Offering Hosted Exchange; What it takes

Syed HashmiFounder & CEOHosting Controller Inc.

Enterprise Communications

Enterprises have seen their communications technologies evolving towards greater unification

Unified Messaging

Key Concept: Store and forward exchange

Unifies Email, Calendars, Tasks, Schedules and other forms of text based messages.

Allows the automatic exchange of such data between and among users.

Unified Collaboration

Key Concept: Near Real-Time exchange

Allows co-authoring of documents, document management, retrieval, workflows and all other types of content management.

Unified Communications

Key Concept: Real-Time exchange

Allows real-time communication between parties including telephony, presence, video and audio conferencing etc.

Enterprise Applications

Enterprise Applications previously had their GUIs that allowed users to interact with data on given interfaces.

Current Enterprise Applications like CRM require fully converged interaction between Enterprise Applications in the back office and the unified messaging, collaboration and communications systems on the front end.

Microsoft Enterprise Servers

Microsoft has a range of enterprise servers.• Microsoft Exchange broadly delivers unified

messaging• Microsoft SharePoint broadly delivers unified

collaboration• Microsoft Lync broadly delivers unified

communications

Ideal for cloud computing

Modern enterprise work-force is now fully mobile and demands access to all unified services wherever, whenever, however, whatever and by whoever.

This has put the previous on-premises storage of information incompatible with modern needs of accessibility.

This has put Microsoft Enterprise products on high demand to be served from the cloud instead of from on-premises servers.

Cloud Computing

Offering Exchange as Hosted Service

A huge market is unfolding for offering Microsoft Exchange as a hosted service in the cloud

1. Traditional Web Hosts can easily upgrade to be Cloud Hosts offering Hosted Exchange

Hosted Exchange; who is it for

ISPs whether wired or wireless are ideally suited to offer MS Exchange as a hosted service to their existing customers. This allows them to better monetize the Internet access they are already providing to their customers

2. Internet Access Service Providers

3. Telcos

Telecoms who have been traditionally providing only telephony services, are ideally suited to extend their offering towards complete unified messaging, collaboration and communications.

Microsoft never designed its suite of enterprise products to run as light weight servers provisioned on small virtual machines

Challenges with Hosted Exchange

MS Exchange was designed to run as an in-house on-premises server maintained by a full time IT staff well trained on the task.

Hosted Exchange: Architecture

Multi-Tenancy requires fully segregated functioning for each Tenant

Exchange was designed to provide fully Unified communications among all users

The two are inherently at odds with each other

Segregation vs Unification

Multi-Tenancy Layer

Multi-Tenancy requires provisioning within ‘sandboxes’ to keep the data of one tenant separate from the other sharing the same server

Multi-Tenancy has been a challenge for Hosted Exchange all through its life.

Microsoft launched HMC but rolled it back later

Microsoft launched /Hosting Mode but rolled it back recently

Hosted Exchange: Multi-Tenancy

Current version has offered ABP (Address Book Policies) to implement Multi-Tenancy

Main job for an Automation Control Panel for Exchange is to create, enforce and continuously sustain this layer of Multi-Tenancy on top of a unified exchange architecture

Hosted Exchange: Multi-Tenancy

Hosted Exchange: Missing pieces

To offer Microsoft Exchange as a hosted service, any Service Provider needs to arrange the following pieces missing in Exchange:

1. Automatic Provisioning

2. Tenant Self-Serve

3. Plan and Quota Manager

4. Service Management

5. Billing and Payments

6. Reseller Support Interface

Just like for traditional web hosts, an automation control panel fills in all these missing pieces for offering exchange as a hosted service.

Automation Control Panel needs to be aware of multi-tenancy at each step

Automation Control Panel

When an order comes from the Order Management system, resources need to be provisioned on servers within the multi-tenant sandbox created for the user

Automatic Provisioning

Self-Serve is a basic requirement of any cloud based service. With multi-tenant servers, self-serve needs to enforce security and make sure that one tenant cannot read/edit/delete data of another tenant on the same shared server

Tenant Self-Serve

Plan & Quota Manager

Provisioning through Self-Serve needs to be done within the bounds defined by a Plan & Quota manager.

Plan & Quota Manager; Feature Monetization

An important job of the plan and quota manager is to allow the Service Provider to monetize different features offered within MS Exchange suite of products

Examples would be IMAP Access,OWA Access, Active Sync, Public Folder and all other available features

Service Management is about automatically suspending customers service when credit policies dictate and then resume those services accordingly

Service Management

A billing and payments processing system not only keeps track of all subscribers and their subscriptions, it automatically processes their subscription charges and does the required Service Management through provided interfaces

Billing & Payments

Introducing Hosting Controller

Hosting Controller is a full service automation tool for Microsoft Exchange suite of products

Hosting Controller Modules

Hosting Controller provides all of the missing pieces mentioned above.

Important business decision for a Service Provider is how much up the value chain does it want to position itself.

Business Models: PaaS vs SaaS

The Service Provider may choose to offer Exchange and related services directly to end customers in a SaaS (Software as a Service) model. It is primarily a B2C relationship.

It is typical for SPs to create plans and packages in great detail monetizing minor and major features available in the products.

SaaS Model

Service Provider offers the Platform as a Service of Exchange and related services to ‘Resellers’ who in turn provide services to their end customers.

PaaS Model

Service Provider primarily keeps a B2B relationship with their Resellers. It is typical to see wholesale prices and plans at this level.

Service Differentiation is key for today’s Service Providers.

Hosting Controller allows a Service Provider or its resellers to monetize tens of features while creating their plans and packages

Feature Monetization

• IMAP• POP• MAPI• OWA /HTTP• Active Sync• Distribution List• Public Folders• Mailboxes• Domains

Supported Features

• Established in 1999• More than 5,000 hosting companies• Specializes in automation of Microsoft

products• Based in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada

About Hosting Controller

Suite 120, 10691 Shellbridge WayRichmond, BC V6X 2W8Canada

Contact Hosting Controller

Tel: (604) 227 0272

Email: sales@hostingcontroller.com

Website: http://HostingController.com