Comparing In-House vs Cloud

With the growth of cloud-based services, many companies are debating how to maximize their return on investment while still maintaining privacy for their email infrastructure. This page discusses 3 different models of deploying email systems.

Deployment Models

  • 100% Outsourced - Let a third-party company handle your emails
  • 100% In-House - Run your email servers within your organization
  • Hybrid - Run your email server on the cloud with full control. For example, on MS Azure or Amazon EC2
The following section discusses pros and cons of every approach.
100% Outsourced

Pros

  • Easy to setup - All you need to do is configure the MX record for your domain to a third-party email provider.
  • Less administration - Most of the administrative tasks are handle by the third-party company and therefore, very less administration is required on your end.

Cons

  • No privacy - Every email you receive or send goes through this third-party provider. The filtering system as well as employees working for this provider typically can see every message belong to your company. Moreover, many cloud-based companies don't actually own the hardware. Instead, they lease their hardware from yet another provider adding another layer of privacy concerns.
  • Less control - Service providers often host emails for several companies therefore, accommodating customized filtering requests is not always possible. For example, if your company policy requires up to 100MB of attached files, the server provider may not agree to this.
  • Variable cost - Service providers base their cost on several factors. This includes number of users, number of emails they get and the size of their messages. Some companies may charge you separately if you decide to hold historic data.
100% In-House

Pros

  • 100% secure - Since emails are not routed through any third-party provider, there are no privacy concerns.
  • Full control - Since the system is not shared by other companies, you will have full control over the rules when it comes to junk filtering or message size.
  • Fixed cost - Cost is deterministic when running the email system on your own hardware. Some government regulations require you never delete your emails. In that case, you can simply archive your older messages to USB drives.

Cons

  • More administration - You will typically need a technical person within your company who if familiar with email systems.
  • Hardware cost - Besides a machine, you will also need a static IP address from your ISP to run an email server. Hardware costs can be minimized by using a virtual machine
  • Network outage - Email servers should be running on a network that seldom goes down. Many small companies, particularly in rural areas, do not have a reliable network that can be trusted for network continuity.
Hybrid
Many companies offer a Virtual Private Server (VPS) at very cost effective rates allowing you to run entire machine somewhere in the cloud.

Pros

  • 100% Secure - Since emails are not routed through any third-party provider, there are no privacy concerns.
  • Full Control - Since the system is not shared by other companies, you will have full control over the rules when it comes to junk filtering and message size.
  • Reliable Network - Cloud providers typically run their infrastructure on redundant and reliable networks.

Cons

  • Initial Setup - Even though the hardware is managed by a third-party company, you will have to setup the software. Synametrics Support can help you install and configure Xeams in this environment, mitigating this risk.