Starting position

There is a saying that the shoes of the cobbler's children are the ones that look the worst. "Never change a running system" is probably the adaptation of this in IT. Our internal mail, calendar and task tool was also getting on in years. How do you update the legacy software without the most important tools, email and calendar, being down for even an hour?

The implementation

Well, thorough planning and a motivated team are the keys.

First of all, we researched which open source systems would be suitable for us. After a few detours, our technology then found SOGo as a complete replacement. Interim tests with the stakeholders showed that the system met all requirements. Some were different from what we were used to, but much better than we would have dreamed of.

Another advantage is that SOGo is open source groupware, which means we can host the system ourselves and see what happens to our data. In the context of the GDPR, ADV contracts with large cloud hosters are common, but we at punkt.de like to "see" what really happens in the background, according to the data protection motto: trust is good, control is better.

For the reasons mentioned above, 360-degree hosting from the well-known company from Redmond was never an option for us. On February 13, 2020, the time had come. After the preparatory work the day before, we switched over to the new system at 11:00 am.

And what happened, or rather, how did this make itself felt? Hardly at all to our customers (and they are the most important to us). The only thing was that I didn't want to move our series appointments from the old system, but wanted to create new ones in the new system. So I asked our customers to send me my new series appointments. Apart from that, there were no other external problems.

Internally, we had to get used to the new system, but the "Standby mOps of the day" was a great help. All the little "adjustments" that a new system inevitably entails were solved immediately, so that after yesterday the new system was fully accepted. We are happy to have a modern system that we can now update fully automatically at any time. In addition, we have remained true to our OpenSource claim.

If you would like to hear more about our changeover, or if you would like to use software that gives you full control over your data, please contact me.