We’re excited to announce the launch of our new Enterprise Solutions focused brand, Ntirety. This new brand will be focused exclusively on the needs of our Enterprise clients and delivering secure, compliant, and managed multi-cloud and hybrid services. We are equally passionate about serving the needs of our Small Business customers, just as we have for the past 20+ years and will continue to do so under the Hostway brand.
Our goal is to make it easier for both our Small Business and Enterprise customers to find the products, content, and information that is relevant to them. Our Enterprise customers will see their invoices, management portal, and all other branding change to Ntirety, and our Small Business customers will see a greater emphasis placed on Small Business services on the Hostway website.
Here is a quick overview of which services will be covered by each brand:
For More Information on the Ntirety Announcement:
Official Press Release: Introducing Ntirety
A Message From Ntirety CEO, Emil Sayegh
Visit Ntirety.com
Hostway is pleased to announce being officially selected as one of the winners in the Canada’s Top Small & Medium Employer category for 2019! Hostway is proud to add the selection as one of Canada’s Top Small & Medium Employer to the other awards already achieved this year.
The Canada’s Top 100 Employers project is a national competition to determine which employers lead their industries in offering exceptional workplaces for their employees. It recognizes small and medium-sized employers across Canada that excel in various categories, such as benefits, culture, recognition, diversity, business milestones, and other aspects, that make a business outstanding to work for. Winning organizations are showcased in an annual magazine special, published this year in The Globe and Mail on April 12, 2019.
Applicants for the award were evaluated by editors of Canada's Top Small & Medium Employers using the same eight criteria as Canada’s Top 100 Employers competition:
Senior HR Generalist Yui Nonoyama says that Hostway initiatives highlighted as part of the winning submission include Fun Fridays, where employees compete with themed costumes and workspace decorations; quarterly Hostie Awards and milestones recognitions; training and development, such as AWS certification training and bonus programs; and community service initiatives, like blood drives and annual toy drives. Team members can also find ways to reenergize with the onsite, multipurpose Zen room, an employee lounge with games, weekly team lunches, and access to a fully equipped, shared-use fitness facility.
Meeting the standards necessary to be recognized is familiar to the Hostway team, both in offices today and from past competitions. Hostway (pre-merger) was recognized in the Small & Medium Employer category in 2017 and is proud to be honored for a second time. HOSTING has also previously been honored pre-merger as one of the Top 50 Best Medium-Sized Best Places to Work in the 6th Annual Glassdoor Employees' Choice Awards.
With all the achievements made over the last few years, the Hostway HR team felt amply prepared to apply to a Canada’s Top Small & Medium Employer award.
“We are constantly striving to improve our work culture and enable our people to be their best,” said Natasha Gordon, Senior Director of Human Resources for Hostway. “We focus on creating a collaborative environment that fosters innovation and growth. This award is a reflection of the great people we have working for Hostway across all locations that make up the industry’s best team.”
Ready to join an award-winning team? Hostway offices in Canada and across the world are always looking to talented people just like you! Check out our current job listings, which are updated daily.
Gartner predicts that “hybrid cloud is the foundation of digital business.” Further, they estimate that spend in the hybrid cloud market will reach $209 billion in 2019, growing to $317 billion by 2022. We decided to merge Hostway and Hosting to capitalize on this exact trend. This merger represents an opportunity for a “re-founding” moment for both Hostway and Hosting with opportunities to reach the mission our companies embarked on 20 years ago. We wanted to create a combined company that offers complex managed cloud solutions spanning the entire lifecycle of customers’ digital transformation with the highest reputation for security and customer experience.
It is said that the journey is sometimes more rewarding than the destination. The process of merging two companies towards a unified vision proves this every day. Together, Hostway and Hosting are forging a new history, driven by customer needs of building something unique. I am thrilled about this new future and all the benefits it will yield for customers, partners, and employees alike.
