Microsoft Exchange is one of the most utilized email server services in the world, but it requires additional investments in on-premise infrastructure to be able to deploy it across your local network, which adds more costs onto your IT budget. Hosting Exchange, however, grants you an alternative to paying persistent capital expenses into onsite equipment maintenance, as well as many of the other benefits of email deployment in the cloud. For small-and-medium-sized businesses (SMBs), a hosted – or hybrid – Exchange environment can be a more affordable option depending on the specific technology needs.
Here are four benefits of hosting Microsoft Exchange in the cloud:
​​What is Microsoft Exchange?
Microsoft Exchange is a messaging system that offers businesses a number of services, including email, calendaring, task management, and address lists. By integrating Exchange into your business, you can access all of these services from any location and on almost every device.
Many companies that purchase Exchange install it on their on-premises servers, which can be a bit expensive, especially for small businesses. Moreover, the server required to host it can take up space that a business may not have. This is why many companies prefer to operate on cloud-based systems.
What is Hosted Exchange?
To make their solutions available to more businesses, many technology companies like Microsoft are increasingly offering services like Exchange hosted in the cloud. In this setup, your IT provider allots a space on their servers where they install Microsoft Exchange and make it accessible only to your company over an internet connection. They are in charge of ensuring that the data stored is secure and accessible to you at all times. Many hosted Exchange providers will also offer extra features like improved security, full-time management, and data backup.
In other words, hosted Exchange is the cloud-based version of Microsoft Exchange managed by a hosting or cloud service provider. You and your employees will still be able to access Exchange as if it were hosted in your office, along with all of the other added benefits of a cloud-hosted environment (see below).
Benefits of Hosting Microsoft Exchange
Companies looking into hosting Exchange Online for their business can enjoy the following benefits:
1. Cost Control
Like many other cloud solutions, the majority of hosted Exchange services are offered on a monthly, per-user basis, inclusive of maintenance and hosting. This transforms the cost of maintaining your email service from a capital expense to operating expense, as you’ll be paying a fixed fee every month instead of investing in more maintenance and hardware irregularly.
Hosted Exchange also lowers your overall IT infrastructure costs. If a business were to calculate the cost of purchasing Microsoft Exchange and the infrastructure required to use it, plus maintenance fees, the total and per-user cost will likely add up quickly. For many small businesses, paying a monthly fee will be far less expensive than hosting a Microsoft Exchange solution on-premise.
2. Easier Implementation
Implementing Microsoft Exchange in your office would require you to find space for the server, and upgrade or change that space once you need new servers to accommodate more headcount, etc. Support will also become easier working with a managed IT and cloud partner to host and maintain your solution. This managed service partnership will include taking care of the hosting, installation, and management of the environment, alongside additional value-add network services so you can focus on running your business.
3. Flexibility and Scalability
Growing businesses may find it tough to scale up or down stuck with an on-premise Microsoft Exchange solution because of both an initial server’s limited capacity and the costs of upgrading to add more performance and storage space. Scaling up or down is as easy as contacting your provider when hosting Exchange, however, and gives you a greater level of flexibility in mapping out the services you want. Your partner will help you customize your Microsoft stack and its integration into your IT ecosystem, along with the workflows, delivery and other add-on options.
4. Business Continuity and Security
When an on-premise server (or servers) goes offline from a breach, power failure, natural disaster or other disruption, the data that lives in that hardware is in jeopardy. Outright damage or destruction increases the risk of total loss exponentially, but hosting your Exchange services online adds redundancy, protection and cost-effective oversight otherwise unattainable for SMBs. Your cloud provider will keep your hosted environment monitored and backed up to ensure business continuity against the threat of downtime, as well as proactively defended against intrusion attempts.
Talk to SWK Technologies About Hosting Microsoft Exchange
SWK Technologies is a Gold Microsoft Partner as well as an award-winning managed service provider (MSP) specializing in delivering optimized hosting and support services for solutions such as Microsoft Exchange. Reach out to us with any more questions you have about hosting Exchange, or migrating to the latest version of Microsoft 365 and finding a plan that fits best for your needs and budget.
Contact SWK today to learn more about hosting Microsoft Exchange and taking advantage of additional managed services tailored for your productivity software.
