A recent IDC report caught my attention that addressed the growing market and demand around cloud computing, noting that almost half of enterprises have considered moving to the cloud. IDC projects server revenue for public/private Cloud computing to continue to grow through 2014. What’s really interesting is that in the midst of enterprises looking to move to the cloud, the main concern is security issues, with more than 70 percent surveyed noting security as their top concern for moving to public clouds and about 45 percent for private clouds. We’re starting to see our target customer base make the move to Cloud Computing for email and these moves present both challenges and opportunities.
Due to the growing demand from enterprises looking to move to the Cloud, we recently issued a white paper – Moving to the Cloud: Important Things to Consider before Migrating your Messaging Infrastructure to the Cloud. The potential benefits of lowering costs, increasing storage and flexibility in the cloud have promises; however, there are compromises and security issues that must be considered. Here’s a snapshot of things we’ve outlined that enterprises should consider before moving to the Cloud:
- Outsourcing the External Gateway Filtering Layer: DMZ and internal email backbone policy/routing appliances are typically required even if you outsource the filtering layer. If encryption is important, there are a number of issues that need to be considered. If you plan to use recipient validation to improve spam fighting capabilities there is a potential security risk in making your LDAP Directory information available to the cloud provider.
- Outsourcing the Groupware Layer: The filtering layer is almost always outsourced before the groupware layer. For large enterprises with complex messaging routing requirements, an internal email backbone is always required even if you outsource the mailboxes. Examples are banks that have multiple domains. Retention and archiving can also be problematic when outsourcing this layer. Do you want potentially damaging email sitting in an end user mailbox that is hosted offsite? LDAP Directory information released outside the organization can also be problematic.
- Outsourcing the Email Backbone Layer: External filtering and the Groupware layer will have typically been outsourced before this layer. Inbound and Outbound messages may still need to be managed internally. Our Global 2000 customers have found that this layer is the most difficult, if not impossible, layer to outsource. The same issues in point 1 and 2 apply here as well as a number of issues around outbound message policy, compliance, and routing requirements. In addition, most Global 2000 enterprises have up to hundreds of “email-generating applications” such as CRM systems, billing and invoicing systems, trade confirmation systems, marketing, systems, etc. These email-generating systems rely on internal email systems to operate and may be extremely difficult or even impossible to configure all of these applications and devices to use with an off-site, cloud-provided messaging system.
While the promise of effective cloud computing exist, it is important for organizations to thoroughly investigate what kind of impact moving to the cloud would have on the various layers of their messaging infrastructure.
When all is said and done, who is responsible for your email?
Let us know if you are interested in seeing a copy of the complete white paper and let us know what your experiences have been in moving email to the cloud.