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by Tech. Sgt. J. Smith
86th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
Ramstein as well as all of United States Air Forces in Europe email accounts will migrate to the Cloud. Some tenant units began their migration June 5, and the communications squadron announced that the wing should make the transition by June 17. The system offers larger storage options, and support for mobile devices all without compromising military security requirements.
The “your mailbox is full” message is now a thing of the past for most individuals. An Air Force Space Command directive realigned resources to critical priorities and outsourced services like email.
“This is an Air Force strategic initiative that will prove we can outsource collaboration tools, formerly known as Collaboration Pathfinder,” said Master Sgt. Krystal Hughes, 86th Communications Squadron section chief, client systems. “Cloud Hosted Enterprise Services, a.k.a. CHES, is the DoD’s adoption of Microsoft Office 365.”
The system offers larger storage options, and support for mobile devices all without compromising military security requirements.
“An increase in the mailbox size helps users with work performance,” said Airman First Class Paige Onofrio, 86th CS wing executive communications technician. “There is less of a chance of losing emails because they no longer need to be constantly backed up to a personal storage file.”
Users’ mailboxes went from 99 megabytes to 99 gigabytes which equates to about two million emails.
“For the typical Air Force user, that’s an increase of 2,000 times the current capacity, which is like going from a two-drawer filing cabinet to an entire warehouse,” Markus Rogers, Air Force Network Integration Center executive director said.
Many users have already migrated.
“The AFNIC has a solid process,” said Hughes. “As of May 24th, 650,888 accounts have been migrated to the Cloud, USAFE is the last major command to migrate.”
Users will keep current “@us.af.mil” email accounts and PST files. There may not be an increase in mailbox size for several days. Users should see little to no interruption once successfully migrated.
“By outsourcing many of our collaboration tools we are able to shift our cyber manpower toward a mission defense concept,” said Hughes.
Outsourcing allows the Air Force to direct more attention toward a deterrence and defensive posture.
No end user action is required to initiate this migration though it is recommended, as a safety measure, to move your essential mail to a PST.
If there are any issues reference the Ramstein CFP SharePoint, or visit the CHES SharePoint for standard operating procedures and guidance. If these resources are insufficient to solve your problem then please don’t hesitate to reach out to the Ramstein communication focal point through DSN 480-5000.
