Solved Email server options
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@scottalanmiller said in Email server options:
@zachary715 said in Email server options:
We're of similar size and although I've never had to run an on-prem Exchange server, I'm glad I don't. I'd rather spend my time worrying about other issues. The Exchange Online plan is hard to beat in my opinion.
We run in house email on Zimbra for smaller than that and without the costs and overhead of Exchange, running in house is really not bad. We manage O365 for customers and while O365 is slightly less work on a per user basis, it's not much. O365 is just cumbersome enough to be close to the effort of the system maintenance of something like Zimbra. But when you consider the monthly cost savings, it's been great for us.
In our situation, I'm the only guy here and it would take me some amount of time to learn Zimbra/Mailcow and then deploy it. Then if in 2 years I left, I'm leaving that to someone else to learn. Just doesn't seem smart for us. I would like however to deploy it in a lab just to play with and learn.
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@JaredBusch said in Email server options:
@zachary715 said in Email server options:
Also, will they require hardware upgrades if they choose any on-premises option that will add to the project costs?
No. Their current on site hardware can handle it. That hardware will likely see an upgrade in 2020 or 2021.
Even being a year or two down the road, that's extra hardware you know you wouldn't otherwise need if hosted therefore a portion of the hardware upgrade costs should be allocated today in my opinion.
@JaredBusch said in Email server options:
@zachary715 said in Email server options:
you have no intention of maintaining this system outside of backups etc, therefore they have someone already who is skilled enough to do so?
No, we are their outsourced IT department, we will handle it. But when planning, I never plan for us to continue to do so. I obviously hope they continue to have us do so, but I never plan on it.
I think here it's in the best interest of the company then to have some form of hosted solution that's easier to have someone else step into and manage in a scenario where your relationship ended. If I were a key decision maker at the company, no matter how much I liked you and we'd been in business together, that's a risk factor I'd have to consider.
Just curious, if Zoho + spam/malware filtering seemed to check all the boxes at $3/user/mo, would you immediately go Zoho vs EOP1 simply based on cost? Is cost the ultimate factor?
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@zachary715 said in Email server options:
I think here it's in the best interest of the company then to have some form of hosted solution that's easier to have someone else step into and manage in a scenario where your relationship ended. If I were a key decision maker at the company, no matter how much I liked you and we'd been in business together, that's a risk factor I'd have to consider.
That is the point of having the 4 options above...
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@zachary715 said in Email server options:
Just curious, if Zoho + spam/malware filtering seemed to check all the boxes at $3/user/mo, would you immediately go Zoho vs EOP1 simply based on cost? Is cost the ultimate factor?
Except it doens't check all the boxes. It is Workspaces, not just email. That is an entire collection of shit the client does not want or need.
Also $3/user is more than $1/user + 200 GB Storage (150/year / 120 users = 1.25) = $2.25/user
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@zachary715 said in Email server options:
Zoho + spam/malware filtering
ZoHo includes spam filtering.
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@JaredBusch said in Email server options:
@zachary715 said in Email server options:
Just curious, if Zoho + spam/malware filtering seemed to check all the boxes at $3/user/mo, would you immediately go Zoho vs EOP1 simply based on cost? Is cost the ultimate factor?
Except it doens't check all the boxes. It is Workspaces, not just email. That is an entire collection of shit the client does not want or need.
Also $3/user is more than $1/user + 200 GB Storage (150/year / 120 users = 1.25) = $2.25/user
Ok I didn't know Zoho included spam filtering. I thought you were asking for that earlier but you were actually referring to the Open Source options. My bad.
I wasn't referencing the Worskpaces option, I was assuming $1 Zoho plus $1-2 spam/malware filtering per user.
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I managed to find the PDF of the original Exchange 2010 order form Jan 3, 2012.
$6,344 for Exchange 2010, 70 CALs, & 2 licenses of Server 2008 R2 (one for something else).Adjusting the 2010 order to 120 users (was purchased over time as they grew) it is definitely more expensive now.
