Before the cloud, large companies depended on IT administrators to install and manage company email and collaboration tools. Companies bought expensive servers, set up automated processes for regular maintenance, and delivered training to employees about how to maintain and archive their own email. Automated processes were put in place by IT staff to manage storage, backups, security, virus issues, and data recovery, to name a few.
Although this entire process is productive, it’s also costly. Many large companies still manage their own email services on premise, because they have the capital and prefer to manage their own data, equipment, and security. Yet this isn’t the only option, and many small to medium-sized businesses are finding that choosing to outsource their email service to a hosted Microsoft Exchange provider can save time, money and effort, while also avoiding the headaches of maintaining an email server.
Hosted Exchange Explained
Hosted Exchange is not a new concept, but the advancing technology associated with it is continually being updated. Hosted Exchange is a service many providers offer that includes managing an email server, its license, maintenance, data, and support of Microsoft Exchange. Essentially, third-party hosted-service providers are paid to host the expensive and sometimes complex task of email and its components in a cloud environment. Hosted-service providers can synchronize data for easy, real-time access and keep all their clients’ information managed and stored in a central, secure location — usually a data center.
Why Migrate to Cloud-based Hosted Exchange
Although the on-premise Exchange solution is still widely used by larger companies, many of those companies, and especially small to medium-sized businesses, are migrating to a cloud-based solution for hosted Exchange. Although the costs are difficult to forecast at the outset, most managed services companies state cost savings as the number-one reason to migrate. Migrating to a hosted Exchange service comes with many other benefits as well:
· Anywhere, anytime and offline; desktop and mobile mail access
· Current upgrades and features
· Data storage, backups and recovery
· Easy migration between platforms
· A flexible platform for growing businesses
· Monitoring and security
· Price-per-mailbox plan
· Real-time virus and spam protection
· Reliable uptime
By relying on hosted-service providers, businesses can focus on their productivity goals and leave the IT tasks to trained experts. The evidence of the cost savings from a hosted Exchange service has already been proven, yet the benefits go beyond savings. The advantages of cloud computing almost always outweigh the costs and maintenance associated with on-premise solutions. If businesses can leave complex IT responsibilities in the hands of experts, their risks go down and their productivity goes up.
With hosted-service providers tapping into a business landscape that’s hungry for cloud computing and the cost benefits that go with it, there are few reasons not to sign up. Security continues to be a number-one issue for technology in general, but it shouldn’t be a showstopper. Technology experts are continually improving processes and working toward ultimate security in order to gain customer buy-in. Outsourcing your email service to a dependable provider can relieve your IT staff of a major task and allow them focus on greater company goals.