8/2/2019 Forrester Cloud Email Infrastructure and Operations Analysis
1/21
Making Leaders Successul Every Day
Jaay 5, 2009
Shol Yo Eail LiveI The Clo? A IastcteA Opeatios Aalysisy Chistophe Voce
o IT Iastcte & Opeatios Poessioals
http://www.forrester.com/8/2/2019 Forrester Cloud Email Infrastructure and Operations Analysis
2/21
2009, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited. Inormation is based on best availableresources. Opinions refect judgment at the t ime and are subject to change. Forrester, Technographics, Forrester Wave, RoleView, TechRadar,and Total Economic Impact are trademarks o Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property o their respective companies. Topurchase reprints o this document, please [email protected]. For additional inormation, go to www.orrester.com.
Fo IT Iastcte & Opeatios Poessioals
ExECuTIVE SummArY
Tere isnt much that hasnt already been said about the criticality o email in business today but the
cost o hosting and managing your own email inrastructure is probably reaching the breaking point.
Googles $50-per-user annual ee has set a new oor in email pricing and is driving organizations
to look inward at their situation and then outside at the hosted and cloud oerings. Companies are
looking at upcoming email migrations, consolidations, and upgrades as times to potentially make a
change. Beore making a service architecture change, you should examine the needs o your dierentuser constituencies, prole the applications that either integrate or work in concert with email, and
understand the real costs o keeping email in your data center and running it yoursel.
TA bLE OF COnTEnTSOPremise Email Is Givig IT Ops A Migraie
The Service Architectures To Support Email
Are Evolvig
Orgaiatios Should Loo To The Sy For Help
Roll Up Your Sleeves Your Users, Apps, Ad
Costs Dictate The Best Approach
rECOmmEndATIOnS
Ready Your Orgaiatio To Tae Advatage
O The Cloud
WHAT IT mEAnS
Email Could Ope The Door To Broader Cloud
Adoptio
ALTErnATIVE VIEW
Storage Treds Shit The Cost Euatio For
Microsot Exchage Users
Supplemetal Material
nOTES & rESOurCESFoeste sveye 53 se copaies,
iteviewe 12 o those copaies, a
iteviewe the ollowig 14 veos: Azaleos,
Capgeii, dell, EdS (HP), Google, HP, Ibm,
Iteeia.et, LiveOce, mailtst (a ivisio
o rackspace), micola, micosot, novell, a
Syatec messageLas.
Related Research Documets
Shol Yo Eail Live I The Clo? A
Copaative Cost Aalysis
Jaay 5, 2009
Tiig The Fat Fo Echage
Apil 28, 2008
SaaS Cliets Face Gowig Copleity
Apil 17, 2008
Jaay 5, 2009
Shol Yo Eail Live I The Clo?A Iastcte A Opeatios Aalysisrethikig Whee Yo Eail Lives A Whos maagig It
This is the seco ocet i the Eail I The Clo seies.
by Christopher Voce
with Te Schale, be Echols, a Saa bes
2
6
7
14
17
17
18
18
mailto:[email protected]://www.forrester.com/http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=46302&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=46302&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=42981&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=45700&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=45700&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=42981&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=46302&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=46302&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/http://www.forrester.com/mailto:[email protected]8/2/2019 Forrester Cloud Email Infrastructure and Operations Analysis
3/21
2009, Foeste reseach, Ic. repoctio PohiiteJaay 5, 2009
Shol Yo Eail Live I The Clo? A Iastcte A Opeatios Aalysis
Fo IT Iastcte & Opeatios Poessioals
2
On-PREMISE EMAIL IS GIVInG IT OPS A MIGRAInE
Email is not new technology, but the way email is accessed, managed, and delivered is constantly
evolving. Googles cloud-hosted enterprise push along with Microsos introduction o its hosted
Exchange Online service have caused many inrastructure and operations (I&O) proessionals to
wonder whether they should continue to manage and run their entire email inrastructure in their
own data centers.1
Forrester recently spoke with 53 large enterprises to nd out how they plan to provide email or their
organizations and what barriers they see in shiing their email architecture. More than two-thirds o
respondents said they have already evaluated or are in the process o evaluating their email systems,
and many are considering dierent approaches (see Figure 1). In this report were examining the
barriers and opportunities to move some or all parts o email to a hosted or cloud provider, and in a
companion report titled Should Your Email Live In Te Cloud? A Comparative Cost Analysis, we
urther explore the ully loaded costs o running email on-premise or in the cloud.
Figure 1 may Etepises Ae rethikig Thei Eail Achitecte
Source: Forrester Research, Inc.42980
What delivery model do you think you willuse?
1-2Are you evaluating alternative options formanaging and providing email?