These numbers also happen to be from the same VAR.Item Quantity 2010 Unit Cost 2010 Total 2019 Unit Cost 2019 Total Difference Exchange Server Standard 1 $655.00 $655.00 $732.00 $732.00 $77.00 Exchange User CAL 120 $62.00 $7,440.00 $91.15 $10,938.00 $3,498.00 Windows Server Standard 1 $672.00 $672.00 $913.57 $913.57 $241.57 Windows Server User CAL 120 $35.00 $4,200.00 $39.41 $4,729.20 $529.20 $12,967.00 $17,312.77 $4,345.77 -
@JaredBusch said in Email server options:
I managed to find the PDF of the original Exchange 2010 order form Jan 3, 2012.
$6,344 for Exchange 2010, 70 CALs, & 2 licenses of Server 2008 R2 (one for something else).Adjusting the 2010 order to 120 users (was purchased over time as they grew) it is definitely more expensive now.
These numbers also happen to be from the same VAR.That's interesting. The difference in virtualization rights could have some factor in Server OS costs. Exchange pretty much matches inflation. Exchange User CALs definitely higher.
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Seems like 120 users X $6 per month equals way more over two years than upgrading them on prem Exchange... At least initial costs. Maybe if you factor in labor, cost of Windows and MS management, time etx, perhaps cloud is better?
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@Obsolesce said in Email server options:
Maybe if you factor in labor, cost of Windows and MS management, time etx, perhaps cloud is better?
Those are the very reasons for cloud solutions....lol
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@Obsolesce said in Email server options:
Seems like 120 users X $6 per month equals way more over two years than upgrading them on prem Exchange... At least initial costs. Maybe if you factor in labor, cost of Windows and MS management, time etx, perhaps cloud is better?
Not sure where $6/mo is coming from. He's comparing Zoho @ $1/mo plus extra storage (roughly $2.25/mo) to EOP1 @ $4/mo. And then comparing that to on-prem.
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@JaredBusch said in Email server options:
@scottalanmiller said in Email server options:
We run in house email on Zimbra
How is spam filtering handled?
In our case, we use Zimbra's built in components. Not the best, but not bad. It's free, so that's a big factor for us. Was like a 15 minute one time setup and now it just works (so far.)
If we wanted, our outbound mail handler (MailGun) will do inbound spam filtering for us for cheap. But we've not gone down that path (yet.)
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@zachary715 said in Email server options:
In our situation, I'm the only guy here and it would take me some amount of time to learn Zimbra/Mailcow and then deploy it. Then if in 2 years I left, I'm leaving that to someone else to learn. Just doesn't seem smart for us.
Best to hire someone who already knows it. We have customers that come to us for that stuff, and it's cheap. Thousands of companies already know how to maintain it and will do so for next to nothing for you. If you run the numbers, it might not be the best choice for you (it's not most of the time), but it is often way, way closer to being a good idea than you'd guess.
Zimbra support is not expensive, in many cases, we could simply use a "per user" price gauge and guarantee that it costs less than O365, for example. If you have ten users, that doesn't work. But if you have 100, I will guarantee Zimbra support, at a fraction of the cost of Hosted Exchange right now
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@zachary715 said in Email server options:
I think here it's in the best interest of the company then to have some form of hosted solution that's easier to have someone else step into and manage in a scenario where your relationship ended.
Yes, that is always true. BUT you'd hope that anyone that would be asked to step in would be qualified to do so, so choosing something like Zimbra would be of no consequence. If it makes sense to do with Bundy there, it would make sense to do without them there. IT support is not a scarce resource when done well. Getting good support (and good support always means affordable compared to alternatives as well) is not hard at all if the company wants it.
So going hosted doesn't actually protect them. That, in no way, means I'm saying that hosted is wrong here. I'm just saying that "being supportable by another IT firm" is of no concern at all. Any skilled MSP or ITSP can do that with their eyes closed, at a reasonable cost. And if the company decides not to hire good (or any) IT to support things after he leaves, there is no accounting for that. That they have to maintain the IT department or resources goes without saying, and included in that is the ability to support anything reasonable or reasonably standard.
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@zachary715 said in Email server options:
Even being a year or two down the road, that's extra hardware you know you wouldn't otherwise need if hosted therefore a portion of the hardware upgrade costs should be allocated today in my opinion.