Expansion Meets Shifting Needs
Modern technology needs are rarely (if ever) met by just one service or another—it’s a complex mix of solutions. Rising to the forefront of this industry shift towards hybrid, Hostway and Hosting merged at the end of 2018 to create one of the largest managed cloud services platforms in the world. Our merged company is now an industry leader in building and managing complex cloud environments with highly available and secure solutions that span public and private cloud. Our unmatched portfolio features a multitude of managed options, including private cloud, VMware, AWS, Azure, and hybrid cloud solutions with a full suite of security, compliance, database management, DevOps, and business intelligence services. Hostway now stands out as a global powerhouse with 14 state-of-the-art data centers around the world.
Customer Needs Are Shifting
The combination of Hostway and Hosting creates a leading independent platform positioned to thrive in a rapidly consolidating market. To understand all the benefits the merger brings, it’s important to understand the IT environment that businesses work in today. It’s predicted that that 83% of enterprise workloads will be in the cloud by 2020, and while the public cloud approach used to be considered the natural answer for outgrowing old IT methods, public cloud alone is proving to be an incomplete solution. Concerns of cost, compliance, and security are driving the prevalence of more hybrid, custom, and multi-cloud options. As noted by 451 Research, “Using both public and private infrastructure…[is] the endgame for most organizations today. This approach avoids vendor lock-in and enables enterprises to leverage the best attributes of each platform.”
Setting a Strong Foundation
Our expectations for the integration of these companies are constantly being surpassed. We are making excellent progress thanks to the hard work and amazing professionalism of our teams. In a very short period of time we have seamlessly merged our operations, systems, and teams, all united in our goals of providing a great customer experience. We’ve also delivered growth of available services to customers, as well as increased career growth opportunities for team members.
In February, we held our first integrated Sales Kickoff in Denver, bringing together our entire global sales team under one roof to meet and learn about our new portfolio of service, partnerships, and clients. Joining in these many conversations reminded me again just how complex IT management has become and why the time was right to come together and join forces. Bringing our teams, services, and collective knowledge together is more important now than ever to bring the most innovative and comprehensive solutions to our customers.
Strong Team Alignment
Technology and systems are certainly important during mergers, but it’s the people behind the merger that complete the winning formula. From day one of the merger, there was a lot to do in so many areas. Suddenly, we became a much larger global company with expanded services, growing teams, new locations, and more. After visits to new offices around the world, I witnessed firsthand the alignment between both companies’ core values, commitment to integrity, and customer focus. As a combined team, our employees immediately engaged and collaborated to solve customer problems. Watching our teams work together, you would think these companies have been merged for years, not just a few weeks!
These early integration efforts are already being recognized by industry-leading reviews and reports. In the first two months of Q1, Hostway was named one of the major key players of the most recent Market Report by Global Managed Servers Market Forecast (2019-2023) and one of the Top Colocation Services Vendors by FeaturedCustomers, in addition to receiving the Best Managed Hosting Service Award by HostReview.
Benefits to Customers
Our customers are the true focus of all of this work. The expanded portfolio addresses core businesses challenges and provides comprehensive solutions for our customer needs. We have already begun serving customers with our expanded service set, and our internal account teams are proactively assessing and identifying ways to optimize and improve outcomes for current customers. Hostway is excited to fully complete the merger in the weeks to come, unveiling changes across our website and our products.
As a quick example of the increase in services available to customers, now Hosting customers can have a global presence by accessing Hostway’s international Data Centers in Germany, Korea, and Canada. Additionally, Hosting customers now have access to the full suite of business-class Office 365 services from Hostway, as well as in the in-depth Azure expertise that the Hostway team brings. Similarly, Hostway customers can now benefit from Hosting’s experience and technical processes for database management brought by the Ntirety Hosting team, in depth AWS Management and automation, and Compliance as Service offerings. Hosting’s previous focus on Monitoring Insights, DevOps automation, management, and protection across services will be a valuable addition to Hostway’s customer solutions.
We are also proud to have introduced the industry’s first Guidance Level Agreements (GLAs), providing organizations that work with Hostway’s with actionable recommendations, providing benefits for all of our customers. These in-depth recommendations are delivered quarterly and tied to customer’s individual business achievement.
Collectively, the organization is now better positioned to address the entirety of enterprise IT challenges and deliver more comprehensive solutions to risk, cost, and agility in the ever-changing technology landscape.