1-1
Source: Q3 2008 North America And Europe Email Architecture Online Survey
Base: 53 IT professionals responsible for providingemail at North American and European businesses
Base: 36 IT professionals responsible for providingemail at North American and European businesses
that have previously evaluated or are currentlyevaluating alternative options for managing
and providing email
(multiple responses accepted)
Currentlyevaluating
49%
Not evaluating 30%
Have previouslyevaluated
19%
Dont know 2%
Keepin-house
Move our servers to a
colocated data center
A hybrid of on-premiseand external
email services
Migrate to a hosted ormanaged email provider
Outsource internalemail operations
28%
14%
56%
19%
22%
31% are considering multiple models
8/2/2019 Forrester Cloud Email Infrastructure and Operations Analysis
4/21
2009, Foeste reseach, Ic. repoctio Pohiite Jaay 5, 2009
Shol Yo Eail Live I The Clo? A Iastcte A Opeatios Aalysis
Fo IT Iastcte & Opeatios Poessioals
3
Several Factors Trigger Orgaiatios To Reevaluate Email Architecture
You dont approach a decision to move something as critical and complex as email lightly. ypically,
your organization has a sunk cost in email inrastructure, and its criticality makes you shy away
rom rocking the boat. Its hard to ignore the i it aint broke, dont x it mentality when a
disruption to email can carry heavy consequences. One interviewee rom an oil and gas company
stated, I a message doesnt go through, you may stop production, and another rom a nancial
services company said, And what happens when the link goes down even i its or hal an hour,
because the [trading] bell doesnt wait. However, there are certain trigger events that organizations
have come across that cause them to rethink their email architectures. Our conversations with
interviewees ocused on:
Spiraling costs caused by email requirements. Email doesnt exist in a vacuum a variety oexternal business and technical pressures cause a ripple eect in costs associated with backup,
archiving, eDiscovery, security, and high availability and disaster recovery that tie back toemail.2 A whopping 42% o rms cited costs associated with running email as the primary
trigger to re-evaluate their approach (see Figure 2).3 Firms must adhere to external regulatory or
legal requirements dictating how long they keep messages, which orces them to invest in pricey
archiving and eDiscovery systems. For many organizations, email holds a business- or mission-
critical role, so I&O proessionals invest heavily in acilities like expensive SANs or alternate
ailover sites to insulate them rom downtime and disasters.4
Te biggest driving orce is reducing cost. A huge problem or us is storage because we have
expensive SAN hardware dedicated to Exchange. (Healthcare organization)
Were always examining how we deliver a technology rom a cost and capabilitiesstandpoint. Complexity is increasing, and cost along with it. Email antivirus and antispam
changes so rapidly that insourcing email is a major distraction. Its not core to our
business, and wed rather ocus on core activity rather than worrying about running email.
(elecommunications company)
Email consolidation projects. Several actors have driven rms to put overweight emailinrastructure on a diet. Whether its legacy email systems that didnt scale well, causing more
servers to be dedicated to email, or mergers and acquisitions that le organizations with
multiple disparate email systems rom dierent vendors and dierent versions that must be knit
together, many organizations look to drive more eciency into how they deliver email.
Managing multiple platorms is an ordeal but it does work and I put work in quotes.
(Financial services rm)
Upgrades and migrations. Another combined 16% o surveyed users cited major upgrades andplatorm migrations as triggers to re-evaluating their architecture. For some organizations, these
8/2/2019 Forrester Cloud Email Infrastructure and Operations Analysis
5/21
2009, Foeste reseach, Ic. repoctio PohiiteJaay 5, 2009
Shol Yo Eail Live I The Clo? A Iastcte A Opeatios Aalysis
Fo IT Iastcte & Opeatios Poessioals
4
activities might also be tied to a consolidation, where dierent parts o the company are running
dierent email systems or versions. Oen, the goal is to create a shared service to serve email to
the broader organization. Interviewees cited this as an ideal time to question whether or not this
should still reside in their own acilities.
We are looking at upgrading to Exchange 2007 across our organization, which is spread out
around the world. Rather than keeping email in-house, were evaluating hosted providers to
ofoad it altogether. (Manuacturing company)
Emails Reach Ad Legacy Complicate Architectural Chages
For I&O pros, supporting legacy inrastructure is always a primary barrier inhibiting innovation
and exibility. Forrester denes MOOSE as spending to maintain and operate the existing
organization, systems, and equipment and email can be the 800-pound MOOSE in the room.5
Te cost o maintaining email internally extends beyond the email servers themselves, andorganizations are oen conronted with maintaining the sprawling legacy.
But trying to pry email inrastructure out o the data center raises many challenges. Interviewees
listed several critical points o integration where hosted email would have to tie back into their
company, with directories and applications topping the list (see Figure 3-1). Interviewees also
questioned the security o entrusting email to a third party and are dubious that an external provider
can ensure the availability o email (see Figure 3-2).
Figure 2 risig Eail Costs dive Fis To Seach Fo Aswes
Source: Forrester Research, Inc.42980
Source: Q3 2008 North America And Europe Email Architecture Online Survey
Base: 36 IT professionals responsible for providing email at North American and European businesses thathave previously evaluated or are currently evaluating alternative options for managing and providing email
What is triggering your evaluation or change?
Merger oracquisition
Upgradingexisting software
Moving todifferent vendor
New leadershipdesires change
Other
Serverconsolidation
Email is gettingtoo expensive
14%
14%
8%
8%
6%
8%
42%
8/2/2019 Forrester Cloud Email Infrastructure and Operations Analysis
6/21
2009, Foeste reseach, Ic. repoctio Pohiite Jaay 5, 2009
Shol Yo Eail Live I The Clo? A Iastcte A Opeatios Aalysis
Fo IT Iastcte & Opeatios Poessioals
5
Figure 3 bsiesses Face may Hles Whe makig Chages To Eail Achitecte
Source: Forrester Research, Inc.42980
Source: Q3 2008 North America And Europe Email Architecture Online Survey
Base: 26 IT professionals responsible for providingemail at North American and European businesses
that have previously evaluated or are currentlyevaluating using a hosted or hybrid
approach to provide email(multiple responses accepted)
What other barriers or concerns do you haveabout moving email out of the data centers?