I would generally agree with this. Unless, and this is more common than you think, the company will not buy less hardware even if you wouldn't add in the workload. I have lots of companies that have a minimum purchasing threshhold for servers and it is so high, that all of their workloads, plus tons more, always have plenty of resources. So something like email would remain free for them essentially forever, because the resources that it needs diminish rapidly over time.
So I agree, but make sure you evaluate reasonable projected excess resources as part of the equation.
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@zachary715 said in Email server options:
Ok I didn't know Zoho included spam filtering. I thought you were asking for that earlier but you were actually referring to the Open Source options. My bad.
All business class hosted email does. Even Zimbra and MailCow do. Only things that don't are hobby systems like GoDaddy, and even that probably does.
Definitely all of the open source does, even the open source hobby systems.
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@scottalanmiller said in Email server options:
@zachary715 said in Email server options:
Even being a year or two down the road, that's extra hardware you know you wouldn't otherwise need if hosted therefore a portion of the hardware upgrade costs should be allocated today in my opinion.
I would generally agree with this. Unless, and this is more common than you think, the company will not buy less hardware even if you wouldn't add in the workload. I have lots of companies that have a minimum purchasing threshhold for servers and it is so high, that all of their workloads, plus tons more, always have plenty of resources. So something like email would remain free for them essentially forever, because the resources that it needs diminish rapidly over time.
So I agree, but make sure you evaluate reasonable projected excess resources as part of the equation.
So why do they have minimum purchasing thresholds if they're exceedingly greater than what they need? What's driving that?
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@zachary715 said in Email server options:
@scottalanmiller said in Email server options:
@zachary715 said in Email server options:
Even being a year or two down the road, that's extra hardware you know you wouldn't otherwise need if hosted therefore a portion of the hardware upgrade costs should be allocated today in my opinion.
I would generally agree with this. Unless, and this is more common than you think, the company will not buy less hardware even if you wouldn't add in the workload. I have lots of companies that have a minimum purchasing threshhold for servers and it is so high, that all of their workloads, plus tons more, always have plenty of resources. So something like email would remain free for them essentially forever, because the resources that it needs diminish rapidly over time.
So I agree, but make sure you evaluate reasonable projected excess resources as part of the equation.
So why do they have minimum purchasing thresholds if they're exceedingly greater than what they need? What's driving that?
Budget controls to ensure there is a pool of money to take from should they need it. (for whatever they may need money that is otherwise unbudgeted)
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@scottalanmiller said in Email server options:
@zachary715 said in Email server options:
Ok I didn't know Zoho included spam filtering. I thought you were asking for that earlier but you were actually referring to the Open Source options. My bad.
All business class hosted email does. Even Zimbra and MailCow do. Only things that don't are hobby systems like GoDaddy, and even that probably does.
Definitely all of the open source does, even the open source hobby systems.
I'm showing my ignorance here. I was basing that assumption off of what was said previously in the thread which I took to mean it wasn't included. Thanks
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@JaredBusch said in Email server options:
I managed to find the PDF of the original Exchange 2010 order form Jan 3, 2012.
$6,344 for Exchange 2010, 70 CALs, & 2 licenses of Server 2008 R2 (one for something else).Adjusting the 2010 order to 120 users (was purchased over time as they grew) it is definitely more expensive now.
These numbers also happen to be from the same VAR.Item Quantity 2010 Unit Cost 2010 Total 2019 Unit Cost 2019 Total Difference Exchange Server Standard 1 $655.00 $655.00 $732.00 $732.00 $77.00 Exchange User CAL 120 $62.00 $7,440.00 $91.15 $10,938.00 $3,498.00 Windows Server Standard 1 $672.00 $672.00 $913.57 $913.57 $241.57 Windows Server User CAL 120 $35.00 $4,200.00 $39.41 $4,729.20 $529.20 $12,967.00 $17,312.77 $4,345.77 That licensing cost ALONE, not including hardware, management, etc. is more than it would cost to outsource Zimbra management to someone! In fact, you could outsource it, mark it up, and still save them money