We’re Coming to You
Combining our expertise, our united teams are traveling to meet with IT professionals and hear about their challenges at executive dinners and TechTalks in cities across the country. Some of our best and brightest will be listening and learning about these industry issues to understand and share how our combined company can help these growing customer needs. Those interested but unable to make of our in-person events are encouraged to join us during our series of webinars. We are excited to connect and share our expanded knowledge sets.
As Hostway continues to unite, customers and partners will get the benefit of more than twice the experience, technical expertise, and services to help every step of the way on the journey to hybrid cloud environments, with greater protection against ever-emerging threats. Learn about what twice the benefits means for your organization in our X2 webinar series. With similar company cultures and determination, we are successfully building a stronger team that will build careers within our organization and reinforce our mission towards personal, company, and customer success. The Executive Team, along with the entire company, are thrilled to be on the front lines of this exciting evolution and look forward to further accelerate our customer’s success in the coming months.
What do you think of this merger? How do you think it will benefit customers? Please let us know your comments by emailing esayegh@hostway.com.
AUSTIN, TX and DENVER, CO JANUARY 8, 2019 — Hostway and HOSTING today announced the merger of the two organizations, combining to create one of the largest managed cloud services platforms in the world. Both companies are known for secure, compliant managed hybrid cloud solutions and together will have an unmatched set of products and services with the ability to scale for their clients’ growing needs. The combined organization has 14 world-class data centers in five countries across three continents and will be led by Emil Sayegh as CEO and president. Investors Littlejohn & Co., LLC and Pamlico will stay on to equally back the combined entity.
“Both Hostway and HOSTING have always had an uncompromising commitment to customer service and an incredible history of pioneering leading-edge solutions into the market. This merger is a natural progression of the two companies’ focus on providing solutions for CIOs and IT leaders to reduce costs, mitigate risks and increase business agility,” said Sayegh. “Our combined strengths benefit all our customers by delivering even more product sets and the scalability to adapt to clients’ changing needs. We will be in a unique position to help customers every step of the way as they make the journey to hybrid cloud environments while protecting them against ever-emerging threats.”
“Both Pamlico and Littlejohn came together to back this merger because we believe the combination makes for an undisputed leader in IT transformation solutions for mission critical applications, and provides opportunity to dominate the market,” said Michael Kaplan, Managing Director, Littlejohn & Co.
“Collectively the organization is even better positioned to address the top enterprise IT challenges of security, costs, lack of IT resources, governance and multi-cloud complexity. Both Pamlico and Littlejohn are prepared to fully support the company into its next phase of growth,” said Scott Stevens, Partner at Pamlico Capital.
HOSTING and Hostway will continue to operate under two separate brands and operational models for a limited period during the interim integration. The company intends to fully merge all functions and operate under a single brand within the next twelve months.
About Hostway Services
Hostway is the world’s most trusted managed compliant cloud services provider, delivering complex, managed cloud infrastructure solutions for mission-critical software. Its team of engineers in North America, Europe and Asia deliver reliable, secure and scalable managed cloud and hybrid cloud solutions to thousands of customers across eight geographically diverse SSAE 18 and ISAE 3402 data centers around the world – all while ensuring strict compliance, such as PCI, HITRUST, FERPA and HIPAA. At Hostway, every customer interaction is treated as an opportunity to develop a long-term relationship based on trust. Visit Hostway.com for more information.
About HOSTING
HOSTING delivers secure, compliant managed cloud services and open technologies that empower organizations to transform their businesses and lead their industries. We provide customers with unmatched security, support and compliance expertise across a broad portfolio of solutions including public cloud, private cloud, hybrid IT and dedicated environments. Our mission is simple – to provide the best customer experience for companies running mission-critical applications in the cloud, supported by the industry’s best team.
HOSTING set the bar in introducing a complete unified cloud solution on the AWS and Azure cloud platforms. The HOSTING Unified Cloud™ provides customers with an unprecedented flexibility to develop, run and manage custom applications in the cloud without the burden of vendor lock-in.
Visit HOSTING.com and HOSTINGUnifiedCloud.com for more information.
About Littlejohn & Co., LLC
Littlejohn & Co. is a Greenwich, Connecticut-based investment firm focused on private equity and debt investments primarily in middle market companies. The Firm seeks to build sustainable success for its portfolio companies through a disciplined approach to engineering change. For more information about Littlejohn, visit http://www.littlejohnllc.com.
