Tips » Reducing Data Center Costs » Tip 5 - Outsource to the Cloud

Tip 5 - Outsource to the Cloud

by Greg Shields

Outsourcing, in this context, doesn't mean your job. Nor does it mean swapping you or your coworkers out for alter egos that live halfway around the world. Rather, “outsourcing” here relates to some of the key services that others can provably accomplish better than you. The end result is a job-saver, and far from a job-loser. Now, read on.

I'll admit that I haven't met an admin yet who feels 100% comfortable with the idea of “outsourcing.” But it's these same admins who wonder why they're spending their weekends fixing mail servers rather than being home with friends and family. In our jobs as IT professionals, there are some activities that just make sense to keep local. Refreshing computers, basic systems administration, security, and project management are all excellent activities that probably should be left local.

But other common IT functions actually make a lot of sense when they're handled by others who can dedicate their entire days and lives to a single focus. Email services come to mind. SharePoint document management can be another, as well as Office Communications Server or VoIP services. All of these technologies require an exceptionally high level of expertise to be successful. To remain as highly available as businesses need them, they also require infrastructures that don't make financial sense for any but the largest of enterprises.

Most important, these are the services you want never, ever to go down. These are the services that when they crash cause the most chaos, put the most people out of work for the day, cost the company the largest amount of lost revenue, and put the biggest black eye on IT in general.

Let's focus on just one of these services whose outsourcing could make a lot of sense for almost any IT environment: email . Running a single Exchange server is easy. You can literally get an Exchange server from DVD to full functionality in just a few clicks. But taking that single Exchange server to one that functions as a business needs it—with Mailbox servers, Unified Messaging servers, Client Access servers, and Hub Transport/Edge Transport servers—takes effort, architecture, and a lot of money for both servers and licenses. More importantly, managing these servers over time with a guarantee of zero downtime takes experience that most IT professionals never accumulate.

Also take into account the needs of your users as they continue the shift towards alternative work arrangements. Workers who spend more time outside the office than in must find ways to easily connect to their mail. Companies that outsource mail services do so in ways that make mail access pervasive, enabling always-on access from any network connection. No VPNs and no extra effort to “connect to home” just to gather mail. Users themselves gain greater efficiency through pervasive mail access.

Obviously, outsourcing your mail services changes their cost to a recurring model. But swapping a capital expenditure to an operational one can actually be more beneficial for your business in the long run. OPEX charges for mail services tend to be recurring but stable. This means that the business can plan and budget for them with little expectation of destabilizing costs. If you've ever had to go back to the CIO to request expensive additional hardware after the budget was burned through, you know how unexpected costs are painful and make you look bad.

Further, hosting providers employ best-in-breed people and use ridiculously-powerful hardware to create world-class availability for their products. For example, solution provider Apptix ( www.apptix.com ) advertises a 100% uptime SLA with 24/7 customer support as part of their package. This means that mail-related calls by your users needn't go to your own local Help desk, which cuts down on costs and time.

Bundling of services is also common. Microsoft's own Business Productivity Online Suite ( http://www.microsoft.com/online/business-productivity.mspx ) charges only $10 to $15/user/month for basic services and bundles extra services such as SharePoint, Office Live Meeting, and Office Communications Online for around $25/user/month. Apptix, mentioned earlier, provides VoIP services. Intermedia ( www.intermedia.net ) advertises services that assure compliance with industry and regulatory regulations, another topic not often compensated for by administrators. Hosted services for even the largest of enterprises are only now being made available through companies such as Ceryx ( www.ceryx.com ) and RackSpace ( www.rackspace.com ).

Interested in learning more? Hosting provider USA.net ( www.usa.net ) has made available the results from a Radicati Group study on the benefits of hosted mail services. You can learn more at www.usa.net .

Greg Shields is an independent author, instructor, and IT consultant based in Denver, Colorado, and a co-founder of Concentrated Technology. With nearly 15 years of experience in information technology, Greg has developed extensive experience in systems administration, engineering, and architecture specializing in Microsoft systems management, remote application, and virtualization technologies. Greg is a Contributing Editor and Columnist for TechNet Magazine, and is the author of five books, including Windows Server 2008: What’s New / What’s Changed. Greg is also a highly sought-after instructor and speaker, speaking regularly at conferences like TechMentor Events, and producing computer-based training curriculum for CBT Nuggets.  Greg is a recipient of Microsoft "Most Valuable Professional" award with a specialization in Windows Terminal Services.