Cloud computing
Four issues of e-mail continuity
Administrators should carefully weigh
economical solutions.
by John Liccione
With the advent of cloud computing e-mail
offerings, coupled with e-mail
synchronization technologies, enterprises
are considering cloud computing for low-cost
e-mail continuity and disaster recovery.
When coupled with state-of-the-art
replication software to maintain real-time
synchronization and protection, cloud
computing can ensure enterprise users can
continue to send, receive and archive e-mail
if Exchange goes down.
Traditionally, enterprises seeking
reduced disaster recovery times for their
internal Microsoft Exchange corporate e-mail
systems (and other critical data) have
deployed a separate disaster recovery site
with dedicated server hardware, recovery
software and network connectivity. This
approach, however, can be expensive.
Acquiring, deploying and maintaining a
remote set of servers and network-access
infrastructure adds costs and an additional
burden on the IT staff.
When considering cloud computing service
providers for e-mail continuity, an
organization should first analyze the
following key issues:
Corporate controls: In
order to ensure proper control, security and
corporate governance, the IT department
should procure and assume the remote
management, provisioning and policy for the
outsourced e-mail continuity environment. Do
not leave it to the individual user to
configure and manage free accounts or
individual outsourced accounts. The IT
department should pilot and contract with
the provider for relevant services. The IT
administrator also can configure, deploy and
remotely manage the outsourced domain
accounts in the cloud via the provider’s
administrative user interface. Settings for
retention, archiving and access should be
managed like any other corporate IT
resource. The IT department should be
acquainted with the granularity of control
offered by the provider over domain-level
and user-level accounts and determine
whether it is adequate given the cost
savings.
Mailbox sizes: Determine
the mailbox size required and the cost
involved. Microsoft’s Exchange online
mailboxes can be provisioned with up to 4 GB
out of the box. Larger mailboxes can be
provisioned for an extra fee. Google Apps
Premier Accounts come with 25 GB of mailbox
storage.
Service uptime: Evaluate
uptime guarantees to ensure the best
possible continuity and disaster recovery
scenarios. Both Microsoft and Google offer
up to 99.9 percent-availability
service-level agreements (SLA), but the
penalties for failing to meet the SLA in a
given month do not have the teeth that other
service providers offer the enterprise
customer.
Mobile/wireless user support:
Consider mobile users and how e-mail
continuity is maintained for mobile devices
in the event of an Exchange outage or a full
site outage. Each provider treats wireless
e-mail/contact/calendar synchronization
differently, and the pros and cons of each
should be considered. Microsoft, for
example, can support BlackBerry sync for all
Exchange data types for a fee, whereas
Google Apps offers only calendar and contact
sync to the BlackBerry, not e-mail.
John Liccione is chief technology
officer,
Cemaphore Systems, San Mateo, Calif.
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