Cloud Computing Scenarios

This is a direct cost comparison of on-premise Exchange Server for e-mail, versus Exchange Online with the ability to sync with Smartphones. If you are a 20-employee company, your initial investment in server, licensing cost, email security and implementation cost will be about $12,000. Expect additional annual cost of $2,400 for supporting and maintaining the server. You will need additional investment in storage and licensing for about $1,800, and also will need to spend on an off-premise solution for email continuity.

This is compared to an annual cost of $3,000 for 20 users for Exchange Online with comparable email security. In addition, for small incremental cost of $720/year for 20 users you will have message archiving and message continuity capabilities. Additionally, these costs savings don't even factor in server depreciation. With solutions in the cloud, you're always working with the newest technology.

Factoring the cost differences over 5 years you get the following scenario:

• On Premise Solution
  Server onetime cost $12,000
  Server Support and Maintenance $2400 x 5yrs= $12,000
  Storage and Licensing $1800 x 5yrs= $9,000
  Total 5 year cost= $33,000

• Cloud Computing Solution
  Exchange Online 20 user annual license= $3,000 x 5yrs= $15,000
  Annual Message Archiving and Continuity= $720 x 5yrs= $3,600
  Total 5 year cost= $18,600

Cloud Computing represents a savings of $15,000 over 5 years.

When your on-premise e-mail server goes down due to technical failure or for maintenance, you will be without any e-mail services, unless you have planned for message continuity services hosted in a cloud. You can ensure continuity for a nominal cost of $36/year for each user of your organization.

Off-site backup is another simple solution at an annual cost of $600/100gb of data to ensure that your data is available if anything happens to your on-premise storage or if the tape wasn't taken offsite for any reason.

Microsoft BPOS (Business Productivity Online services), soon to be enhanced and rebranded as Office365 is a set of office productivity, messaging, and collaborative services combining some of the best Microsoft products. For an annual fee in the range of $72-$120/user, these online services provide Microsoft Office, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Microsoft Lync (new product that combines Office Live Meeting and Office Communication Services). Included in this fee is email security and storage of documents and e-mail. Whenever a new version is released it would be available for use within a reasonable time period, at no additional cost.