About PAMLICO CAPITAL
Pamlico Capital is a private equity firm founded in 1988 that primarily invests in growing middle-market companies in North America. Pamlico Capital seeks control-oriented growth equity investments of up to $125 million alongside founders and proven management teams in its target industries; business & technology services, communications, and healthcare. Since inception, the firm, based in Charlotte, NC, has invested over $3 billion. For additional information, please visit http://www.pamlicocapital.com.
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As the end of the year draws near, I want to pause for a moment and say thank you. Thank you to our loyal customers and to all of our employees around the world for another great year with Hostway.
The holidays always remind me to stop and reflect on the past year and what I have learned, both as a CEO and as a person. Even though the Thanksgiving holiday is officially celebrated primarily in the US and Canada (albeit on different dates), the sentiment of gratitude is truly universal amongst all people. Much like families take turns sharing what they are thankful for around the Thanksgiving dinner table in America, I’d like to share with you what I am thankful for in the Hostway family across the globe this year.
Our growing Hostway family
First and foremost, we are thankful to all our customers for entrusting us with their most crucial, mission-critical data. You are the reason we exist as a company. We know how important your data and applications are, and we thank you for your continued trust in us. We are also thankful for the many organizations and companies that joined our client base this year. I’d like to extend a warm Hostway welcome to PlayPower, Explore.org, Strategic Materials, IES, Fage Yogurt, Molecular Labs, and many others. We look forward to sustaining long and successful relationships with these incredible companies that are changing the world.
Our employees are our most important asset, and to them we are deeply grateful for keeping our customers’ IT infrastructures safe and secure. This year we also had the honor to welcome new team members to the Hostway family across the globe, including several field account executives in key regions, allowing them to be in close proximity to our customers and better serve their needs.
This past year, we also promoted John Enright to serve as President of the Web and Applications division. He’s done an outstanding job handling the acquisition of MyHosting.com and Mail2Web, welcoming great customers into the Hostway family, as well as an amazingly talented group of employees.
Demonstrating our commitment to secure and compliant solutions
In 2018, we also continued our focus on security and compliance, announcing our HITRUST CSF certification over the summer, and our FERPA compliance. Attestations like these allow us to further demonstrate and provide our customers with global cloud security services and rigorous security measures around mission-critical data, especially for the healthcare, financial services, and education industries.
Celebrating a commitment to excellence
From big picture to the micro-level, 2018 was a great year for Hostway's growing knowledge pool. Our employees took the initiative to further their professional training, and as a collective group we have added 100+ certifications for Azure and AWS to the hundreds of certifications Hostway team members already hold.
Making smart moves
And lastly, with all the growth over the past year, our Austin office is moving to a new location to better support our expanding team and customers. New office locations and state-of-the-art facilities, like our new Austin III data center, are additional highlights in a highly successful year.
Extending our gratitude
None of it would be possible without you, our customers, your trust in us, and your continuous honest feedback.
So, remember to spend some time with your family and friends, enjoy the company and warm feelings of gratitude. If you are in the U.S., have a joyful Thanksgiving. And a special thank you to all the Hostway employees working during this holiday, away from their families, in order to keep our customers worry free.
Best,
Emil Sayegh, CEO and President, Hostway
IT leaders from organizations of all shapes and sizes—ranging from large SaaS providers and hospital networks to small, privately-run hospitals and healthcare solutions providers—agree that cloud hosting can improve healthcare organizations’ operational efficiency, and it is a competitive necessity. As you search for the perfect provider, keep these three considerations in mind.
A Review on Hostway by Hosting.Review
Hostway claims to put its clients first. And they do manage to provide stable uptime and industry-specific features.
Here are the details.
1. Reliable 99.97% Uptime
Hostway claims to provide 100% uptime. After several months of testing, we finally found that it can provide a stable 99.97% uptime. This is obviously a great output - leaving only around 3 minutes weekly for maintenance or unexpected downtime.
The result is great. Especially knowing, that most of the providers guarantee only 99.9% uptime which can lead to 10 minutes of weekly downtime.
