Choosing a solution for business email is not simple. You need to look at various factors and constraints, compare them and weigh their importance, understand your tradeoffs, and finally, decide on your choice.<\/p>\n
Today, several leading providers are offering business email solutions such as the likes of Microsoft (Microsoft Exchange Server and Exchange Online), Google (Gmail for Business), Amazon (Amazon SES), and Alibaba (Alibaba Mail).<\/p>\n
When it comes to business email management, there are 3 possible scenarios; they have been explained below in detail with Microsoft\u2019s products as a reference:<\/p>\n
Physical Servers<\/strong> \u2013 a company that chooses to house their email servers on their own hardware would have to purchase their hardware (storage space, RAM, etc.) followed by software licenses for Windows Server as well as Microsoft Exchange Server (both of which would be running on the company\u2019s hardware), and finally Microsoft would also charge a per-user client access fee.<\/p>\n Hosted Exchange<\/strong> \u2013 a company that chooses to proceed with the hosted exchange for business email management would approach a Cloud Solutions Provider (CSP)<\/a>, state their requirements, and subscribe to a monthly per-user based plan for hosted Exchange for receiving the control and flexibility of having their own email account at a fraction of the cost of an on-premises Exchange server. In this case, the Exchange email servers are located in CSP\u2019s data centers.<\/p>\n Exchange Online<\/strong> \u2013 a company that wishes to subscribe to Microsoft Exchange Online can directly do so from Microsoft\u2019s website; here, Exchange Online is a cloud-based email SaaS offered by Microsoft. Compared to Hosted Exchange, the only difference here is that instead of a CSP hosting the company\u2019s email servers, it would be Microsoft itself.<\/p>\n In this article, we shall discuss the differences between On-Premises Exchange Server and Exchange Online in detail, so if you are planning to shift from physical servers, you can identify the best of the two options (Exchange Server vs Exchange Online) for your business.<\/p>\n Microsoft Exchange Online is based on Microsoft Exchange Server. However, they are two different products from Microsoft altogether despite their similarities. Therefore, it makes sense to understand how both they both differ.<\/p>\n Essentially, Hosted Exchange refers to where the client\u2019s email servers are hosted by another party (usually a service provider). Consider this example:<\/p>\n Company \u2018ABC\u2019 has decided to discontinue its existing physical, on-premise servers due to the exorbitant costs and space constraints. The management of the company has decided to move its business email management to the cloud by outsourcing it; the company decides to proceed with the option of Hosted Exchange as it is like having its own physical, on-premise servers, albeit with some limitations. Company \u2018ABC\u2019 then picks a cloud solutions provider (CSP) that can offer it Hosted Exchange services as per its requirements, then the CSP helps Company \u2018ABC\u2019 with migration of the mailboxes to the cloud<\/a> and the organization continues to operate as before in exchange for a nominal monthly fee paid to the CSP in return for its Hosted Exchange services.<\/p>\n The cloud solutions provider (CSP) handles the entire IT infrastructure management as the client\u2019s data is stored in its data centers. Hence, the company does not need to worry about the numerous costs associated with setting up and managing physical servers. At the same time, they have full control over the data and some choice of the server application version, preferred configuration options, and so on.<\/p>\nMicrosoft Exchange Server vs Microsoft Exchange Online<\/h2>\n
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Exchange Server Hosting<\/h3>\n
Exchange Online<\/h3>\n