Pros/Cons for mail server options

[Smitty2k1]

Hey all, I work for a small company with around 200 employees spread across 4 locations in the US. We currently have email through a local email provider with our domain name as the @address. This forces us to use their circa Win95 layout webmail site or outlook tied to a specific machine. Very few users like myself have the knowledge or desire to setup email forwarding through a service like Gmail.

We don't have a full time IT person but do have a few staff members who have built our computer/server infrastructure over the last 10 years. We do pay for a local outside consulting company to assist us with network related issues/upgrades/fixes.

Management got a quote from this consulting company for a Microsoft Exchange server along with setup/training etc.

But we would like to know the pros and cons of owning/maintaining our own hardware as opposed to a hosted option. I would also like input on Gmail for business.
We are a testing/research company that is more recently getting into higher level security projects for the government. We think that data security and confidentiality is a top concern for all of our customers and occasionally encrypted emails are required to be sent or received.

The consulting company doesn't have much to say on these options as they make a profit from selling us the $10,000+ server.

Any help from you experts would be greatly appreciated.

 

[hawk82]

Pros to a hosted e-mail solution:
1. no need to buy additional servers to run the mail server(s).
2. no expensive maintenance contracts for IT support for said server(s).
3. should not have to worry about maintaining data backups (on and offsite).
4. security of the mail servers is the contracted hosting company's issue/problem to deal with.
5. internet bandwidth savings? Given that many users you'd probably need a decent reliable internet connection to run the server in house.

cons to hosted solution:
1. Internet goes down, you don't have access to your e-mail (unless using an Exchange solution w/ offline support).
2. Relying on some other company to do the correct job, maintaining backups, providing good service, etc.
3. Can be expensive when scaling upwards (in my opinion).

pros to running your own server:
1. data is yours, it's in house and you know where it is, who is handling the servers, etc.
2. faster access to e-mail since it is local (I guess this wouldn't apply to 3 of the locations unless you spread out the mail servers somehow between the 4 locations).
3. configure the server the way you want.
4. easy access to diagnostic logging, like when employee A says "well I e-mailed that important document yesterday. did you not get it?!?!?"

cons to running your own server:
1. having to deal with spam & viruses.
2. having to deal with maintaining security of the server.
3. having to deal with data backups of server.
4. can be expensive to purchase new servers & software licenses.
5. requires a good solid reliable internet connection (or multiple if email is critical Line of Business app to your company).

That's what comes to my mind. I probably missed something. Others should be able to fill in.

 

[timreichhart]

If you want to go free and open source and if you have a server run ubuntu email server (linux mail server).

 

[Sc0ttFern]

What's wrong with going with Gmail for Business? It's something like $50 a person per year and each person gets 10GB of email and it supports Outlook.

 

[Red Falcon]

It depends on how many users you have with Gmail and what your budget it. For a few people it might be all that is necessary. For 1000+ people, getting the equipment and IT staff may be a more cost-effective approach. It really depends on the situation.

 

[Smitty2k1]

Pros to a hosted e-mail solution:
1. no need to buy additional servers to run the mail server(s).
2. no expensive maintenance contracts for IT support for said server(s).
3. should not have to worry about maintaining data backups (on and offsite).
4. security of the mail servers is the contracted hosting company's issue/problem to deal with.
5. internet bandwidth savings? Given that many users you'd probably need a decent reliable internet connection to run the server in house.

cons to hosted solution:
1. Internet goes down, you don't have access to your e-mail (unless using an Exchange solution w/ offline support).
2. Relying on some other company to do the correct job, maintaining backups, providing good service, etc.
3. Can be expensive when scaling upwards (in my opinion).

pros to running your own server:
1. data is yours, it's in house and you know where it is, who is handling the servers, etc.
2. faster access to e-mail since it is local (I guess this wouldn't apply to 3 of the locations unless you spread out the mail servers somehow between the 4 locations).
3. configure the server the way you want.
4. easy access to diagnostic logging, like when employee A says "well I e-mailed that important document yesterday. did you not get it?!?!?"

cons to running your own server:
1. having to deal with spam & viruses.
2. having to deal with maintaining security of the server.
3. having to deal with data backups of server.
4. can be expensive to purchase new servers & software licenses.
5. requires a good solid reliable internet connection (or multiple if email is critical Line of Business app to your company).

That's what comes to my mind. I probably missed something. Others should be able to fill in.

Thanks for all the great info!

If you want to go free and open source and if you have a server run ubuntu email server (linux mail server).

Linux and open source is not an option

What's wrong with going with Gmail for Business? It's something like $50 a person per year and each person gets 10GB of email and it supports Outlook.

I don't know if anything is wrong for Gmail for Business, and that's why I asked for some pros and cons

It depends on how many users you have with Gmail and what your budget it. For a few people it might be all that is necessary. For 1000+ people, getting the equipment and IT staff may be a more cost-effective approach. It really depends on the situation.

Thanks, we currently only have around 200 staff and our president is a bit stuck in his ways and refuses to have a dedicated IT person let alone an entire staff. I did describe my situation above and asked for advice


Thanks for the input everyone, keep it coming!

 

[Jay_2]

We use gmail for 1000s of users so I have first hand expereince in this.

Pros

You don't have to worry about the mail server
Google have DCs all over the world so access is always pretty quick for users no matter where they are
Less ports to have open on your firewall! <--- big one for me!
Backups are done for you as is replication

Cons

Really crap logging, if an email goes missing you can't find out why without asking google to look into it for you.
Less flexable
Cost

 

[Nate7311]

Hawk did a great job at a synopsis of the pros/cons. (Did you steal that from a test somewhere? )

Seriously though, in my eyes, it depends on two factors, expected growth and potential confidentiality of your email. As Hawk82 outlined, from a cost perspective, a Hosted solution (Microsoft Hosted Exchange @ $6/user/month, maybe?) would most likely be cheaper in the longer run than local hardware + licensing costs + maintenance, and you'd have a specific support line. Some Hosted Exchange solutions also offer a local Active Directory sync component as well, to keep Exchange account passwords in sync with your local network. However, in a hosted environment, you never truly own your data. Remember, posession is 9/10 of the law. But that is also a calculated risk.

The flip side of this are the the potential confidentiality issues of a non-premise solution. That would be the biggest concern I would have with a Google solution. The fact that you mentioned confidentiality and secure email and government contacts, etc would make me shy a little from as public of a solution as Google.