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MAKING THE RIGHT DECISIONS

ABOUT EMAIL OUTSOURCING

HOSTED EMAIL SOLUTIONS

VISTALOGIXSHOSTEDEMAIL SOLUTIONSPROVIDEONE OFTHE SINGLEBEST COST SAVINGSWHILEALLOWING ORGANIZATIONSTOFOCUSON THEIR CORE BUSINESS.

T H E V I S TA L O G I X G U I D E TO

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I N T R O D U C T I O N

In 2010, the State of Florida passed SB2020, requiring

the outsourcing of all state email systems.

A B O U T T H E A U T H O R

Brien Posey is an MCSE and won the Microsoft MVP award for the last few years. Brien has written over 3,000 technical articles and written or contributed material to 27 books. Prior to becoming a freelance author, Brien served as CIO for a chain of hospitals. He was also previously in charge of IT security for Fort Knox.

In addition to his technical writing, Brien is the co-founder of Relevant Technologies. He also serves the IT com-munity through his own Web site at www.brienposey.com.

A B O U T V I S T A L O G I X C O R P O R A T I O N

Based in Florida, Vistalogix Corporation has been providing effective web-based technology solutions for small and mid-sized government and non-profit organizations since 2003. In 2008, Vistalogix was awarded a federal GSA IT Schedule 70 contract, which catapulted the company into the government arena.

In the early days of the “Internet boom” the Vistalogix founders were creating web apps, such as the IT indus-try’s Brainbuzz.com and the University of Florida’s Gatorzone.com, to deliver rich, interactive content to mil-lions of demanding users. This enterprise background has equipped Vistalogix with the unique ability to deliver cost-effective software that is well suited to the needs of smaller organizations, while incorporating the reliabil-ity and design standards found in much more costly enterprise solutions.

Today, Vistalogix is responsible for reliably delivering web-based software and services to thousands of users. Organizations like First Advantage, UBS and Barclay’s/Lehman Brothers rely on Vistalogix’s software to manage orders for background checks. The Broward Sheriff’s Office and the State of Florida use Vistalogix to deliver a statewide program for the intervention and treatment of children involved in setting fires. Furthermore, Vista-logix delivers specially designed, reliable and compliant email services to a number of government and non-profit organizations. Vistalogix continues to seek out new ways of improving the effectiveness of these agencies by focusing on solutions that enhance their abilities in operations, management, collaboration, and fundraising.

D O C U M E N T S U M M A R Y

Given the ever increasing complexity of an email or Microsoft Exchange Server system and the various email-related federal regulations that have gone into effect, it has become far too ex-pensive and risky for companies to host their own email servers. As such, the outsourcing of the email or Exchange Server system is quickly becoming an absolute necessity for any company that wants to free itself from the costs of deploying and maintaining such an environment. Outsourcing is also essential to eliminating costly down time and to shifting the burdens associated with complying with the various regulatory issues.

This whitepaper describes the primary issues faced by organiza-tions with in-house email systems and how to look at outsourcing as the best cost-saving, compliant alternative.

Reasons for Choosing Hosted Email

To Replace Internal Solutions

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Each server in an organization’s email system comes with an initial hardware acquisition cost and the cost of the Windows and email server licenses paid to Microsoft and other vendors. There may also be costs related to anti-virus software, anti-spam software, and user connection licenses. Additional costs come in the form of spare parts, overtime for administrative staff to ensure 24x7x365 reliability, and other maintenance related expenses. In fact, the long term costs associated with server maintenance usually far outweigh the initial acquisition costs over the life of the server.

Outsourcing your mailboxes to an email hosting company allows you to avoid the initial startup costs of deploying an email server environment and reduces the ongoing costs. The reason is because email hosting providers typically divide server resources among multiple clients. This means that several companies share the expense of the hardware and software, as well as, monitoring and maintenance costs, rather than your company having to cover the entire cost.