3-2What are the critical points of integration?3-1
Integration issues
Potentially higher cost
Organizational impact
Functionality loss
Regulatory/legal implications
Email availability
Security concerns
2
5
5
5
6
13
20
Dont know
Records management
Partner access
Availability
Security
Mobility options
Applications
Collaboration suites
Directories 16
16
12
4
4
2
1
1
1
1
Unified communications
Email Is Embedded Deeply I The Orgaiatio
Email does not sit near the surace in most organizations inrastructure. Its tightly wrapped in
business processes, services that support and extend email, and applications (see Figure 4). All
o this makes it dicult to take advantage o architectural shis that can drive down the cost and
increase exibility. Te ties that bind email inrastructure into organizations include:
Supporting inrastructure required to support and extend email. Tere is a piece oinrastructure supporting email that can complicate making an architectural change. A shi
would aect systems like message archiving or disaster recovery both the inrastructure
itsel and the process and people that support it. For instance, organizations are increasingly
accountable or an accurate record o their documents and communications, whether it comes
rom regulatory, internal, or legal requirements. Broader corporate data archiving or eDiscovery
strategies can complicate changes to email architecture. Mobility inrastructure like BlackBerryEnterprise Servers are very latency sensitive, so where the mail servers go, so must they.
A broader set o messaging and collaboration services. Companies are deploying new tools
to oster more eective collaboration among their employees, including instant messaging, Web
conerencing, and team workspaces. Tese services are becoming more and more intertwined
8/2/2019 Forrester Cloud Email Infrastructure and Operations Analysis
7/21
2009, Foeste reseach, Ic. repoctio PohiiteJaay 5, 2009
Shol Yo Eail Live I The Clo? A Iastcte A Opeatios Aalysis
Fo IT Iastcte & Opeatios Poessioals
6
as unctionality like presence is integrated across collaboration tools. For example, you
can integrate Microso Exchange mail inormation into SharePoint sites or relay reporting
inormation. One interviewee remarked, I it was just email, wed make the jump right now
but there are strong links to our other collaboration tools. Well strongly consider this in thenext ew years, but it wont be just or email.
Aliated applications and processes. Many applications may require integration with emailsystems or their unctionality, and they can vary in how deeply theyre tied into email. Your
nancial system may simply require SMP to send email updates to employees, while your
CRM package might use a platorm-specic protocol like Microso Exchanges MAPI to send
customized newsletters to customers. Its not just the applications, either some disparate
email environments that span an enterprise might integrate with dierent directories as well,
urther complicating integration. Email integration can be more subtle, too. For example, rms
requently use template-based emails to drive business processes like a new employee hire or
acilities request.
THE SERVICE ARCHITECTURES TO SUPPORT EMAIL ARE EVOLVInG
Te options you have at your disposal or where to run email are evolving, but they address basically
two questions: Where does the email live? and Whos managing it? Answering these two
questions paints a simple picture o dierent approaches to the email service architecture (see Figure
5). In addition to running everything on-premise, you can:
Outsource email operations. Basic outsourcing implies you would typically be working with
an external outsourcing provider to supplement or replace your sta running the inrastructure.Tis can address a very real pain you eel, as knowledgeable talent can be expensive and hard
to nd and retain. raditional outsourcers have evolved as well and can bring your email
inrastructure into their own data centers. Firms like Microland have a sophisticated remote
management approach, lessening the costs associated with managing and maintaining an
Exchange environment. Azaleos takes a dierent approach, remotely managing its customers
Exchange environments rom a central operations center.
Move inrastructure to a colocated acility. Te costs associated with building your own datacenter and worrying about reliable power, cooling, and adequate bandwidth are more than some
rms should bear. Colocation helps save users the trouble o building their own data centers
while beneting rom the eciencies o a larger provider.6 Some rms use colocated acilities as
secondary sites or disaster recovery purposes and where possible, utilize the otherwise idle
cycles or lower priority workloads.7
Use a hosted mailbox service. A hosted mailbox service ofoads both the hosting andmanagement o email and encompasses three basic variations: multi-tenant hosted, single-
8/2/2019 Forrester Cloud Email Infrastructure and Operations Analysis
8/21
2009, Foeste reseach, Ic. repoctio Pohiite Jaay 5, 2009
Shol Yo Eail Live I The Clo? A Iastcte A Opeatios Aalysis
Fo IT Iastcte & Opeatios Poessioals
7
tenant hosted, and outsourcer hosted. Te major architectural dierentiator o these options
is the level o integration possible just how deeply can you integrate or modiy the systems?
What are the service windows and do you have inspection rights? Multi-tenant providers dont
have to dedicate as much inrastructure to providing discrete email environments or customers,and you benet in reduced costs rom the economies o scale. Problems like server support,
acilities costs, and capacity planning and sizing now belong to your provider.
