In the past, when an organization needed a Microsoft Exchange platform, the obvious choice was usually to buy an Exchange server and host it at its offices or data center. But as we push forward with cloud computing, the hosted exchange has become a cost-effective option for organizations of all sizes. The question these days for organizations is how to migrate their Business to Office 365? and what's the pain points.

Advantages to Office 365 vs On-Premise Exchange

• Scalability – This is one of the major advantages of Office 365. When you buy a standalone Exchange server you will need to buy a certain size of the server to support your current users, as well as plan for scaling upwards in the future (assuming you are one of those businesses that plan to, you know, grow). In this scenario to be cost-effective, you need to accurately predict your growth – otherwise, you will end up with either a completely excessive server (if you don’t grow as predicted) or the need to upgrade or buy new exchange hardware and plan an exchange migration too quickly (if your business grows faster than expected). The advantage of Office 365 here is complete scalability – since it runs on Microsoft’s hardware you can go from 2 users to 2,000 as quickly as you can create them.
• Reduced IT Overhead – another major advantage of Office 365 is the lowered IT overhead required to run it. You will still need someone capable of setting it up and configuring DNS, users, computers, phones, etc, but for the most part, these tasks pale in comparison to the time and knowledge required to set up and run an Exchange set up.
• Reliability – thanks to the scale of Microsoft’s Exchange Online operations, they are highly reliable. They aren’t without the occasional issues, but for the most part, they are as reliable or more reliable than any company’s on-premise Exchange server could ever be. It will also stay running during any office power outages, internet cuts, or other sorts of mishaps (though an internet cut would obviously still affect users in that area/building, but not traveling users like an on-premise Exchange failure would). Also, when there is an outage, the company’s IT is generally not required to fix anything – just check the Office 365 health page and wait for service to return (usually very quickly).
• Spam/Virus Email Filtering – Office 365 includes this on Microsoft’s end, so there is no need to buy and configure a filtering device or pay to have your email run through an external filtering service.
• Backups – Already handled by Microsoft, so you don’ t need to worry about on and offsite backups of your data. You can still run your own backups of your emails/calendars/contacts if you wish, but Microsoft takes care of this on their side already
• Other Apps – Sharepoint, Office Apps, and Lync are included in some of the Office 365 plans. These are items that could potentially be set up on-premise as well, but would require additional time, costs, hardware, etc…

The client approached IT&T regarding

• the slowness of accessing their mail server,
• concerned about security
• lack of being able to access their emails from anywhere anytime easily
• the expense of upgrading their existing 10-year-old exchange server

Then recommended:

• Office 365 with exchange cloud services

This fixed customer

• Slowness – as it is hosted on Microsoft servers with redundancy and fast internet access

• Security concern – enable two factor authentications

• Lack of access from anywhere – with Office 365 emails could be access from anywhere anytime any device securely

• Expense of upgrading server – no upfront cost instead of being capital expense is now monthly business expense

IT&T can be your guide when moving your existing mail system to a new Office 365 platform  We provide migration plans, strategic advice, hand-holding and support through your migration wherever you are.