YOKOZUNA CO. is a developer of single sign-on (SSO) and portal systems, based in Hungary.
Mailbox.hu is one of Hungary's oldest e-mail providers, providing email services since 2000.
Challenge
Mailbox.hu was looking for a more cost effective e-mail server solution with higher availability and stability that would provide users with a modern user interface and broad functionality. Their prior system had significant server, software and maintenance needs, and was based on in-house development. Mailbox.hu decided to use Yokozuna’s solution where mail, contact data and user databases were migrated into Google Apps Partner Edition.
Solution
Yokozuna devised a new system using Google Apps SSO and Provisioning Toolkit packages. This enabled users to log in with their current mailbox.hu accounts. Yokozuna integrated the design of Mailbox.hu, and the login procedure and the registration database through the SSO (single sign-on) and provisioning API's. Nearly 70,000 mailboxes were migrated including contact lists and complete correspondence and there were no system shutdowns.
Yokozuna provides 24/7 physical maintenance for the front-end (firewall, database, webserver, subsystem, etc.) and provides business hours support 7 days a week for end users through email and blogs. Customer service receives constant technical support and extended help to aid the introduction of the new system. Since Mailbox.hu's service is free of charge to end users there is a constant focus on potential spam and abuse. Yokozuna maintenance addresses these issues with the help of the regular reports from Google's spam/abuse control engineering team, Yokozuna developed a back-end script tool to manage this list more efficiently.
Results
Mailbox.hu now has a stable e-mail system which by April 2009 has resulted in user growth from 70,000 to 250,000 users. Mailbox.hu reports a considerable decrease in operating hardware and software infrastructure, which in turn resulted in the drastic reduction of operating costs.
