Government Employees Affected by the Migration

As per the press release from the San Francisco government, over 23,000 employees from 60 departments will benefit from the email migration. Since the governmental community is large and diverse, this investment in information technology has many advantages including decreasing costs and improving productivity. Although Microsoft has already begun the transition, the total migration will occur over 12 months.

Collaborative Tools

Microsoft Exchange Online delivers an improvement in collaborative and communicative tools such as calendar and email functions in addition to hosted archiving of emails. The city and county government of San Francisco continues to think toward the future and has always leveraged technology to improve all services. This is another example of a highly beneficial upgrade.

Microsoft’s Statement

The Vice President of US State and Local Government at Microsoft followed-up with a statement highlighting the company’s excitement support San Francisco government employees with the tools necessary to be efficient. Further, this transition will help government employees better serve the San Francisco community.

Benefits of Microsoft Exchange Online

Microsoft was selected due to many factors with the most critical being price. Also, security, functionality and flexibility were concerns, especially with the number of attacks recently hitting major networks. Furthermore, Microsoft boasts a proven track-record of success, features SLA-backed service and can easily integrate with existing infrastructure to minimize downtime.

Migrations from Other Departments

The San Francisco government is not the first area of the government to make the change to cloud-based email system. Several months ago the United States Department of Agriculture began the migration process to Microsoft Exchange. They have seen a major improvement in the email systems.

If this benefits the taxpayers of San Francisco and California in general, it is an excellent move by the local government. As necessity continues to grow across the country; local, state and federal government divisions will require a secure, more robust systematic infrastructure to operate efficiently. San Francisco is one of few to take the first step and move in that direction.

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Main Features of the Windows Exchange Hosting

The primary focus of the Windows Exchange hosting plan is to provide access to a fully functional copy of Windows Exchange Server, as well as the server resources the software needs to function optimally. Windows Exchange hosting providers offer comprehensive support related to the use of software, administrative server management assistance, and enough bandwidth and disk space to facilitate the creation, storage, and transmission of large amounts of data. With a Windows Exchange hosting solution you’ll be able to start utilizing Windows Exchange Server from day one, without having to pay an Internet technology specialist or tutor to teach you how to use it. In fact, many Windows Exchange hosting services include detailed tutorials and instructions for using the software.

The Cost-Saving Benefits of Windows Exchange Hosting

If you were to set up a Windows Exchange hosting solution yourself you would need to make several significant investments, both monetarily and temporally. First, you have to purchase a license of Microsoft Exchange Server, and install it on your Web server. In order to install such software, you would need to have access to a dedicated or virtual private server hosting solution, both of which are just as expensive, if not more expensive than a Microsoft exchange hosting service. On average, Microsoft exchange hosting providers offer services for about $10 per month per mailbox. Thus, you would have to have more than 200 employees to warrant investing the money for a private Web server and a license of Microsoft Windows exchange.

The Reliability of Windows Exchange Hosting

By choosing to utilize the services of a Windows Exchange hosting provider you are also ensuring the most reliable and stable platform for your business communications. These services usually utilize networks of VPS or dedicated servers, both of which provide extensive server resources and supreme stability. By choosing to purchase a Windows exchange hosting plan rather than host the application on a private Web server, you’ll also gain access to redundant Web server’s and multiple ultrahigh speed Internet connections through the state-of-the-art data center owned by the web hosting company. Thus, if an error occurs with the software or a Web server goes down unexpectedly, your data will immediately be transferred to a working server within the hosting environment.

Related posts:

• June 9, 2011 – Government Decides to Move Email to Microsoft Exchange
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• August 31, 2011 – Top 5 Cloud Storage Service Providers
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• November 19, 2010 – Microsoft’s New Developments
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• December 3, 2009 – Cloud Computing the Focus of Next Year’s Parallels Summit
• September 1, 2009 – The Importance of MS SQL in Windows Hosting

Intermedia CEO Serguei Sofinski explained that the company’s new offerings will help customers address two of the biggest problems faced by small to medium sized businesses today: excessive downtime and security issues.  Sofinski says the new solutions will allow its customers to effectively harvest the true value from their assets without the risk of loss productivity.

Here is a rundown on Intermedia’s new solutions:

Business Continuity

The Intermedia Business Continuity solution has been tailored to provide high availability by permitting customers with on-premise Exchange servers to use its servers to access their messages when the in-house servers go down.  Unlike standard dial-tone solutions, this offering is Exchange-based and allows complete access to user mailboxes.  This means that customers can enjoy 14 days of message history, contacts, calender appointments and more even if their server should fail.

ContentSync

A proprietary application developed by Intermedia, ContentSync is a software tool that synchronizes its Business Continuity Exchange servers with on-premise Exchange servers, providing customers with real-time access to their data in the event of a failure.  This solution doesn’t call for any software or hardware installations, configuration or management, making it possible for business customers to have the high availability that would normally be cost prohibitive at a more affordable price.

SpamStopper

SpamStopper is the second part of Intermedia’s Exchange solution.  This hosted service puts an emphasis on security with spam filtering, anti-virus and anti-phishing tools for small businesses with their own on-premise Exchange server.  Intermedia says that SpamStopper is able detect potentially harmful mail with an accuracy rating of greater than 99%.  The solution is also integrated with a feature called Zero-Hour Virus Outbreak Detection to protect networks from newly released strains of malware.  Thanks to SpamStopper, Intermedia customers can stay one step ahead of the unscrupulous coders writing infectious virus, worm and Trojan programs.

Price and Availability

Both of Intermedia’s new solutions have been made immediately available and can be easily incorporated into customers’ existing on-premise Exchange servers.  Business Continuity starts from $5 a month per user while the SpamStopper solution is available for $50.  The latter is a one-time fee for the first 50 users and an extra 50 cents a month for each additional user.

About Intermedia.NET

Intermedia.NET is a Microsoft Gold Certified partner that has been specializing in the hosting business for more than 10 years.  Its solutions are geared towards small to medium sized businesses looking for enterprise-class technology attached with low monthly fees, no up-front investment and industry-leading technical support.  Aside from Microsoft Exchange hosting, Intermedia provides a variety of traditional web hosting services designed for small and mid-sized companies.

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