R E L I A B I L I T Y & D I S A S T E R P R E P A R A T I O N

Although the primary benefit to outsourcing your email hosting is often cost, there are other benefits. One benefit is reliability. Hosting companies typically use server clus-ters and other forms of redundant hardware to ensure that the hosted Exchange de-ployment is nearly always available. This availability is typically guaranteed in writing in the form of a service level agreement.

Another way email hosting companies are more reliable than in-house systems is that email hosting companies are usually better equipped to recover from a disaster. Most companies back up their email servers but few companies have the human and hard-ware resources to thoroughly test their backups on a regular basis. Most email hosting companies not only test their backups, they guarantee how quickly data can be re-stored should one of your users accidentally delete something.

A C T U A L C O S T C O M P A R I S O N

In 2009, Osterman Research produced a report on using hosting to reduce the costs of email. In it they published the results of several studies of actual organizations that had accomplished significant cost savings by outsourcing their email. One such scenario is presented below. This scenario is based on the following criteria:

500 users in Year 1 with email user base growing at 5% per year

Organization purchases single appliances with no backup/disaster recovery capability

Provides only 8x5 support

On-premises system is a market-leading, low-cost provider of appliances

Three-year equipment refresh cycle

Downtime is not factored into this analysis

R E D U C I N G C O S T S

Key Points

Board:

Limit liability

Take advantage of

economies of scale

Great non-personnel

means of cutting costs

Executives:

Allows reallocation of

resources and personnel

Reduce annual budget

fluctuations

Reduce required skill set

and training costs

Simplify disaster

recov-ery

IT Managers:

Allows reallocation of

resources and personnel

Simplify license

manage-ment

Cost

In-House Hosted

Average cost per user per year over six years

$86.79

$32.07

Average savings per user per year over six years

$54.72

% savings provided by hosting

60.6%

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There is a certain amount of technical complexity associated with any email system. Let’s examine Microsoft Exchange Server, since it is the most widely deployed email server platform.

M O R E C O M P L E X I T Y = M O R E $ $ $

Microsoft Exchange Server has a reputation for being one of the most complex products that Microsoft has ever created. In smaller organizations, it is possible to reduce some of this complexity by deploying the entire Ex-change Server system on a single server. Even so, having a single server deployment is extremely risky from a security and reliability standpoint. Single server deployments are also prone to performance problems, high po-tential for failure, and expandability issues.

Figure 1: A proper Exchange Server system is fairly complex, requiring many servers

As complicated as this diagram appears, it actually represents a fairly simple Exchange Server system. In fact, the diagram does not provide for any server redundancy that would keep the organization functioning should a server failure occur. The diagram also assumes that the organization has few enough end users that all of the user’s mailboxes fit on a single mail server.

The point is, even a “simple” Exchange Server system is complicated and with that complexity comes added cost. The first cost you are likely to encounter is training your administrative staff to design, deploy, and main-tain an effective Exchange Server environment. As expensive and time consuming as the training is, it quickly becomes obsolete. Microsoft released Exchange Server 2007 before the product was actually complete. As such, the first service pack includes many features that do not currently exist. The service pack also includes a GUI interface to many features that are currently only configurable via the command line. When this service pack is released, administrators will need updated training so that they know how to deal with the new features and management utilities.

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Another reason why increased complexity leads to increased costs is because of the number of servers required to host Exchange Server 2007 in a secure and reliable manner. The diagram shown in Figure 1 represents an Ex-change deployment that is secure but not reliable. More servers are needed to make this deployment more reli-able, yet several Exchange Servers are already being used.

D O W N T I M E : T H E P H A N T O M C O S T

Although not always a tangible cost, downtime is usually very expensive. Downtime has a direct impact on employee productivity and fixing the problem requires the adminis-trative staff to temporarily neglect other tasks and focus on fixing the problem. Addi-tionally, there may be a direct loss of revenue because users are unable to receive time-sensitive email messages. The repair may also incur more tangible costs, such as server parts or service calls.

