Azaleos Launches Managed Hybrid Services
7/7/2009
SEATTLE, July 7, 2009 -- Azaleos® Corporation, the managed unified communications services company, today announced Azaleos Managed Hybrid Services, a new software plus services offering that blends its remotely managed on-premise Exchange Server service with Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) and Exchange Online. Azaleos Managed Hybrid Services enable organizations to select on-premise or cloud-based e-mail services based on the roles & responsibilities and/or regulatory requirements of individual employees, workgroups, departments, subsidiaries, and more. According to Gartner, Inc., “a mixed environment will be the norm for most enterprises for many years. A hybrid environment will make a mixed environment more flexible and will enable movement more easily between on- and off-premises implementations.”
On-Prem or On-Line: Azaleos Brings them Together
To allow IT departments to focus on strategic technology initiatives, Azaleos Managed Hybrid Services provide 24X7 pro-active management of Microsoft Exchange, yet offer the unique ability to maintain messaging data generated by select e-mail users inside the firewall. Since not every user in an organization needs the capabilities of on-premise email, Azaleos allows IT to mix and match on-premise and online messaging services. Azaleos experts provide deployment, migration, and configuration support for both its remotely managed Exchange and cloud-based BPOS offerings. As needs change, users can be easily migrated between the two services.
“By extending their current managed services for Exchange Server to work for customers who want to host mailboxes with Exchange Online, Azaleos is giving customers another option for managing Exchange in software plus services world,” said Julia White, Director of Exchange Marketing at Microsoft. “Solutions such as Azaleos’ promise to help businesses reduce costs without sacrificing the critical communications capabilities they require.”
Sample Deployment Scenarios
Azaleos Managed Hybrid Services are designed to provide the flexibility required to help organizations meet a wide range of business, personal productivity, and compliance challenges. The following four examples illustrate how organizations can select the service which is best suited for a given scenario and set of users:
- Split Worker Model: can be used to provide knowledge workers with on-premise Exchange e-mail service, while provisioning Microsoft Exchange Online for Desk-less workers
- Acquisition Model: to allow for a more orderly integration of two e-mail infrastructures following an acquisition, the on-premise Exchange service can be used by the acquirer while Exchange Online can be used to support the company being acquired
- Transition Model: to enable a smooth migration from another e-mail platform or upgrade to Exchange 2010, the core population of a company’s users can be on the on-premise Exchange service, while specific departments or workgroups involved in proof of concepts and/or Exchange 2010 pilots can use the online service
- Regulatory Model: for organizations where a subset of users must comply with regulatory compliance requirements, the on-premise service can be provisioned for these employees while users outside of the regulatory umbrella can use the online service
“Virtually every organization has a mix of users – desk-based, mobile, tele-works, etc. – each with different e-mail requirements including some that are bound by regulatory compliance mandates,” said Scott Gode, vice president of marketing and product management for Azaleos. “Azaleos Managed Hybrid Services allow organizations to match individual users with the appropriate e-mail service they require to be productive, which can be on-premise or online. With this new service, choosing between on-premise and cloud e-mail is no longer an ‘either-or’ proposition.”
How It Works
To maintain 24X7 availability and peak performance, Azaleos Managed Hybrid Services combine Azaleos management expertise with Microsoft Exchange Online. Technicians in two Azaleos network operations centers use patented technology to remotely and continuously monitor thousands of data points from the on-premise Exchange Servers and associated infrastructure to identify and address problems before customers become aware of them. Meanwhile, experts in the Microsoft Exchange Online datacenters are responsible for maintaining service level agreements for the cloud e-mail service. Azaleos provides deployment, migration, and configuration support for both its remotely managed Exchange and cloud-based Exchange Online offerings, as well as directory and calendar synchronization between the two services using the new Microsoft Federation Gateway.
Full Suite of Exchange Services
As part of its Managed Hybrid Services, Azaleos offers the most complete and reliable set of remotely managed services for Microsoft-based messaging (including the forthcoming Exchange 2010 release) SharePoint Server, and Blackberry Enterprise Server. Customers can select the following Azaleos add-ons to complement their Managed Hybrid Service:
Availability
Azaleos Managed Hybrid Services are available immediately from Azaleos and its business partners.
Pricing
Pricing for the new Managed Hybrid Services starts at an average of $15 per user/month (for the combination of on-premise and BPOS services). All Azaleos services can be purchased with All-In-One financing options that wrap hardware, Azaleos managed services, and any deployment and migration services into a single monthly subscription.
About Azaleos
Azaleos Corporation provides the benefits of hosted e-mail and collaboration services for organizations that can’t or won’t allow their data to reside outside the datacenter. Azaleos’ 24X7X365 remotely managed services for Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, Active Directory, Office Communications Server, and BlackBerry Enterprise Server keep information on-premise and under IT control, while uptime, maintenance, and support is handled by experts in its network operations centers.
More than 150 companies from Fortune 500 to mid-market enterprises rely on Azaleos and its patented ViewX technology to manage their collaboration infrastructures and address issues before users ever know they exist. Azaleos is a Microsoft Gold Certified partner, and one of Microsoft’s top 35 partners in the US. For more information visit www.azaleos.com.
Download a PDF of this release.
# # #
The names of companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
Editorial Contact:
Marc Gendron
Marc Gendron PR
781-237-0341
marc@mgpr.net
Back to Main News Page