Employ a hybrid approach. Te dierent alternatives to email architecture are not necessarilyblack and white, mutually exclusive options there can be a mix o on-premise and externally
hosted services that all into two categories that well explore in depth later. First, you can
peel o support services like message ltering, archiving, and continuity and use a hosted
service provider while keeping the rest o the mail inrastructure on-premise. Second, you
can use an inexpensive single- or multi-tenant hosted mailbox service or a large number o
users while retaining others on an on-premise email system. Tis can shi the economics back
in avor o providing email to those users that you dont currently serve. Some colleges and
universities have already begun to adopt this model keeping their sta s email on-premise
while leveraging a service or the tens or hundreds o thousands o students. Firms with large
numbers o aliates and agencies, like insurance or mortgage companies, might be likely
candidates or this model as well. Tere is the potential to have more control over and drive
down costs in communications with them.
ORGAnIzATIOnS SHOULD LOOk TO THE SkY FOR HELP
Tere arent many scenarios where an organization could not benet rom hosting some o its email
services in the cloud. Te cloud lets you shed burdens like email-driven capacity planning and reeup I resources so you can ocus on your business. Certainly there are opportunities to contain
costs, but the cloud can also enable new scenarios not possible with on-premise solutions, such as
quickly integrating newly acquired businesses or spinning up new businesses.
8/2/2019 Forrester Cloud Email Infrastructure and Operations Analysis
9/21
2009, Foeste reseach, Ic. repoctio PohiiteJaay 5, 2009
Shol Yo Eail Live I The Clo? A Iastcte A Opeatios Aalysis
Fo IT Iastcte & Opeatios Poessioals
8
Figure 4 Eail Sits At The Cete O A Cople Ecosyste
Source: Forrester Research, Inc.42980
Messaging/collaboration
Mobility
IM
Web conferencing
Workspace
Filtering
Users
Disaster recovery
Unifiedcommunications
CRM, HR, etc.
Supportingservices
External email traffic
Mailboxes Routing
Laptops
Desktops
Web Access
Affiliatedapplications
Archiving Directory/directories
8/2/2019 Forrester Cloud Email Infrastructure and Operations Analysis
10/21
2009, Foeste reseach, Ic. repoctio Pohiite Jaay 5, 2009
Shol Yo Eail Live I The Clo? A Iastcte A Opeatios Aalysis
Fo IT Iastcte & Opeatios Poessioals
9
Figure 5 A Faewok Fo Eail deployet Achitectes
Source: Forrester Research, Inc.42980
Your data center
Who
runs it?
Their data center
Where does it live?
They do
You do ColocatedOn-premise
Outsourced Hosted email services
Mailboxes
Multi-tenant hosted
Single-tenant hosted
Outsourcer hosted
Supportingservices
Email continuity
Message filtering
Message archiving
CloudBased Services Ca Ofoad Costs Ad Resposibility While Icreasig Flexibility
Tere are three opportunities to use providers outside the our walls o your data center either to
replace or extend your on-premise email inrastructure (see Figure 6). Not all are true multi-tenantproviders, as some o these, like hosted email solutions, have inrastructure dedicated to you. rue
multi-tenant SaaS oerings are cheaper or providers to operate, but the trade-o is in your ability to
integrate with them. For services like a multi-tenant email ltering, this is a non-issue but i youre
looking to integrate your Siebel CRM system with Google Gmail, then this could be a problem. Based
on your organizations environment and needs, there are three architectures to consider:
1. Hosted email. Tere is a range o options at your disposal here. On one hand, or simple
environments, a multi-tenant or cloud solution can be an extremely cost-eective option.
On the other hand, rms have the least amount o control over a cloud service. Youre at the
mercy o the providers service windows as well as its upgrade cycle. Some Google Apps users
were locked out aer an upgrade to the system in October. Single-tenant email solutions dont
match the price o cloud solutions, but they oer more control to organizations. Providers also
oer more mobility options to include BlackBerry Enterprise Servers. Finally, outsourcing
organizations like EDS bring inrastructure into their own data centers to leverage economies o
scale to manage and maintain those environments.
8/2/2019 Forrester Cloud Email Infrastructure and Operations Analysis
11/21
2009, Foeste reseach, Ic. repoctio PohiiteJaay 5, 2009
Shol Yo Eail Live I The Clo? A Iastcte A Opeatios Aalysis
Fo IT Iastcte & Opeatios Poessioals
10
2. Hosted support services (hybrid). I maintaining an on-premise email system is a necessity,
there is still an opportunity to benet rom cloud services to streamline your environment. You
dont have to tie up your own people and resources worrying about message ltering, archiving,
and continuity there are people who can do it better and cheaper than you can.
3. Split-domain email (hybrid). Split-domain routing enables you to segment users and leverage
dierent architectures to serve those with more modest needs. Tis does introduce more
complexity into the environment, as you now have to either replicate directory inormation to
a provider or allow access to your internal directories.8 Perhaps tens o thousands o rotating
users may come and go, not carrying the same requirements as the ull-time sta at a stang
organization. Organizations may also look to extend email to employees in emerging markets
where they might not have the resources or inrastructure to support on-premise email.