The most serious aspect of an email server failure is the potential for data loss. De-pending on the type of failure, the chances of recovering email server data are directly related to your IT staff’s skills and to their diligence in backing up the email server and routinely testing the backups.

As you can see, downtime can be very expensive for a number of reasons. It is impor-tant to remember that outsourcing your mail server does not automatically eliminate the potential for downtime or data loss.

Figure 2: Actual report of Spam, viruses and attacks blocked for a client.

A D D I T I O N A L F E A T U R E S ( O R H E A D A C H E S ? )

So far, we’ve discussed basic email functionality. However, in today’s environment, organizations are faced with ever-increasing needs to improve productivity and satisfy compliance requirements.

Smartphones

Everyone loves their iPhone/Blackberry/Droid! Smartphones have been the biggest boon to productivity in the last decade. However, deploying and maintaining the vari-ous components, such as Blackberry Enterprise Server or Microsoft ActiveSync, that al-low these devices to deliver their productivity benefits require an added level of ex-pertise and resources. Of course, these translate into additional costs.

Compliance

One final reason why it may be prudent to outsource your email solution is that many organizations are subject to various federal regulations regarding the security, management, and retention of email. Complying with these regulations is as tedious as it is expensive. Furthermore, executives and IT professionals may be subject to criminal penalties, including prison time, for non-compliance. Depending on the specific regulations that apply to your organization, you may be able to shift some of the compliance burden and reduce cost by out-sourcing your email.

Anti-Virus/Spam

Controlling the number of viruses and Spam emails that assault an email system on a daily basis is a daunting task by itself. Keeping up with this burden requires not only a unique skill set and attention to detail, but an appropriate set of tools. Effective email server security requires dedicated hardware and software, as well as time spent monitoring and updating virus and Spam signatures databases and threat updates. Add to that the

R E D U C I N G C O M P L E X I T Y

Key Points

Board:

Help organization focus

on core business

Isolate business email

from personal email

Executives:

Improve productivity by

reducing downtime

Risk mitigation by

ensur-ing compliance

More workforce mobility

& flexibility

IT Managers:

Reduces workload &

shifts responsibility

Simplify user & security

management

More resources to call

on when problem solving

Email Traffic

Domains Received Sent Spam Viruses DHA

xxxxxxxxxx.com 185,185 36,535 497,689 1,041 71,937

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If you are considering outsourcing your email solution to an email hosting company, then it is extremely impor-tant that you to ask certain questions before signing the contract. Some hosting companies may initially appear to be a bargain (price isn’t everything) but lack reliability and support. Some email hosting companies have been known to lack a redundant infrastructure, not have robust backups, tack on various extra fees for service, or use unscrupulous tactics to prevent customers from canceling their contracts. As a result, it is important to know the right questions to ask.

One of the most important questions to ask is whether or not the hosting company provides a managed email hosting solution. In a managed email hosting environment, the hosting company takes care of all of the server maintenance. They back up the data, apply security patches, handle any other maintenance or support issues that may arise. Many non-managed hosts simply allow you to rent a server in their datacenter with the manage-ment and maintenance of that server still left up to you. And if you wind up getting stuck doing your own main-tenance and support, you’ve defeated the purpose of outsourcing your mail system in the first place. Other pro-viders simply deliver

Of course this is only one of several important issues to consider when choosing a hosting company. The sections below explain what other questions you should ask when shopping for an email server hosting company and why the answers are important.

H O W I S M Y D A T A B E I N G P R O T E C T E D ?

Any reputable email hosting company should take the appropriate measures to make sure that their servers are secure. Even so, it’s worth asking the hosting company you are considering what steps they take to secure their servers. Don’t be surprised if the hosting company refuses to answer this question. Many hosting companies are reluctant to provide specific information about their security measures.

Even if you can’t get information about the company’s security standards, it is important to ask the company about their spam and virus protection policy. Most, but not all, hosting companies provide a spam filtering and virus protection solution. In this subject, there are usually two options: standard solution (offers basic perform-ance) or premium solution (guarantees the service and the filtering).

