The
State of South Dakota has excelled at email consolidation and collaboration for
well over a decade. Email consolidation is the process of “joining up” on a
service or capability, not only internally within a single government agency
like BIT, but also externally with each of our state departments like Social
Services, Health, Education, Tourism, etc.
Ever
since the mid 90’s, BIT has maintained a traditional, centrally located email
system within state government. Unlike
the majority of other states, South Dakota has successfully practiced complete
email consolidation across the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of
state government.
What
are the pros and cons of email consolidation? Some of the benefits are as
follows:
- Cost Advantage: The long-term savings of avoiding separate systems, servers, licenses, and personnel far outweigh the short-term initial cost.
- Compatibility: Without the need for cross-integrated, separate email systems, communication is much more efficient and effective.
- Storage: A single, centralized messaging system reduces the need for duplicate storage systems and allows for a single area of recovery if a disaster were to occur.
- Single Global Address List: Any client of the consolidated system can see all members on the system through a single user listing.
- E-discovery:
In the case of a court requested search of emails, or personnel related emails,
the process of collecting these messages only runs through a single
system.
-Marcus Mahlen