move to Hosted Exchange AND File Server?

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grayskull

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# 78140 28-Feb-2011 12:58

been reading the Hosted Exchange Thread, and thought it best to not hijack that thread.

We have been thinking about moving everything to off site hosting for a while now, and given the EQ in Chch and loss of one of our servers down there (different business) we are wanting to expedite the migration.

I like the look of the Microsoft BPOS that freitasm mentioned.
Also looking into the Office 360 service, but its only Beta?

Basically we want Exchange hosted.
And our file server hosted as well.

We want a hosting company with redundancy, off shore or at least in different cities.

What happens with Active Directory and signing on if its all hosted online off site? Ideally we want to get rid of our server here altogether.

currently 8-10 users.
Max Exchange user file size is one of about 6gb, rest are around 3-4gb max.
File Server has about 30gb on it.

To add to the mix, there are 3 different organisations that have mixed users with different access rights. Also 5 different domains for email.

any suggestions? I note freitasm saying Singapore hosted BPOS speed is fine for Exchange, and with our ideal of offshore hosting how would File share speed fare?

Zeon

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# 444123 28-Feb-2011 13:32

If reliability is important to you offshore hosting is a bad idea. The Southern Cross Cable building in Northcote is pretty dodge for the importance of that cable (being located on the corner of a very busy intersection and next to a petrol station and bottle shop so physical damage could be a concern). Also the further away you get in terms of the internet, the more links in the chain can get broken so to speak.

Also unless your sticking with consumer grade DSL the cost with business connections of moving data out of New Zealand is infinitely more expensive than keeping it within NZ. For example with Orcon we pay $850 a month for 10-20mbps of National bandwidth (unlimited) and pay around $350 a month for 1mbps of international bandwidth (unlimited). If you go with per GB pricing for international it was around $5GB with Orcon and that was for max 2mbps too.

To be honest your best bet would be to go with someone like Maxnet who have a primary site in Auckland and secondary site in Christchuch. You could either buy your own servers and keep them at their datacenters or use their VPS service where its a virtual server with them keeping the hardware going and you control the operating system and software. You'll want a decent internet connection if you have your file server there as the upload on DSL will make it painfully slow to use otherwise.

Speedtest 2019-10-14

btrevarthen

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# 444129 28-Feb-2011 13:52

theCloud offers Hosted Exchange 2010 with full self-management console (see the video) currently operating two diverse sites (Auckland and Hamilton) with a third (Wellington) due in May 2011.

http://www.thecloud.net.nz/go/exchange

In terms of file server, if this is to be the primary source of file sharing then your bandwidth to theCloud will be of significant importance. Ideally you would either be on a high-speed circuit such as Peering on APE or WIX, or operate a hybrid model where theCloud is the common store or backup store with day-to-day usage of files still happening locally. We have a product in development called CloudSync that will do exactly this. Alternatively you can rent a Virtual Server and we can put it on theCloud domain along with your Hosted Exchange email accounts so the authentication is common.

Happy to help and keen to chat - 0800 425383 or directly to me (Bruce) on 021 567967.

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bruce.trevarthen.nz

paulspain

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# 444145 28-Feb-2011 14:46

This is a pretty big conversation and probably one that requires much more analysis than can be offered in an online forum. I would suggestion involving a professional would can help you make a balanced decision.

Next up - let me provide clarification of Microsoft BPOS vs Office 365. You can think of Office 365 as BPOS version 2. It's currently in beta and will replace BPOS this year (I'm guessing around mid-2011). Both products provide file storage as part of the bundled SharePoint offering.

A couple of things to consider however:
- Compare the last major International outage that NZ had (where Southern Cross Cable was offline) - with when your ISP had an issue and also with when the local data centre you're considering had an issue with their Exchange hosting service.
- Now compare the cost. Your 6gb mailbox hosted at the prodvider mentioned above will cost $62/month (and more if the mailbox grows). In my opinion that's probably too much.

If you want professional advice on this matter feel free to contact me. I'm sure there are others too on Geekzone who would be happy to assist in such a manner.

Paul Spain
Founder: Gorilla Technology, NZ Tech Podcast, Cloud Labs, UFB.org.nz

btrevarthen

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# 444150 28-Feb-2011 14:59

I agree with $62 being a bit nuts for a mailbox cost, but then 6GB for a "hot" mailbox is also a bit nuts, that's why archive folders are for

That said, I'm keen to bring the cost per GB down, but it has not been on my top ten things to do lately since very few customers have more than 2 or 3 GB mailboxes, 6 would be very unusual. Perhaps a tiered approach would work, i.e. get cheaper with size??

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freitasm

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# 444152 28-Feb-2011 15:08

What kind of files? Anything that could live on a Sharepoint server? I am about to crete an account with Rackspace for testing, which is Exchange plus Sharepoint space for file sharing/workgroup...

My technology disclosure | Digital Transformation | Enterprise Content Management | Customer Relationship Management | Data Insights, Business Intelligence and Advanced Analytics

grayskull

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# 451155 23-Mar-2011 15:52

Hey thanks everyone for your replies and info offered up.

Sorry for the delay in replying, my son was born nearly 7 weeks early so I've been scrambling as of late.

What I have realised is that this is far too complicated and too big a decision for me to research and resolve on my own. So I've started typing up a brainstorming list of needs & wants, to form a request for price and get it out into the market for professional help.

Basically we are a residential construction company, we went down the road of an Australian database system for measuring, pricing, estimating and job control but its based on such ancient tech, constantly crashed and underperforms.

So I am including a need for the above, as well as document file control/store, auto storing/filing of emails based on subject lines with our job numbers in them (sharepoint?), and shared use of Excel & Word files.

All with a mind to disaster recovery and operating when one node (?) goes down.

having not issued an IT RFP before whats the best way to do so?

cheers

paulspain

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# 451201 23-Mar-2011 18:55

What you're after here may be a bit small for a typical RFP. I suggest you go ahead and document your business requirements as you've suggested. Next step is to look for an organisation that is able to help you develop an appropriate solution and would be a cultural fit with your firm.

It's worth paying for professional consulting because if someone gives you a 'free quote' on a solution the outcome will only be worth what you've paid for it. You really need to find a long term solution that will meet your business needs.

Paul Spain
Founder: Gorilla Technology, NZ Tech Podcast, Cloud Labs, UFB.org.nz