Email hosting companies’ spam filtering policies vary. Some companies attempt to filter the most obvious spam, while others leave spam control to the end users out of fear of accidentally filtering legitimate messages. If the email hosting company filters spam, then it is important that they provide a method for you to retrieve mes-sages that were accidently filtered out or to allow you to adjust the filtering settings.

D A T A R E C O V E R Y P O L I C Y

From time to time, a user is probably going to accidentally delete a message that they really need. If you are hosting your own Exchange Server, you can recover messages according to your own data retention policies. When your mailboxes are being outsourced, you can look to the hosting company for data recovery. It is very important that you find out the hosting company’s recovery policy. Specifically, how quickly data can be recov-ered and whether or not there is a fee for the recovery. If you have not signed a contract that specifically guar-antees long term data archiving, find out how long the backups are retained. This is an important consideration if you need to restore something that was deleted a month ago but your hosting service only retains backups for two weeks. That data might be lost forever.

W H A T A R E T H E C O S T S ?

If your primary motivation behind outsourcing your Exchange Server is to reduce cost, the first question you will likely ask is how much the service costs. Most email hosting companies base the price on the number of “seats” or “mailboxes” being hosted. For example, a hosting company might charge you $15 per mailbox per month. Although this pricing structure seems simple, it is important to remember that many email hosting companies use a sliding price scale. For example, when you purchase additional mailboxes you might qualify for a volume discount. At the same time, some companies actually charge more per mailbox as the number of hosted mail-boxes increases to cover the additional consumption of their server resources. It is important to find out upfront what happens to the price as the number of hosted mailboxes changes.

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S T O R A G E Q U O T A S

Most email hosting contracts stipulate a maximum size for a user’s mailbox. Find out what happens if users end up outgrowing the allotted space. Some hosting companies implement a quota preventing the maximum mailbox size from being exceeded. That means mailbox functionality may be disabled when it hits capacity making it impossible to send and/or receive messages.

Other hosting companies may even charge you a fee for exceeding the allotted disk space. In all likelihood, at least a few users will eventually need additional disk space. Ask upfront how this need will be met.

D O I G E T M Y D A T A B A C K ?

Aside from pricing, the single most important question to ask an email hosting company is what happens to your data if you cancel the service. Although not a common prac-tice, some hosting contracts stipulate that your data becomes the hosting company’s property. That means if you cancel your hosting contract, the hosting company is free to delete your data. They are under no obligation to give you any future access to the data. It is therefore essential to confirm that you retain ownership of your data and that the hosting company will assist you in migrating the data to your servers or to an-other hosting company’s servers should the need ever arise.

H O W M A N Y T I M E S H A V E Y O U B E E N D O W N ?

When considering transition to a hosted email environment, it is natural to focus your attention on the cost of the service in comparison with the cost of hosting your own servers. An equally important consideration is downtime.

Hosting companies can have server failures just like anyone else. It is therefore critical to insist that the hosting company provide you with a service level agreement.

W H A T I S A S E R V I C E L E V E L A G R E E M E N T ?

A Service Level Agreement is a contractual obligation for the hosting company to pro-vide a certain level of reliability. A higher percentage means more reliable service. Generally, you should accept a service level agreement of no less than 99.9% availabil-ity; however, some hosting companies are able to provide 99.99% or even 100% avail-ability. In addition to asking about the service level agreement, it is also important to ask about your recourse. What happens if the hosting company’s service isn’t as reli-able as they claim? Most reputreli-able hosting companies will offer you either a full or a partial refund for any time that the hosting service was unavailable. Be sure to read the fine print. In some cases, your service may have to be down for a full day before you are eligible for any type of compensation.

A D D I T I O N A L F E E S

Just as you need to be familiar with the hosting company’s pricing structure, it is also important to ask about any additional fees that the hosting company may charge. Some hosting companies have been known to charge setup fees or an annual maintenance fee. It is also fairly common for email hosting companies to charge a fee for restoring deleted mailboxes or messages.