Manuacturing rms may have many users who dont have email but who could benet rom
electronic communication in place o bulletin boards or paper-based benets enrollment.
We have over 10,000 users on email, but can have over a hundred thousand contractors
at any given time. We pulled back email a while ago rom the contractors and have them
use their own personal email. But a cloud service could be much more attractive to serve
them rom a branding and business perspective to manage communications with them.
(Proessional services rm)
Hosted Supportig Services Are Maig More Ad More Sese
Supporting services can take up more space, power, and resources than they need to. raditional on-
premise soware vendors like rend Micro are taking their solutions and oering them as a service.
While circumstances such as a broader corporate strategy involving an archiving service might limitoptions, there is a clear opportunity or many to ofoad the cost and responsibility associated with
(see Figure 7):
Message ltering. Because ltering is mostly well partitioned rom your inrastructure, itsthe easiest place to start. Tis includes in- and out-bound antivirus, antispam, encryption, and
possibly data-loss prevention. In addition to merely ofoading responsibility or maintaining
and managing the service, moving your email ltering to a provider means email is consuming
less bandwidth and your mail servers are processing ewer messages. External providers will
also be able to back their services with more redundancy than you can, at a better price.
Message archiving. As mentioned, archiving and eDiscovery or email can be trickier or someorganizations. Broader archiving, corporate eDiscovery needs, or plans or data may limit
options or you to make changes to those associated with email. Services range rom basic
journaling where all incoming messages are sent and stored at an external provider with little
granularity to more detailed archiving. Its important to ully explore your organizations
requirements or archiving and ully vet issues like, Does the online service provide
perormance requirements or discovery?9
8/2/2019 Forrester Cloud Email Infrastructure and Operations Analysis
12/21
2009, Foeste reseach, Ic. repoctio Pohiite Jaay 5, 2009
Shol Yo Eail Live I The Clo? A Iastcte A Opeatios Aalysis
Fo IT Iastcte & Opeatios Poessioals
11
Email continuity. Email continuity, or disaster recovery, covers scenarios associated with theloss o your primary site and allows email to keep owing. Te costs associated with planning
and building out your own data center or leveraging a colocation provider and purchasing the
necessary hardware and soware can be stiing. Tese hosted services range rom providing
basic send/receive unctionality i the primary server ails to more sophisticated and expensive
oerings that include access to an archive o the past weeks or months messages. When
selecting a service, you want to think about how all o your users access their email. Some email
continuity services include ailover or mobile devices as well.
Figure 6 Achitecte Optios
Source: Forrester Research, Inc.42980
Expensive to
maintain Consumes IT staff time
and resources
On-premise email All email services
(mailboxes, filtering,etc.) run on company-owned servers.
Integration withdirectory and otherbusiness applications
Exposure to businessfailure by service provider
Hosted email All email servicesare delivered by ahosted mailbox serviceprovider.
Loss of direct access
Potential for conflict inimplementing archiving
and eDiscovery processes
Hosted supportingservices (hybrid)
Some supportingservices, like filtering orarchiving, are delivered
by a cloud- basedprovider.
Integration withdirectory and otherbusiness applications
Different experiences forworkers using on-premiseversus hosted email
Split-domainemail (hybrid)
Some employees usethe on-premise email,and some use a hostedmailbox service.
ChallengesArchitecture Description Benefits
Traditional, hence
comfortable Easier integration with
other applications andresources
Pay-as-you-go financingmodel
Always-current softwareand protection
Operated by someoneelse
Offload maintenanceof specialty services
Often less expensive
Keeps core email on-premise
Move occasional usersor new users to a hostedservice
Easier to provision newusers or acquiredcompanies
8/2/2019 Forrester Cloud Email Infrastructure and Operations Analysis
13/21
2009, Foeste reseach, Ic. repoctio PohiiteJaay 5, 2009
Shol Yo Eail Live I The Clo? A Iastcte A Opeatios Aalysis
Fo IT Iastcte & Opeatios Poessioals
12
Figure 7 Hoste Sppotig Sevices Ca Save O-Peise Eail Iastcte
Source: Forrester Research, Inc.42980
Potential barriersService
Messagefiltering
Messagearchiving
continuity
Ease of adoption
Easy
Medium to hard
Easy to medium
Best suited for
Most organizations
Organizations that do notwant the cost and complexityof an on-premise archivingstrategy
Organizations looking to add
site-resiliency to their emailenvironments but find the costsassociated with a remote siteand infrastructure prohibitive
Some might need a highly configurableon-premise solution
Already have a sunk cost in filtering
Some filtering might require directoryaccess
Broader data archiving strategy maydictate an on-premise offering
Larger corporations may do it in-housefor less
May need a feature-rich, on-premisesolution
Possible conflict with broader corporate
disaster recovery strategy Failover is easier than failback
Interdependencies with applicationscan complicate failover and failback
Hosted Mailbox Services Ca Provisio Some Or All O Your Users
Te three categories o hosted mailbox services (all o which could be considered cloud providers,
based on their pricing models) dier on cost, visibility, and your ability to integrate with them (see
Figure 8). Tere is a dierence in contract commitment as well with each o these. For example,
relationships with outsourcing rms oen involve agreements o at least three years, while a multi-tenant hosted solution requires little, i any time commitment, or basic email. Hosted mailbox
services all into three categories, which include:
Multi-tenant hosted solutions. Hosted multi-tenant email vendors use a shared inrastructureto host customers email. Because o the economies o scale in providing this, its the lowest
cost option but it lags behind the other options in your ability to integrate with your other
applications and services. Tis is an appealing option or companies with simpler environments
who need basic integration or a ully hosted architecture or those looking to provide cheaper
email or large subsets o users in a split-domain hybrid architecture. As time progresses, multi-
tenant oerings will become more accessible to a broader audience as application vendors work
with the providers to integrate with them. In time, this will be the de acto standard.
