LA's move to Google Apps is underway

Google's China woes no deterrent; City'due south pact includes Gmail encryption provision

Senior Editor, Computerworld |

Google Inc.'south contempo disclosure that its systems were subject to a "highly sophisticated and targeted attack" from inside People's republic of china has not deterred the city Los Angeles in its plan to move its 30,000 employees to Google Apps.

Los Angeles agreed in October to supplant its Novell GroupWise collaboration system with the hosted Google Apps software tools.

The city estimates the cost of the change at some $7.25 1000000, but Los Angeles officials believe the move will save millions of dollars in software licensing, maintenance and storage costs while improving security.

The city launched the program this calendar month with a pilot project that volition run across nigh 3,000 employees using Google Apps past the finish of March. From that bespeak on, Los Angeles intends to increment the number of city workers using Google App by 4,000 to 5,000 each week.

Last week, Google revealed that it had been hit past cyberattacks likely launched in China to steal its intellectual property. Google contended that other companies faced like online attacks.

The principal goal of the attackers may have been to access the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Google has said that merely ii accounts were accessed but that the hackers were unable to see due east-mail content.

Google last week said the cyberattacks may prompt information technology to pull out of the Chinese market.

Los Angeles spent months negotiating a contract with Google that includes a provision providing the city with unlimited damages if its nondisclosure agreement (NDA) is breached by Google, said Kevin Crawford, the assistant full general manager of Information technology for Los Angeles and the person who is managing the transition. That clause aims to protect the city from a tertiary party merits if personal data is release, said Crawford.

Crawford said the nigh of import clause in the contract requires that Google to encrypt the city'southward data and break information technology into pieces when it is at rest then that no i can get their hands on a full file. If hacker somehow accesses a file, he will only see "a whole agglomeration of gibberish," Crawford said. The contract also confined Google from viewing whatsoever data without permission from the city.

Los Angeles data volition be administered from inside LA's firewall past urban center staffers through an administrative panel built by Google, said Crawford. "Nosotros take control of our portion of the information," he said.

Moreover, the data must remain on systems within the continental U.S. That can exist verified via auditing past the metropolis, Crawford added.

"We're going to take a more secure system and then we have today," said Crawford, noting that Google personnel does more work on security "than we could ever afford to practise."

Los Angeles isn't forcing employees to abandon Microsoft Office, since it already owns licenses for information technology. Only the city won't exist buying new Office licenses for the next 12 months, and then will appraise with diverse departments almost whether they still demand information technology, said Crawford. "Our all-time guess is that for somewhere betwixt sixty% and 80% of the staff, Google apps will meet all of their function productivity needs," he said.

Crawford said the city has seen "significant interest" from around the land well-nigh its motility to cloud computing. About 50 state county and local agencies in California have asked Los Angeles for information about its agreements, he said. More than than 20 government agencies outside of California have sought information on the Google plan as well, said Crawford.

Shawn McCarthy, an analyst at IDC, Los Angeles also faces the significant issue of whether the system can maintain the records compliance and search capabilities needed by government. "I'grand not convinced that your typical provider tin can run into all those requirements immediately," he said.

However, McCarthy said that in theory, a cloud arrangement should be able to meet the needs and requirements of government entities. "But like everything else information technology needs to evidence itself. Perhaps the LA understanding will be the one," he said.

Patrick Thibodeau covers SaaS and enterprise applications, outsourcing, authorities IT policies, information centers and IT workforce issues for Computerworld. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @DCgov, send eastward-post to pthibodeau@computerworld.com or subscribe to Patrick'southward RSS feed .

Senior Editor Patrick Thibodeau covers Internet of Things, enterprise applications, outsourcing, government IT policies, data centers and IT workforce problems for Computerworld.

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