T H E M I G R A T I O N P R O C E S S

Making the transition to a hosted mail server isn’t a big deal if you are a startup com-pany with no data to migrate. If you currently host your own Exchange Server

environ-ment, you will need to know the process of migrating your existing data to the hosting company’s servers. Most reputable hosting companies will assist you with the migration process. It is also worth asking how long the tran-sition process takes, what items (calendar, tasks, notes, public folders) are migrated, and whether or not email is accessible during the transition.

C H O O S I N G A P R O V I D E R

Key Points

Board:

Guaranteed level of

ser-vice

Establish necessary

email policies

Aids succession planning

of management.

Executives:

Watch out for basic

email services without

security, archiving, etc.

Maintain control of all

data

Obtain a service level

guarantee

Establish all fees

up-front

IT Managers:

Define who controls

your data

Know security, backup &

management policies

Know the migration

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S M A R T P H O N E M O B I L I T Y

E A S Y - T O - U S E A R C H I V I N G

F A S T , E A S Y D E P L O Y M E N T

M U L T I - L A Y E R A N T I - V I R U S / S P A M

C O N T I N U U M E M A I L H O S T I N G D E TA I L S

Guarantee Sunshine Law and FRCP compliance with automatic, searchable archiving.

O T H E R B E N E F I T S

SAS 70 certified datacenters.

Fully redundant, cloud-based infrastructure.

Variety of additional web-based IT resources specifically designed for government and nonprofit organizations.

Forget installing, configuring and learning Microsoft Exchange Man-agement Console! Adding users, creating public folders, managing Spam filtering, and all other email or Exchange tasks are easily per-formed through a simple web-based control panel that is accessible from anywhere.

O P T I O N S F O R Y O U R N E E D S & B U D G E T

E N T E R P R I S E - G R A D E S E C U R I T Y

Datacenter staffed by specialized email security engineers.

Send emails between organization staff securely, using SSL en-crypted connectivity.

Guarantee compliance using Dept. of Defense approved authentica-tion and industry-leading security practices.

Synchronize all of your email, contacts, calendars, and tasks se-curely, without coming into the office!

Microsoft ActiveSync & Blackberry Enterprise Server ensure reliable over-the-air sync with iPhone, Blackberry and new Droid devices. Regardless of the size of your organization, or how simple or

compli-cated your needs, Vistalogix has an email solution to fit both your needs and budget:

Enterprise Email

Our standard email offering provides the most-used features of Mi-crosoft Exchange at a fraction of the cost. Get fully encrypted, en-terprise-class email, anti-virus/Spam, smartphone sync, webmail, and archiving your organization can rely on.

Hosted Exchange

For organizations needing the advanced desktop integration and col-laboration features of Microsoft Exchange, we offer all of the bene-fits, without the expense and headaches of managing it in-house.

New accounts can be setup in minutes using web-based tools.

Migrations can be done in days, rather than weeks or months using online migration tools.

Dedicated migration staff available to assist when needed.

C O N T A C T V I S T A L O G I X

All in-bound messages pass through several stages of scanning at the gateway, before they ever reach users’ mailboxes.

Not only are the message headers and body checked, but also any attachments.

Virus definitions are updated hourly, as opposed to most desktop and server anti-virus programs which check only once per day. Cloudmark & Message Sniffer

All email is scanned by Cloudmark’s industry leading spam detection software, as well as Message Sniffer from ARM Research Labs. Cloudmark uses Advanced Message Fingerprinting™ to detect spam, phishing, and viruses. Message Sniffer relies on pattern recognition and machine learning technology to detect spam and malware.

sales@vistalogix.com (800) 329-8410 10460 Roosevelt Blvd. #240 St. Petersburg, FL 33716 N O N - T E C H N I C A L M A N A G E M E N T ™

Figure

Figure 1: A proper Exchange Server system is fairly complex, requiring many servers
Figure 2: Actual report of Spam, viruses and attacks blocked for a client.

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