Email.
It's a confusing time at the moment with lots of choices.
Do you stay on-premise or go Cloud or even hosted? What about Hybrid?
With options abound, Justin Pirie, Saas and Cloud Expert lays out the possibilities- starting from where you are today on your journey- understanding what you want from your email and suggesting some answers.
Hi My name’s Justin Pirie
I’m the Cloud Strategist here at Mimecast but I’m best known as an Analyst Blogger in the SaaS and Cloud space.
Security
Continutity
Archive
So, email strategy- that’s a big topic isn’t it.
Map your journey out
So- who’s using it?
So- who’s using it?
So- who’s using it?
So- who’s using it?
So- who’s using it?
Let’s start with some basics- Email is a commodity right?
And we all should know by now that all commodities should be outsourced to the Cloud. Right?
So how about we skip the presentations and go straight to the Free lunch? Ah- there’s no such thing as a free lunch is there?
Commodity. That’s an interesting word isn’t it. What exactly is a commodity?
A commodity generally implies an undifferentiated supply of an unchanging product from largely undifferentiated suppliers.
Let’s relate that back to the email market
I don’t think so. From my perspective demands on e-mail are rapidly increasing:
Archive
More mobility.
More compliance.
More features.
More integration
And on top of that Over the years various analysts have estimated there is up to 80% of Corporate IP contained within email. Think of how you transfer files between colleagues. Hands up who sends files through email?
Does that sound like a commodity to you?
So what should we do? How does the future look like?
What is happening today?
Cloud and mobile is driving the consumerisation of IT
For the first time in history, consumers have access to better IT at home than at work
The infiltration of technology in our personal lives is now reversing back into our corporate lives.
And with the change in social networking and phones, email has become much more important again
Communication is simultaneously becoming more important and easier.
It started with Text Messaging and Blackberries and is now Facebook and Twitter.
And consumer facing innovation is driving the market
Yet business email systems have often been neglected for years, partly due to percieved importance, partly due to cost benefit
Overall there has been cronic underinvestment
That’s why we commisioned our generation gmail study- to understand how people actually use corporate email
An independent survey and report by Loudhouse research comissioned by Mimecast into the usage of personal email for work.
And the results are shocking
Cloud and mobile is driving the consumerisation of IT
Cloud and mobile is driving the consumerisation of IT
The survey showed 85% of under 25’s use personal email for work
1 in 5 on a regular basis
They now know better than ever before- people have on average 3 email accounts including work. 52% of under 25’s think their personal mailbox is better than their corporate mailbox.
And I’m not alone in that either- 66% of people say that email is their preferred communication vehicle at work.
Why? It’s because email is the easiest, most non-obtrusive way to manage work and personal communications.
79% of people send work emails from their personal accounts- 1 in 5 on a regular basis.
There’s a disconnect here
The big question was WHY?
And in terms of storage- people have been trained to think of storage as unlimited. Despite the limitations of traditional email systems.
Anyone who’s tried to manage mailbox sizes on Exchange 2003 understands that storage isn’t unlimited- at least without a significant cost.
Not surprising that 56% of people have mailbox frustrations and 39% over the size of their mailboxes.
Or is it that in order to remain productive and flexible this generation “workaround” security policies?
The restrictive policies that IT has put into place for “security” have been foiled by these workaround workers, and they’re potentially damaging the Enterprise.
I don’t think this is a problem we can ignore any more.
SO what’s the solution?
I think there are other answers to protect the organisations value.
But IT aren’t entirely to blame- they’re struggling to find a balance between employee empowerment and control.
But the problem is that the perimiter is gone. You can’t trust your own network anymore.
Force Can’t Solve All Problems-
"The more you tighten your grip… the more star systems will slip through your fingers.” -- Princess Leia
We need to enable them to use corporate systems, not because they have to, but because they prefer to.
What should we be doing today?
We can extend the corporate email environment to try and give users the empowerment they want while retaining control for the enterprise?
We’re at approximately 4% adoption today according to Gartner
Rising to 10% at the end of 2012
And 30% by the end of 2015- a big shift
Cloud Can offer better economics- but not in all cases
So the key now is to think about strategy- the future and how to put yourself in the best possible position for the future
And specifically how you put yourself in the best place strategically to support your aims
There are three main options- on-prem, cloud and hybrid. Which should you choose?
On prem- Exchange 2010
All the benefits of on-premise exchange- Customisation, Deep Configuration, integration, Own Management, Flexibility,
But all the associated economics that goes along with that
Approximately the same FLU as Cloud but with 5% of the storage for $10.00 pupm
Or 2.5x for highly available and highly regulated at circa $25
What about Cloud with Office 365?
Excellent choice if the offering meets your demands- configurable not customisable
Configurable, not customisable
Hybrid- perfect to match the value prop to the cost- e.g. put low value users in the Cloud, high value on prem
How do you get there?
More specifically- how do you become Cloud ready?
At your own pace
- let the Cloud come to you
Migrations to 2010?
Remove the FEM on your network blocking the migration because of cost and complexity
Move the big data
Create a seamless, less risky and costly migration
Run an optimised on-premise infrastructure- JEOS
Cloud?
Remove the blockers of Security, Compliance, Storage
Compliance- add a organisation controlled and managed legally compliant email archive. Otherwise you have to keep all email accounts live forever to retain their email
Availability- control your availability with extended uptime
Security- Add advanced and configurable security to the Cloud deployment, smart routing, DLP etc
Hybrid
Use a smarthost to deliver email to the right server reducing load and traffic on the email servers and the expensive WAN
Consistent retention and search across the org
Consistent branding and corporate identity
Have consistent security policies applied on-premise and in the cloud
Cloud Ready
Choice is yours. Your own pace, not one size fits all. Small piece of it? Everything?
Let the Cloud come to you- reality. Moving at their on pace
How do I get cloud ready?
We will hear about Cloud- media will write about it. You won’t hear about hybrid and E2010 deployments
Where does Mimecast fit in- before, during and after. Your companion on that journey at your pace