avoid Microsoft Server CALS you must have)
§ Started with Flip-Flop and a stand by server as High Availability was not yet available,
fully high available now
All Ports sync.lotus
207.10
IP Dispatcher
idltrav01
207.58
Traveler
idltrav02
207.59
„Flip Flop“

IBM Notes Traveler -> 2nd Glance
§ Runs on Linux (avoid Microsoft Server CALS you must have)
- Observing and being responsible for more and more Linux based IBM Notes
Traveler installs – as companies and organizations are avoiding payments for
Microsoft CAL’s for iOS or Android devices because the Traveler server runs on
a Microsoft server…

IBM Notes Traveler 2011 / 547 devices
Windows Mobile, 3
Apple iOS, 513
Nokia Symbian S60,
29
Android, 2

IBM Notes Traveler 2014 - 2’400 people with 3’100 devices daily
(not peek time!)
Apple iOS, 74%
Android, 25%
Windows Phone
Nokia, 1%

IBM iNotes & IBM Sametime
§ iNotes user experience
- From beginning excellent user experience
- Transition to iNotes 9 extremely smooth (no support calls at all!)
- Especially students deactivated old forwards and are using iNotes now
§ Sametime entry from start
- Enabled in iNotes and Notes by default
- Users just started to use it
- Some queries concerning privacy
- Upgraded to Sametime Standard within one year !
- Sametime Meetings – Start and use it!

Quota and first IBM Notes Application
§ 1 GB Quota by default for all users
§ Quota pool for each department allows mailboxes up to 64 GB
http://t.uzh.ch/64gb
§ Decentralized quota management with a IBM Notes Application
§ Delegation of Mail-In boxes with a Web-enabled IBM Notes Application

New IBM Notes Based Solutions
§ Replacing LAMP solution for Certificate Management (S/MIME) by a XPages-enabled
Notes Application
- Take advantage of Notes SSO
- Take advantage of Domino Directory

New IBM Notes Based Solutions
§ Replacing Perl/ORACLE/Apache solution seminar management by a XPages-enabled
Notes Application by Belsoft (http://t.uzh.ch/91)
- Take advantage of Notes SSO
- Take advantage of Domino Directory
- Take advantage for multiple seminars in different flavors using one template
- Easy adaption to Corporate Design for each department using it
- Option to allow guests to subscribe for courses (again, we know, it’s in
Connection 5 and it’s a real requirement)
- Easy to use and administer

New Notes Based Solutions
http://www.belsoft.ch/bsaz/web.nsf/id/ITSol_EN_Customers/$file/UniZH-KursDB-EN.pdf
§ Easy to use and administer

Facts & Figures: Email is not dead -> at all
§ 553’000 internal emails daily
§ 110’000 emails received from Internet daily
- 84’000 (76 %) classified as SPAM
§ 47'000 sent to Internet daily
§ 140’000 email addresses registered for 46’000 persons or functions in the Domino
Directory

Facts & Figures: IBM Domino/Notes – daily access by email clients
iNotes, 15'000
Notes, 3'000
(35% V 9.x)
Traveler, 2'400 POP3, 1'000
IMAP, 5'000
Macintosh
39%
Windows
57%
Linux
4%

IBM Connections – the next step in collaboration

IBM Connections – a long, long journey
§ 2011: IBM Connections kicks in
- Licensing support by Belsoft
- Missing Management Support
- First rollout within IT Service
- Connections 3.0
§ We did wrong what could be done wrong
- No management support, wrong starting points
- No plans which component should be used in which manner
- No community manager established
§ Nevertheless: IT department employees don’t want to miss it after short time of
usage!
- Upgrade to 4.0
- Ask the experts: Simon Vaughan (@SimplyS1mon) to mention one who really
helped to fix it

IBM Connections infrastructure today – Ready to move to Connections 5

IBM Connections challenges – Change the behavior of the users
§ It is a great platform - can be spread even if your management does not promote it
§ Show the features people always missed for their work
- It is not “normal” to work with a Social Business environment
- People like email, they used it for years
- People are shy (you won’t have digital natives in your administration)
- People like folders (!)
- People can’t distinguish between privacy and transparency

IBM Connections approach – Integrating into your environment
§ Make IBM Notes/iNotes and IBM Connections one experience if you have the Notes
client
§ Add IBM Connections to Notes
- Easiest way to get rid of attachments in emails
- Get your tasks from your activities to your calendar
- Show up your community calendar in Notes
- Get the profile pictures back to Notes
through Sametime
§ IBM Connections Desktop Plug-in
- Yes, the OS X Finder integration is missing

IBM Connections approaches – Integrate people with their projects
§ Identify stakeholders who will help spread the voice and help them with their projects
§ Try to find teams that cross borders
- Crisis management group needs to collaborate with all other departments
- Main library wants to collaborate with all department libraries
- Faculty projects need collaboration tools
(Physics Olympiad will be held in Zurich 2016)
§ Members today: 740 and counting…

Thank you for your attention

ICON UK 2014 - Shaping Collaboration at the University of Zurich

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