[Hidden-tech] Email Hosting

Karen Ammann KAmmann at ota.com
Mon Nov 7 10:55:39 EST 2011


Hi Neal,

Thanks for the input.

I wonder what kind of trouble you (or anyone else in the group) ran into with GAPPS that caused your criticism? I had read online about the same experience, system down with no recourse. The benefit we're attracted to is if the system goes down we won't lose anything, which is what we experienced in this latest outage.

The downfall we're finding with someone local is that if we're down, they're probably down too. We have our IT dept outsourced with a local company and they're really against switching to GAPPS for the same reason you've stated, but our larger concern is keeping our remote colleagues online when the North East is under snow attack.

Thanks,
Karen

From: Neal Priestly [mailto:neal.priestly at gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, November 05, 2011 11:20 AM
To: Karen Ammann
Cc: hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net
Subject: Re: [Hidden-tech] Email Hosting

Karen-

The largest drawback to using Google Apps email - if there is a problem, you have almost no ability to resolve it.

I had two occasions to need support, the kind of things I could have resolved in under an hour with access to the Exchange tools on an owned server.  I never actually got to talk to a person - and we were using the paid gmail, not the free version - and response times tended to lag beyond the end of the work day, responses tended to be requests for irrelevant information covered in the request for assistance.  Both times we ended up having to accept that there were no resolution options after getting the run-around for a few days.

Highly unacceptable for a paid service.  When it worked it was great, but you have to gauge your tolerance for email lost with no recourse, and possibly no awareness until it's too late.

I'd look into hosted service with a smaller, local company instead.  They are more expensive than Google, but you get some fine folks supporting you when things go sideways - and people who are on the same clock you are, rather than getting support from Dublin and Bangalore.

I know both Crocker and IBS have hosted email offerings that they support though I didn't get too deep into the process before the project was shelved so I can't speak to real comparisons between the two.

One other thing to look at:  you mention a widespread team - can you do the various compliance things like a litigation hold with the hosted provider like you can with your own server?  That's a question to ask 1) your legal counsel to see what you might need to consider and then 2) your sales person to see if/how those needs can be met with the service.  I assume hosted Exchange can be managed as you would manage a local Exchange instance, but I don't know what other hosted services offer to meet those needs.  I know of at least one - though I've forgotten which one - that straight out told me that if I needed that ability I'd be better off shopping elsewhere.

-Neal Priestly
 Free Range Technologist
On Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 11:56 AM, Karen Ammann <KAmmann at ota.com<mailto:KAmmann at ota.com>> wrote:
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Hi Everyone,

With staff scattered across the US and Canada and a very snowy winter on its way, a big concern for us is having stable email access. We currently have an exchange server in-house. We don't currently have a generator hooked up to our servers, but we do have a good back-up system.

Questions:

-          We're thinking of moving our business email over to gmail. Pros/cons?

-          Is that an extreme move? Would more our email be more stable with a large hosting company instead of sitting on a server in our office?


Thanks for your input!
Karen

________________________
Karen Ammann
Member Services & Development Manager
Organic Trade Association (OTA)
Follow OTA on: <http://twitter.com/OrganicTrade>


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