2. Industry-Specific Hosting and Compliances
Hostway is a leading PCI- and HIPAA-compliant service provider and it happens to have 20 years of experience for that. Moreover, it is fully equipped with the certifications and needed expertise in this sector. Hostway will also help you develop and run your solutions according to your compliance strategy.
Some of their Enterprise level solutions include:
Healthcare Solutions
These solutions are designed for healthcare providers or healthcare-related industries that collect and preserve the information of patients. For this, they provide HIPPA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) compliant solutions that will provide the highest level of security to preserve this information.
Additionally, Hostway is HITRUST certified, so it is fully capable of handling this information.
PCI Compliance
Sometimes meeting with strict Payment Card Industry’s necessities might cause security loopholes without any trusted source. But not with Hostway. It provides PCI-compliant solutions to help you deal with credit/debit card information.
Moreover, these solutions are geared toward organizations that deal with these types of sensitive information and needs more security.
Mission-Critical Saas Apps
Want additional support in the development of SaaS Apps? Well, Hostway might have a powerful solution for you. Other than providing PCI and HIPPA compliance, they also provide solutions just for the development of SaaS Apps.
So when your project grows, you'll have strong backing and tech architecture to host your own SaaS App.
3. 24/7 Customer Support
Hostway has all the essential customer support options - 24/7 live chat, email, and phone.
We contacted the support via live chat to get all the details about the Website Starter plan and easily got our answers.
Later, we needed to solve a technical issue. In order to create a database, we needed approval from Hostway. So we went to the live chat again and were connected to the tech support agent quickly.
She was able to solve our problem quickly and we had our database functioning soon after.
Our interactions went pretty smoothly. Best of all, support is available 24/7.
An email migration gone wrong can lead to significant business costs, lost productivity, and frustration between you and customers. We’ve seen several businesses throughout the years who have tried to migrate on their own, or who have had issues working with providers who don’t truly understand their needs or Office 365. To help you avoid some of those mishaps, we’d like to share the top five mistakes to avoid when migrating to Office 365.
Performing a thorough discovery of your current IT environment is a crucial first step in any migration process. The discovery should be considered an investment of time, because the accuracy of information plays a significant part in the migration timeline. Further, the discovery should investigate:
Because of the differences between Office 365 and the various versions of Exchange, there may also be some limitations or specific settings to keep in mind. By working with an experienced hosting provider who can guide you through a thorough discovery of your current IT environment prior to the migration, you can avoid hiccups or delays during the migration process.
The amount of time your migration will take is largely determined by the amount of data you need to move. This means that without a complete calculation of the amount of data you have, you will not be able to properly estimate the completion time or forewarn your users of when the switch to the new system is taking place.
For instance, Hostway recently performed a migration for a client with 1,000+ mailboxes and approximately 2 TB of data to move. Based on this information, we were able to inform the customer that the migration would run for 20 days in the background of their IT system, allowing them to make arrangements for the final switchover.
Because the customer provided an accurate data amount, we were able to properly estimate the time frame and schedule their migration outside of regular business hours.
It’s important to schedule the migration for a time when it is least likely to cause an email service disruption so that network users won’t miss emails or be locked out of the system during normal business hours, which can lead to lost productivity and higher costs. For this reason, the DNS cutover is usually best planned in the evening on the last day of the business week. This allows everyone to prepare for the change and come in the following week to a new email system.
Because mail flow is highest Monday to Friday, Hostway usually schedules migrations to occur over the weekend, with the DNS cutover taking place late Friday or early Saturday. Not all business are alike, however, which is why Hostway's specialists work with each client to find a migration time that works best for each organization.
In any migration, the main goal should be a smooth transition with little to no impact on your users. In order to make this happen, your IT department should communicate with all employees to prepare them for the change, set expectations, and communicate next steps. Introduce your users to the new environment (which could include a new Outlook client), then provide the URL to use for browser access to Outlook and new login credentials if those have been changed.
Users should also be aware that for a limited time, Outlook will not offer autocomplete suggestions for recipient email addresses until the new cache builds up. While all other features of the new system should work right away, there may be some minor configurations necessary, such as Outlook client settings. Finally, be sure to set expectations about potential downtime, even if it will occur over the weekend. Even if the migration itself is seamless, surprising end users about these facets has the potential to bring productivity to a halt.
Migration always seems easier than it really is. For that reason, we always recommend getting help from an expert rather than learning for yourself and risking costly mistakes. With so many factors to consider, it’s likely that something will be missed by all but the most experienced IT professionals.
For example, if an organization is using custom user permissions, these new permissions need to be set up in Office 365 well in advance. This is part of the complete discovery of your current environment that an experienced hosting provider will guide you through so they can replicate your current environment as closely as possible in Office 365. Other things that can easily be missed include global contacts, distribution groups, and resource mailboxes, like those used for room or equipment booking.
Ready to Get Started?
From small businesses to enterprise organizations, Hostway has helped customers of all sizes migrate their email systems to Microsoft Office 365. While any big change is bound to result in challenges or surprises, migration can be relatively easy if you work with a hosting provider who has the experience, know-how, and skill set in-house. To leverage our 15+ years of Microsoft expertise and get start-to-finish guidance through the entire migration process, call us for a free consultation at 1-888-545-8591.
From our conversations with Hostway customers, we’ve learned the benefits of Office 365 are not clear to everyone. Here’s our perspective on how Office 365 helps companies, as well as tips for choosing the most cost-effective and valuable plans for your organization.
How Can My Organization Benefit?
With such a wide range of applications, Office 365 gives organizations an easy way to standardize business tools. When thinking of switching to Office 365, ask yourself: Are there other applications we can replace? Some of the most common swaps we see customers make are:
All of these applications provide great features and performance, but the benefit of having them all on the same platform is that when they are fully integrated, communication becomes more efficient. Consolidating applications on Office 365 can also provide a significant cost savings, both in terms of software and hardware and the associated management overhead involved in maintaining those systems. The savings are even larger if you have an Office 365 provider like Hostway that provides 24x7 support services and flexible monthly subscription plans.
Separately, moving from on-premise Exchange to Office 365 saves you the cost of Exchange licenses and operational expenses, such as:
It also saves you the trouble of patching operating systems and staying current with updates.
What are the Different Options?
Office 365 licenses are divided into Business and Enterprise groups. At Hostway, we offer three different plans in each group.
Office 365 also includes a range of add-ons, such as security features, audio conferencing, and front-line staff support.
The core differences between the plans include:
Built-In Customization for Your Organization
One single plan is unlikely to meet all the needs of your entire organization. A big advantage of Office 365 is that you can purchase the most cost-effective plans for everyone in your organization. Many businesses think they need to buy a single plan for the whole organization. Instead, they can get the best value by mixing and matching based on the user’s needs.
Business Premium includes almost everything a user could need. Instead of purchasing it for all users, analyze the needs of each one to determine their workload and mobile access requirements. For example, in some organizations, many individuals don’t need to travel and work from their desktop. Giving most users access to Business Essentials allows them to sit down at any work station in the company and access the tools they need online via Office 365. For other users, however, Business Premium may be a better choice because they need to be available and work while traveling or at home via their mobile phones, or tablets, or laptops.
For example, say your organization had 300 people; you could give 230 individual contributors Business Essentials at $6 each, 50 middle managers on Business Premium at $15 each, and 20 executives on Enterprise E3 at $20 each per month. You effectively save $41,640 annually compared to having the whole company on the plan senior executives need.
One of the differences between Enterprise and Business plans as created by Microsoft is the size of the organization, with Business plans created for businesses with under 300 people and Enterprise plans for organizations with over 300 employees. Although some companies treat it as such, this doesn’t mean the license purchased should be determined based on a business’ size. In reality, you can order from any of the plans based on the features that you actually need. This means that whether you have 100 employees or 600 employees, you can mix and match Business Essentials with E3—or any combination of Office 365 plans from Hostway.
Leverage Hostway's Experience as a Partner, Provider and Customer of Microsoft
Don’t do it alone. Hostway has more than 15 years of Microsoft experience and has helped organizations of all sizes adopt Office 365. From migrating all existing user data, to choosing the optimal configuration of account types, to providing consultative support 24x7x365 – our team of experts can make the move seamless for your employees. All of this for the same exact rate that Microsoft charges – there is no premium for our services, and unlike Microsoft, we don’t require an annual commitment.