Single-tenant hosted solutions. Hosted email vendors use single-tenant, or dedicated, serversor individual companies. Tis is best suited or organizations that need a higher level o
integration than is possible with multi-tenant solutions but that still want to move email o-
premise or all o their employees or or large subsets o the organization (e.g., a large contractor
8/2/2019 Forrester Cloud Email Infrastructure and Operations Analysis
14/21
8/2/2019 Forrester Cloud Email Infrastructure and Operations Analysis
15/21
2009, Foeste reseach, Ic. repoctio PohiiteJaay 5, 2009
Shol Yo Eail Live I The Clo? A Iastcte A Opeatios Aalysis
Fo IT Iastcte & Opeatios Poessioals
14
ROLL UP YOUR SLEEVES YOUR USERS, APPS, AnD COSTS DICTATE THE BEST APPROACH
Te process o choosing the right architecture or your organization starts with a discovery project
to better understand the opportunities, risks, and implications o making a change. Tere is a large
ecosystem o partners that can help (see Figure 9). But beore you start, you have to roll up your
sleeves to do a detailed risk and impact analysis lest you come across a surprise that blows up your
migration eort. o proceed, you must understand:
How your workers use email. Its important to prole how your employees or contractors useemail. Do all o your users require ull-blown email and collaboration? Weve seen workers
all into three buckets: mobile executives, inormation workers, and occasional users.10 Cloud
services could be an opportunity to serve employees who did not traditionally have email at all.
Can email be a more eective and secure way o communicating with them? For example, i you
could reduce paper communications with employees like direct-deposit statements and other
corporate communications, could the savings more than justiy the cost?
Te applications afected by the change. Tis task uncovers the depth o the integration withyour email platorm. When examining applications, ask yoursel questions like: What is their
criticality? Are there alternatives? How deeply are they integrated? Some applications may be
targeted or sunsetting, thereore minimizing their impact on the direction you take. Tere are
some applications that might not be tightly integrated but that have proximity issues. Chatty
applications like BlackBerry Enterprise Server require close proximity to the mail server.
Your real costs in running email and the cost o change. When we asked respondents aboutthe costs associated with supporting email in their environments, their answers varied widely
and most didnt know. o see i its more cost-eective to take a dierent approach, you have toknow exactly what it costs you to keep on supporting your email inrastructure.11 Dont be shy
either: Look or the ull burden email places on your budget, rom the servers to the security,
availability, and mobility services that surround it. One o the largest components to think about
is the labor cost, which can ar outweigh the others. Finally, i making a move, whats the cost o
change? Will this require new licenses, development, implementation, or end user training?
8/2/2019 Forrester Cloud Email Infrastructure and Operations Analysis
16/21
2009, Foeste reseach, Ic. repoctio Pohiite Jaay 5, 2009
Shol Yo Eail Live I The Clo? A Iastcte A Opeatios Aalysis
Fo IT Iastcte & Opeatios Poessioals
15
Figure 9 Veo List
Source: Forrester Research, Inc.42980
AppAssure Software
Accenture*
Azaleos
Apptix
Barracuda Networks
BT (formerly British Telecom)
CA (formerly Computer Associates)
Provider
Capgemini*
Cemaphore Systems
Double-Take Software
EDS (HP)*
EMC
Global Relay Communications
HP Services*
IBM Global Services*
Intermedia.net
Iron Mountain
LiveOffice
Mailtrust (Rackspace)
IBM Lotus
MessageOne (Dell)
*Outsourcer that can also host email infrastructure in its data centerProvides hosted monitoring and management of Exchange
AT&T Hosting & Application Services
Mailboxes
Both Both Both Both
Both Both Both
Both Both Both
Both
Both Both BothBoth
Both
BothBoth
Both Both BothBoth
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
Message
archiving
On-premise
On-premise
Both
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
continuity
Both
On-premise
On-premise
On-premise
Both
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
Message
filtering
On-premise
On-premise
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
Autonomy ZANTAZ Both
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
On-premise Both
Both
8/2/2019 Forrester Cloud Email Infrastructure and Operations Analysis
17/21
2009, Foeste reseach, Ic. repoctio PohiiteJaay 5, 2009
Shol Yo Eail Live I The Clo? A Iastcte A Opeatios Aalysis
Fo IT Iastcte & Opeatios Poessioals
16
Figure 9 Veo List (Cot.)
Source: Forrester Research, Inc.42980
Provider
Mimosa Systems
NetApp
Neverfail
Novell
Open Text
PostPath (Cisco)
Proofpoint
Quest Software
Sophos
Symantec MessageLabs
Teneros
Trend Micro
USA.NET
Verio
Verizon Business
Zimbra (Yahoo!)
