Hosted e-mail and uptime

Unified Communications This newsletter is sponsored by Akamai Technologies Perk up apps with Web acceleration Discover why one enterprise made the decision to go with a managed Web application service provider to improve application performance. This IT shop decided that a distributed datacenter was too costly and is now reaping the benefits of outsourcing. Its once sluggish application is now chugging along. Network World's Unified Communications Newsletter, 08/07/07 Hosted e-mail and uptime By Michael Osterman We have just published a major new study on hosted and managed messaging, focusing on full messaging services, security, archiving and other areas. One of the issues that we wanted to explore is the likelihood of midsized and large organizations (the focus of the research) to use various types of hosted and/or managed services. We wanted to explore how likely it would be that organizations would consider deploying particular hosted or managed services at various price points, at various service-level agreements and so forth. In the context of SLAs, we asked organizations how likely they would be to deploy complete hosted messaging services at different levels of guaranteed uptime. For example, if a hosted provider guaranteed 100% uptime, two-thirds of organizations told us that they would likely or definitely deploy such a service for at least some of their users. However, the market is quite sensitive to system reliability. For example, if a service provider could guarantee 99.9% uptime (44 minutes of downtime per month), only 37% of organizations told us they would likely or definitely a hosted messaging service; at 99.8% guaranteed uptime, that figure drops to 17%. Interestingly, however, a study that we conducted for Neverfail Group in May found that the mean uptime experienced by organizations during a typical month is 99.84%. What this means is that a level of downtime that most organizations would find unacceptable in a hosted service is the norm for on-premise deployments. Network World Security Buyers Guide Find the right security products for your enterprise - fast. From anti-spam to wireless LAN security, our Buyers Guides have detailed information on hundreds of products in more than 20 categories. With the side-by-side comparison tool you can evaluate product features to make the best decision for your enterprise. Click here to go to the Security Buyers Guide now. There are a couple of messages that may be drawn from this data. First, uptime in the messaging systems operated by many organizations (but certainly not all organizations) is lower than what hosted or managed service providers guarantee. Second, in order for hosted messaging service providers to be successful, they will have to offer extremely high levels of uptime, in addition to appropriate pricing and other capabilities.   What do you think? Post a comment on this newsletter

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Contact the author: For webinars or research on messaging, or to join the Osterman Research market research survey panel, go here. Osterman Research helps organizations understand the markets for messaging and directory related offerings. To e-mail Michael, click here. This newsletter is sponsored by Akamai Technologies Perk up apps with Web acceleration Discover why one enterprise made the decision to go with a managed Web application service provider to improve application performance. This IT shop decided that a distributed datacenter was too costly and is now reaping the benefits of outsourcing. Its once sluggish application is now chugging along. ARCHIVE Archive of the Unified Communications Newsletter. BONUS FEATURE IT PRODUCT RESEARCH AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Get detailed information on thousands of products, conduct side-by-side comparisons and read product test and review results with Network World’s IT Buyer’s Guides. Find the best solution faster than ever with over 100 distinct categories across the security, storage, management, wireless, infrastructure and convergence markets. Click here for details. PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE You've got the technology snapshot of your choice delivered to your inbox each day. Extend your knowledge with a print subscription to the Network World newsweekly, Apply here today. International subscribers, click here. SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES To subscribe or unsubscribe to any Network World newsletter, change your e-mail address or contact us, click here. This message was sent to: security.world@gmail.com. Please use this address when modifying your subscription. Advertising information: Write to Associate Publisher Online Susan Cardoza Network World, Inc., 118 Turnpike Road, Southborough, MA 01772 Copyright Network World, Inc., 2007