Our team of experts will work to understand your organization's unique requirements and configure an Office 365 solution that meets those needs in the most cost-effective way possible. Our team can even migrate all your existing email, calendars, and contacts over to Office 365 to make the transition seamless for your users. To consult a Hostway expert and discover a solution that meets your unique requirements, call us today at 1-888-545-8591.
With such a wide array of advanced applications and features, Office 365 can be quite complex. And without a thorough understanding of what it has to offer, companies often diminish the return on their investment.
When we moved Hostway's corporate email infrastructure from Exchange and Linux mail servers to Office 365, our team gained a number of insights from a Corporate IT perspective. Now, we’re sharing our five most pragmatic tips so that other companies can make their move to Office 365 a smooth and successful transition.
Those of us in the Corporate IT department started by asking ourselves, “What are we happy with? What do we dislike about our current mail system and other applications?” We then asked our fellow Hostway employees the same questions. This led to several discoveries:
Knowing this information allowed us to plan for full functionality and perform an effective cost/benefit analysis for all the different options and features.
The most cost-effective plan is not usually the highest tier plan bundled with the bells and whistles—some of which you might never use. If a medium- or lower-tier plan meets all but one or two needs, filling the gaps with add-ons will generally result in the best price. However, if you need more than a couple of add-ons for full functionality, going with the next highest-level plan will probably be less expensive, while also providing a few extra features.
For example, a company with message encryption and policy-based protection needs could purchase the Office 365 Enterprise E3 plan from Hostway at $20 per user per month. However, the Azure Information Protection can also be purchased as an add-on for $2 a month.
If a user’s needs are met mostly by Business Essentials plans, the company can buy Business Essentials at $6 per user per month plus the $2 add-on and generate a savings of $12 per user every month. This means an annual savings of $28,800 for an organization with 200 employees.
There are a huge variety of functions, applications, and plans within the Office 365 universe. Understanding the different functions of Office 365 plans enables organizations to effectively customize the applications for maximum use and increase cost-effectiveness.
Different plans can be purchased for different users based on their roles within the organization, and certain users can be given the full functionality of Enterprise E3. This allows the company to achieve cost savings on Business Essentials plans for everyone else.
To figure out the perfect customization for your business and understand the full functionality of Office 365, talk to a provider about the plan options available and play with the environment. Look for a hosting provider that offers a free month so you can familiarize yourself with all of the options and gain the experience you need to start guiding users within your organization.
While Office 365 still allows you to manage a number of admin settings, you don’t have complete control over the physical server, which affects security, compliance, and administration settings. You also lose access to email if the internet is down, just like with any cloud service.
The benefits of Office 365 far outweigh these minor drawbacks, however. Companies on Office 365 have a lower total cost of ownership than those with on-premise Exchange. Maintenance is handled by your provider, which frees up time for your Corporate IT team or owner. Plus, the higher level of redundancy built into cloud services ensures uptime. If there is an issue, the Corporate IT team is not on their own, but can leverage the hosting provider’s large team of experts 24/7/365 to resolve the problem right away.
The Move Can Be Seamless . . . with a Little Planning
We find that the most seamless migrations into Office 365 include a comprehensive discovery phase that investigates:
The planning process enabled us to identify who had what, where, and when. We could then effectively migrate during non-peak hours.
A seamless migration means no downtime or missing emails. This is important for most businesses, and Hostway was no exception. Not only did we have three different email systems to migrate (an Exchange environment, plus two Linux IMAP systems that had accumulated over time), but we also had mailboxes for people who had been with the company for more than a decade, each one accumulating hundreds of gigabytes in email data.
The Corporate IT team has seen huge improvements since we moved to Office 365. As a fully-managed Office 365 provider, we leveraged the expertise of Hostway's 15+ years of partnership with Microsoft to orchestrate a smooth migration, and our own internal experiences have now helped to shape the support and expertise we provide to our clients.
To learn more about migration considerations or leverage our expertise, call us at 1-888-545-8591 Interested but still not sure? Signing up with Hostway allows you to experience the Office 365 environment for free up to a month.