Microsoft
Microland*
Mailboxes
Both
On-premise
Both
Both
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
Message
archiving
Both
On-premise
On-premise
On-premise
On-premise
Both
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
Both
continuity
On-premise
On-premise
On-premise
Both
Both
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
Both
Both Both BothBoth
Message
filtering
On-premise
Both
On-premise
Both
Both
Both
Hosted
Hosted
Hosted
*Outsourcer that can also host email infrastructure in its data centerProvides hosted monitoring and management of Exchange
8/2/2019 Forrester Cloud Email Infrastructure and Operations Analysis
18/21
2009, Foeste reseach, Ic. repoctio Pohiite Jaay 5, 2009
Shol Yo Eail Live I The Clo? A Iastcte A Opeatios Aalysis
Fo IT Iastcte & Opeatios Poessioals
17
r E C O m m E n d A T I O n S
READY YOUR ORGAnIzATIOn TO TAkE ADVAnTAGE OF THE CLOUD
Otsocig eail ight see ailia. Yo ay have ee hee seveal yeas ago, a the
qestioale-at-est cost savigs it ake p o state e ses seig o a
ece epeiece a hagig eail cliets. It wol have let a a taste i yo oth. bt
its woth takig aothe look. Chages to eail platos have ae the oe sevice-povie
iely a have ive ow the costs. Cliet applicatios like micosot Otlook ae ch
oe latecy-iely a astact whee thei eail actally sits o the ses. A the sevices
theselves have ipove.
Ate peoig a ipact aalysis, yo ay ito ogaizatioal esistace to ovig o-
peise. Google, Ibm, micosot, a othe veos ae apily ipovig thei sevices to ake
the oe igestile, t aye yo ogaizatio aces too ay hles to ake a shit withithe et two yeas. Eve i yoe ot eay to ake a achitectal shit ow, yo shol:
Ru a pilot program with a hosted service. The eaty o these sevices is it ca take veylittle eot to sta the p a test the. Yo ca eel ot a hoste o clo eail sevice
ch easie tha a o-peise soltio. by pilotig a gop o ses, yo ca see how it
aects thei eail epeiece a how applicatios ehave.
Avoid deepeig your depedece o a opremise email platorm. Pase eoeivig ito applicatio eployets that have ties ito yo eail. Eploe alteative
ethos o itegatio a ocs o staas-ase ethos like SmTP athe tha tyig
ito a popietay potocol like mAPI yoll ese that yo have oe optios availale to
yo a have a ch easie tie akig a tasitio ow the oa.
Thi about more tha just email. Eail sits i a ecosyste o oae collaoatiotools a oility optios. Focsig yo appoach o jst eail theates the shae
ctioality o i collaoatio tools like pesece. I yoe egiig to aopt these
tools o have aleay eploye the, yo shol cetaily acto the i to yo plas.
W H A T I T m E A n S
EMAIL COULD OPEn THE DOOR TO BROADER CLOUD ADOPTIOn
Caig mie, micosots chie eseach a stategy oce, ecetly sai at a coeece
that people ake ecisios ase o applicatios, ot platos, a that the clo ees
kille apps. Ogaizatios ace sigifcat costs i siply poviig esiliet eail i the ace o
eteal eglatio a siess chages ivolvig m&A. All o this ight e eogh to psh a
ogaizatio to ecie that it ca o loge e i the siess o ig eail. Its ha to ake
pivots i yo siess i yo iastcte ca oly chage iectios like a take. Sccess with
eail will stat ogaizatios thikig aot whee else they ca eeft o the ecooies o
scale that the clo ca y the.
8/2/2019 Forrester Cloud Email Infrastructure and Operations Analysis
19/21
2009, Foeste reseach, Ic. repoctio PohiiteJaay 5, 2009
Shol Yo Eail Live I The Clo? A Iastcte A Opeatios Aalysis
Fo IT Iastcte & Opeatios Poessioals
18
A L T E r n AT I V E V I E W
STORAGE TREnDS SHIFT THE COST EqUATIOn FOR MICROSOFT EXCHAnGE USERS
I a micosot Echage Seve evioet, the costs associate with stoage ca oe tha
qaple the ivestet i seve hawae. SAns wee oce st-haves i oe to povie
Echage with high availaility i clsteig sceaios. With Echage 2007, micosot tagete
peoace isses ipactig stoage a has plle the esiliecy itelligece ot o the stoage
a pshe it ito Echage itsel sig ltiple copy clstes, which eas the se o iect-
attache stoage (dAS) is ow a oe ealistic optio. I act, micosot plishe a white pape
etailig its iteal se o dAS o its etie Echage evioet. may fs ot oly se
epesive eicate SAn hawae t have also eploye picey achivig soltios to give
thei ses lage ailoes. The se o dAS i Echage col ea lage aots o stoage at
a cheape pice poit eliiatig the sepaate achivig a ackp systes ecessitate y
tight ailo size eqieets a that col e eogh o soe fs to pt o the pai o
ippig eail ot o thei ata cetes a seig it to the clo.
SUPPLEMEnTAL MATERIAL
Compaies Iterviewed For This Documet
Azaleos
Capgemini
Dell
EDS (HP)
HP
IBM
Intermedia.net
LiveOce
Mailtrust (a division o Rackspace)
Microland
Microso
Novell
Symantec MessageLabs
EnDnOTES
1 A similar re-evaluation is happening in collaboration soware: Soware based in the cloud is potentially
much less expensive, makes it easier to manage a single source o the truth, and is available anywhere, at any
time. See the March 18, 2008, Get Ready For Collaboration In Te Cloud report.
2 High costs arent tied to just sending, receiving, and storing email business requirements and external
pressures demand rms surround Exchange with expensive services. See the April 28, 2008, rimming Te
Fat From Exchange report.
3 When you actor in the costs o hardware, soware, people, maintenance, storage, archiving, mobile email,
and nancing, the ully loaded cost o maintaining on-premise email can soar. So while the cost to an
http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=45382&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=42981&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=42981&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=42981&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=42981&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=45382&src=42980pdf8/2/2019 Forrester Cloud Email Infrastructure and Operations Analysis
20/21
2009, Foeste reseach, Ic. repoctio Pohiite Jaay 5, 2009
Shol Yo Eail Live I The Clo? A Iastcte A Opeatios Aalysis
Fo IT Iastcte & Opeatios Poessioals
19
individual budget holder might look low, the ully loaded cost o email is surprisingly high. See the January
5, 2009, Should Your Email Live In Te Cloud? A Comparative Cost Analysis report.
4 Exchange has become so inextricably linked to company productivity that any downtime can result in
business screeching to a grinding halt. As a result, I proessionals are rushing to improve Exchange
availability with dedicated, highly redundant storage, next-generation backup technologies, and clustering.
See the October 9, 2007, Messaging Continuity: Ensuring High Availability For Microso Exchange report.
5 Forrester has developed a checklist o 20 best practices to enable CIOs to score themselves on their ability
to control their I MOOSE costs (spending to maintain and operate the organization, systems, and
equipment). See the September 20, 2007, I MOOSE Management 20 Best Practices report.
6 Building a modern data center isnt easy, and a colocated data center will have state-o-the-art security,
power, cooling, re suppression, and network bandwidth. Colocation acilities can also act as disaster
recovery sites, provide overow capacity, and host applications that need more bandwidth or closer
proximity to users. See the October 21, 2008, Dont Build Your Next Data Center, Colocate It report.7 Te pursuit o I consolidation and greater nancial and operational benets is driving US enterprises
toward more active-active data centers data centers that run production workloads but also serve
as recovery sites. See the December 7, 2007, I Consolidation Drives Active-Active Data Center
Congurations report.
8 Cloud vendors have secure ways o synchronizing directories, but it may take convincing your security
team. I users on the hosted service still need their email integrated with other on-premise applications,
then split-domain email might not be easible.
9 Smart companies use our key strategies to succeed with email archiving: Tey rightsize the inrastructure;
walk through eDiscovery scenarios ahead o time; consider archiving other data types besides just email;
and sta and manage the archive or the long term. See the October 17, 2008, Best Practices: Email
Archiving report.
10 Tese categories capture the needs o the user, answering questions like: Does this user need a BlackBerry?
Is a Web client sucient or their work? o analyze the costs o providing email in a way that reveals where
costs can be controlled, its important to segment your employees based on what they actually need. See the
January 5, 2009, Should Your Email Live In Te Cloud? A Comparative Cost Analysis report.
11 Zeroing in on the real costs o hosting and managing your own email environment can be dicult, but in
the companion report, Forrester provides guidance on exactly how to go about it. See the January 5, 2009
Should Your Email Live In Te Cloud? A Comparative Cost Analysis report.
http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=46302&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=43398&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=43014&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=44894&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=44330&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=44330&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=46607&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=46607&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=46302&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=46302&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=46302&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=46302&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=46607&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=46607&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=44330&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=44330&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=44894&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=43014&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=43398&src=42980pdfhttp://www.forrester.com/go?docid=46302&src=42980pdf8/2/2019 Forrester Cloud Email Infrastructure and Operations Analysis
21/21
Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR)
is an independent research company
that provides pragmatic and orward-
thinking advice to global leaders in
business and technology. Forrester
works with proessionals in 19 key roles
at major companies providing
proprietary research, consumer insight,
consulting, events, and peer-to-peerexecutive programs. For more than 25
years, Forrester has been making IT,
marketing, and technology industry
leaders successul every day. For more
inormation, visit www.orrester.com.
Australia
Brazil
Canada
Denmark
France
Germany
Hong Kong
India
Israel
Japan
Korea
The Netherlands
Switzerland
United Kingdom
United States
Headquarters
Forrester Research, Inc.
400 Technology Square
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
Tel: +1 617.613.6000
Fax: +1 617.613.5000
Email: [email protected]
Nasdaq symbol: FORR
www.orrester.com
m a k i g L e a e s S c c e s s l E v e y d a y
For a complete list of worldwide locations,
visit www.forrester.com/about.
Research and Sales Ofces
For inormation on hard-copy or electronic reprints, please contact Client Support
at +1 866.367.7378, +1 617.613.5730, or [email protected].
We oer quantity discounts and special pricing or academic and nonproft institutions.
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.forrester.com/