Google Workspace for Education @ Cambridge¶
Formerly known as: GSuite@Cambridge
All University members have access to a wide range of apps and services from Google Workspace, including (but not limited to):
- Google Drive, including Shared Drives
- Google Calendar
- Google Chat
- Google Meet
- Google Sites
- YouTube
Access to some applications requires enabling via the Google Workspace Preferences App.
Service Description¶
The Google Workspace environment is supported by two components:
- Synchronisation of users (and groups) from Lookup to the Google directory
- Provision of SAML2 authentication via Raven Core IdP
The following describes the Google Workspace synchronisation component with the authentication being covered by the Raven OAuth2 service.
Service Status¶
The Google Workspace service is currently live.
Contact¶
Technical queries and support should be directed to gapps-admin@uis.cam.ac.uk and will be picked up by a member of the team working on the service. To ensure that you receive a response, always direct requests to gapps-admin@uis.cam.ac.uk rather than reaching out to team members directly.
Issues discovered in the service or new feature requests should be opened as GitLab issues in the sync tool repository.
Environments¶
The Google Workspace synchronisation is connected to the production Google Workspace for Education
at the cam.ac.uk domain. There is no test synchronisation but we have a test Google Workspace
at the gdev.csi.cam.ac.uk domain.
Source code¶
The source code for the synchronisation process is spread over the following repositories:
| Repository | Description |
|---|---|
| Sync Tool | The source code for synchronisation tool |
| Lookup to GSuite Synchronisation Jobs | The GitLab schedule and CI to periodically perform the sync |
Technologies used¶
The following gives an overview of the technologies that the synchronisation is built on:
| Category | Language | Framework(s) |
|---|---|---|
| Sync Tool | Python | Google Auth |
| Google API client | ||
| LDAP3 | ||
| Scheduling | GitLab CI |
Operational documentation¶
Limited documentation can be found in the Operational Docs wiki (DevOps only).
The README.md files for the sync tool and scheduling provide further documentation on how the tool and CI fit together.
End-user documentation can be found on the UIS help site.
Monitoring¶
Pipeline successes and failures can be monitored in the scheduling repository's CI Pipelines.
Debugging¶
Testing is advised against the test Google Workspace at the gdev.csi.cam.ac.uk domain using the
test sync-tool configuration file.
Admin Console¶
Some administration actions (such as reporting and challenge lockout clearing) may be done via the Google Admin Console.
Service Management and tech lead¶
The service owner for the Google Workspace is Abraham Martin.
The service manager for the Google Workspace is Dr Я Charles.
The tech lead for the Google Workspace is Robin Goodall.
The following engineers have operational experience with the Google Workspace synchronisation and are able to respond to support requests or incidents: