cloud based email - overview

1. Cloud email demystified:
making the move with
confidence
C W S D Whitepaper Corporate Headquarters | Perimeter E-Security| 440 Wheelers Farms Rd.| Suite 202 | Milford, CT 06461 | 800-234-2175 | 203-878-1284 Fax
©2011 Perimeter E-Security. The trademarks used herein are either trademarks of Perimeter E-Security, or trademarks of their respective owners
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2. CLOUD EMAIL DEMYSTIFYIED:
making the move with confidence
EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW
Most organizations know that the trend is to take email to the cloud. However, evaluating whether
it makes sense for your organization is often a daunting task, full of mixed messages and
unknowns. The market still lacks a clearly defined outline for evaluating such a mission-critical
decision; the goal of this white paper is to address the most common myths and realities of
cloud-based email.
During the adoption of in-house email infrastructure, most companies and their IT departments
are under the impression that this investment is just like any other capital expenditure, that
depreciates over five to ten years. They did not consider that an email system has growing
management requirements and new email technology releases come out before full depreciation
of past investments. Also, many organizations have become dependent on email as their main
form of business communication, causing storage needs to exponentially surpass all initial
projections.
Because of this, combined with the increasing complexity of compliance regulations over
electronic communications and the rise of email security vulnerabilities and attacks, many
companies find themselves in a predicament over how best to meet their email needs.
Compounding the issue, security threats have grown to become increasingly sophisticated,
requiring the most specialized skills to protect and secure the sensitive information assets that
flow through corporate email.
Working with an experienced cloud-based email provider removes the liabilities of constantly
staffing and training IT departments to have the skills to manage and secure corporate email, a
system that is costly and cuts away at the bottom line.
MYTH: cloud email is less secure and less private
First to cross the minds of IT directors and management when considering “the cloud” for their
email needs is security. They want their data to be safe, and they don’t want to work with a service
provider who might be a target for hackers.
When your email is in the cloud, it is more secure and in better hands with a service provider who
specializes in email management and email threat prevention. Email contains a company’s most
sensitive information, and threats to these messages, such as hacking (to message data in transit
or at rest), viruses, spam, malware, etc. are growing in sophistication and complexity with each
day. This makes it harder to combat attacks and keep email clean without making email security a
specialization within your organization’s IT department. Under these circumstances, a cloud-based
service provider, particularly one that takes both email hosting and email security seriously,
becomes your most trusted partner. Your service provider will likely have more experience and
exposure to every possible email security threat and concern and as a result will have email
security experts and veterans on staff to make sure your messages are always protected from the
most current vulnerabilities.
Another common myth that companies have about email security in the cloud is the perception
that they will not be able to maintain compliance with internal company policies and regulations
as they were before moving to the cloud. This perception originates from the belief that once their
C W S D Whitepaper Corporate Headquarters | Perimeter E-Security | 440 Wheelers Farms Rd. | Suite 202 | Milford, CT 06461 | 800-234-2175 | 203-878-1284 Fax
©2010 Perimeter E-Security. The trademarks used herein are either trademarks of Perimeter E-Security, or trademarks of their respective owners
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3. CLOUD EMAIL DEMYSTIFYIED:
making the move with confidence
email infrastructure is no longer on-site they will lose the granular controls over their email
system they once had. In the case of cloud-based email, your entire email infrastructure and email
data might be in the cloud, but you still have access to the applications and servers and can
configure them just like you would if your email were in-house. The only difference is that you
configure everything from the cloud. Also, many cloud email service providers offer proprietary
and compliance-specific cloud applications, pre-integrated with your email service. These
proprietary services are easier to use and more efficient for meeting compliance regulations than
the stand-alone email systems you would otherwise be using in-house.
The last major security concern about cloud-based email is that the company will not have the
same types of access controls as they would in an on-site scenario. Access controls include the
ability to limit or restrict user access to email systems and features based on role within the
organization. This could not be further from the truth. Even though your email is in the cloud, you
still have complete and granular control over user access rights to the email system. Most cloud
services come with a web-based administrative console where you can configure things such as
limiting administrator access to only a select group of employees’ email inboxes and allowing
third-party access.
MYTH: MOVING TO THE CLOUD MEANS GIVING UP CONTROL
Brokers, RIA’s and Hedge Funds are required to build a security information program framework
With cloud-based email, your email infrastructure and entire corporate email corpus might be in
the cloud, yet you still have complete control over and access to your data.
While your data is stored on your service provider’s servers, it is your data; you own it and have
access to it at all times. A cloud-based email solution provides a complete set of administrative
tools so that you can configure your email to meet your needs, just as you would if you kept your
email in-house. You have as many or more granular configuration options. The only difference is
the benefit you gain from no longer having to spend tiresome hours and extra budget to manage
and maintain in-house server hardware.
MYTH: loss of end-user functionality
When organizations envision their email as a cloud service, they worry that they are one of
thousands of customers for a given service provider. And if one service provider has so many
customers, organizations fear that cloud-based email only provides a generic feature set.
This is another misconception about email in the cloud. Even though your email is in the cloud,
with the advanced technologies and configuration capabilities available today, a cloud-based email
customer can access features and solutions they never realized were available. Keep in mind that
a cloud-based email service provider has years of experience managing the email needs of
organizations just like yours. As a result, your service provider likely has email experts on staff
who have the most up-to-date knowledge about today’s email needs. Further, when your email is
in the cloud, this does not mean that each customer is limited to the same cookie-cutter feature
set. Each customer has complete control and administration of their end-user email features.
C W S D Whitepaper Corporate Headquarters | Perimeter E-Security | 440 Wheelers Farms Rd. | Suite 202 | Milford, CT 06461 | 800-234-2175 | 203-878-1284 Fax
©2010 Perimeter E-Security. The trademarks used herein are either trademarks of Perimeter E-Security, or trademarks of their respective owners
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4. CLOUD EMAIL DEMYSTIFYIED:
making the move with confidence
REALITY: YOU ONLY PAY FOR WHAT YOU NEED AND USE
One of the biggest perks of email in the cloud is that you only pay for the email needs of your
current employee base; there are no extra infrastructure investments that sit around unused. As
your organization grows and hires new employees, you simply add more email boxes with your
cloud service provider.
Under this per-user, per-month business model, your bottom line is further maximized, leaving
your organization operationally efficient. Also, not only is the expenditure on corporate email
needs more predictable, but the time commitment is shorter with month-to-month, one-year, and
three-year service contract options, which are shorter than the depreciation period of an in-house
email investment.
REALITY: Predictability of costs
The increasing cost and complexity of modern email systems and the rapid evolution of
technology have made meeting email needs as an in-house capital expenditure an economically
unpredictable route. Not only does this route drain corporate resources, with constant
maintenance and patch requirements, but it also leaves the company running its business on
dated technology. When you use dated technology while waiting for its full depreciation, you could
fall behind competitors leveraging the most advanced technology for greater efficiency and
employee productivity.
With a cloud-based email service you benefit from a predictable cost for meeting your email
needs. When email is in the cloud, it becomes an operational expenditure instead of a capital
expenditure on your balance sheet. Organizations benefit from the convenience, predictability,
and stability of paying a consistentmonthly fee for their email service.
Instead of managing your email hardware in-house and dealing with constantly keeping staff
trained and up-to-date on the latest email and email security needs, all you have to do is rely on
your trusted service provider. When you take your email to the cloud, your chosen service
provider becomes your highly specialized, trusted partner. This partnership allows you to focus on
your core business activities while your service provider takes care of your email security needs,
keeping your organization at its highest efficiency, productivity, and profitability.
REALITY: No capacity concerns
Services that can evaluate your current security posture, identify gaps and recommend solutions
Organizations that manage their email in-house are challenged with system maintenance issues
and the need to keep up with security. They also must ensure that their email infrastructure is at
the right volume and right price for their current and future needs. Regardless of the current
economic environment, organizations require a range of options for investing their capital. An
organization does not want to be in a situation where they must purchase email servers and
infrastructure beyond their current capacity needs. Under these circumstances, unused email
infrastructure becomes a sunk cost, draining organizational expenses that could otherwise be
used for more mission-critical activities. Alternatively, organizations don’t want to be in a
C W S D Whitepaper Corporate Headquarters | Perimeter E-Security | 440 Wheelers Farms Rd. | Suite 202 | Milford, CT 06461 | 800-234-2175 | 203-878-1284 Fax
©2010 Perimeter E-Security. The trademarks used herein are either trademarks of Perimeter E-Security, or trademarks of their respective owners
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5. CLOUD EMAIL DEMYSTIFYIED:
making the move with confidence
situation where they have to wait until their existing email infrastructure is fully depreciated
before they can invest in new infrastructure needed to support recent growth. In this case, the
organization could find themselves not only below capacity but technologically inferior to their
competition, limiting their ability to harness their most recent growth.
Organizations want to grow and scale their investments in expenditures such as email quickly, in
parallel with market and organizational volatility, and with economic leanness. Cloud-based email
allows an organization to leverage the latest email technology, even for an organization with the
smallest email capacity requirements, while also continuously allowing scalability. They want to
provision mailboxes for new employees one at a time or in quantities as needed. With your email
in the cloud, the smallest organization has access to the latest email technology and experiences
faster patching and upgrades, in addition to being able to grow their email needs in line with their
business growth. All of this can be done without having to invest in expensive servers and lengthy
depreciation schedules. Email will be a simple operational expense, allowing you to sign up for
what you need and nothing more.
REALITY: FASTER UPGRADES
The market for corporate email is experiencing a rapid technological evolution, with new releases
coming out faster than existing email infrastructure investments depreciate. Under these
circumstances, many businesses find themselves waiting out a five- to ten-year depreciation
schedule before they can take advantage of the productivity and efficiency enhancements
afforded by an upgrade.
A cloud-based email service provider experiences extensive economies of scale. With tens of
thousands of customers, a cloud-based email service provider can offer a state-of-the-art email
solution for an extremely low price, lower than the cost most companies could achieve by doing it
in-house. The access to more advanced email technologies is particularly important for smaller
companies that would otherwise not be able to achieve any economies of scale with an in-house
email solution. Cloud-based email allows an organization to stay operationally lean while
leveraging the latest email technology to maximize business productivity and efficiency.
ABOUT PERIMETER E-SECURITY
Perimeter E-Security delivers secure infrastructure from the cloud that businesses of all sizes rely
on. Our advanced technology, expert intelligence, and superior scale makes our clients’
information more secure, more highly available, compliant with regulations and less costly to
manage. By using our solutions, our customers can focus on their core businesses and take
advantage of new opportunities. Our growing customer base includes 6,000 organizations in the
financial services, retail, healthcare, energy, critical infrastructure and manufacturing sectors. For
more information, visit www.perimeterusa.com.
C W S D Whitepaper Corporate Headquarters | Perimeter E-Security | 440 Wheelers Farms Rd. | Suite 202 | Milford, CT 06461 | 800-234-2175 | 203-878-1284 Fax
©2010 Perimeter E-Security. The trademarks used herein are either trademarks of Perimeter E-Security, or trademarks of their respective owners
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