Contributed Article.  Author: Ron Robbins, Quest Software, now part of Dell

 

 

Let’s say that you have done all the research, looked at all the pros and cons, and already decided that Office 365 is the solution for your company. You definitely want the ease of administration, the guaranteed up-time, and the low cost that Office 365 offers. Then, you come across a web advertisement for Hosted Exchange. Now your decision just became complicated! Do you go to Office 365 or one of the many third-party hosted Exchange service providers available? There are some differences, and some advantages, that these third parties can provide. Let me see if I can help you with your decision.
 

Hosted Exchange has been around since long before BPOS and Office 365 have been available. Whether it is a dedicated solution or a multi-tenant solution, customers have known the cost savings and reliability some of these hosted solutions provide. Third-party hosted Exchange solutions can provide many different benefits and features. Here are just a few:

1.       Public Folders – Until next year, you will have to give up your public folders when you move to Office 365. Office 365 will have them eventually, but not until the release of Exchange 2013. Most all third-party providers allow for public folders.
 

2.       Application integration – Do you have any applications that integrate with your current on-premises email system? Third-party providers usually can accommodate these requests through a dedicated hosting solution. You would not have to give up the integrated experience when going to the cloud.
 

3.       Special storage needs – If some of your users require larger mailboxes or larger message transfer size, then you may want to consider a third-party provider. Office 365 limits storage, whereas a third-party provider can customize these to your needs.
 

4.       Advanced transport rules – Whether it’s content you want to handle in a custom way, or some type of advanced content blocking or management, you will have to look outside of Office 365 for anything beyond the basic. 
 

5.       White label – Often, with third-party hosted solutions, your email experience does not have to match that of everyone else on the service. You can have your own personal email solution that looks and feels like one provided by your own local IT department. It can include company logos, colors, policies, etc.
 

6.       Custom SLAs – A third-party provider works with individual customers. Typically, they will offer a general service and, then, a custom dedicated option. The SLAs will varying according to individual need, and offer a faster response time and better credits for loss when the SLA is not met.
 

This list is by no means meant to be exhaustive, but, it certainly will give you some things to think about as you make your choice when moving to the cloud.  
 

Speaking of moving, there is one decision that will not be hard to make. That decision involves who is going to take you to the cloud. The  Quest Software (now a part of Dell) OnDemand Migration for Email solution will migrate your mailboxes to Office 365, or a hosted provider. It even will migrate your mail data back to an on-premises server, if you decide the cloud is not right for you.   Quest has migrated over 30 million mailboxes to Exchange, and has the most experienced support and professional services organization in the industry. No one else has our experience in migrating users to Exchange or Office 365. While making your decision between Office 365 and a third-party provider, head over to the Quest website and take a look at the solutions offered for Migration to Office 365 (and other Hosted Exchange providers). That part of your decision should be the easiest one to make.

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