I wrote this a LONG time ago, and it’s a little dated based on the capabilities of Office 365 today – but it has held up surprisingly well.
http://theessentialexchange.com/blogs/michael/archive/2007/12/17/moving-from-in-house-exchange-to-hosted-exchange.aspx (This compared in-house hosting to hosted Exchange with Exchange 2007 using a tool from Microsoft called WebAdmin 1.0.) I’ve on-boarded and off-boarded customers from Office 365. Some love it. Some hate it. Some are just “meh – it’s cheap”. A lot of it depends on whether your email communications is a differentiating factor for you with your customers. From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mike Tavares Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2014 6:49 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Exchange] Q about hosted exchange As an admin that has been using Exchange Online for over a year. While you don’t have to worry about patching your server, you inherit a completely new set of Worries, and that is the DAILY, WEEKLY, MONTHLY patching/updates that Microsoft applies without letting anyone know about them. Usually we only find out because something breaks, or some functionality that worked 1 way yesterday now works a completely different way today. (and it is made worse in the fact that it might only affect 1 or 2 people in our ORG because MS decided not to update all there servers, this has happened to us at least a dozen times so far this year) So for me I would would rather at least have control of when the patching is done, that way I know when it is being done, and if anything goes bad I can back out of it quickly. Unlike some of the issues with MS that have taken 3 to 4 weeks for them to resolv From: Jonathan Raper<mailto:[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2014 6:21 PM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: RE: [Exchange] Q about hosted exchange Hi JP, With Exchange Online, you only get the management tools. The application patching and underlying OS are fully managed by Microsoft. That being said, you can still connect to your Exchange Online tenant with Powershell....so there is a lot you can do.....and potentially a lot you can mess up. What I don't know is how much you can actually do with PS compared to having Exchange on-premise. Personally, I like the idea of Exchange Online, because then I no longer have to worry about patching, and I especially no longer have to worry about un-patching. And having to have a messaging expert on staff to ensure Exchange "just works" is no longer a requirement. Granted, it is not a "hands-off" app, but is about as close as you can get with a Microsoft infrastructure. Jonathan Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone -------- Original message -------- From: J- P Date:12/14/2014 2:36 PM (GMT-05:00) To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: [Exchange] Q about hosted exchange Given all the disasters as of late with MS patches, I'm curious to know if cloud customers of Exchange are given acess to the OS itself, or only to the Exchange specific management tools/utilities? I had actually contemplated the hybrid route , but for now I'm glad I still have total control over OS and Exchange. TIA and Happy un-patching ________________________________ Note: This message and any attachments is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed and may contain information that is non-public, proprietary, legally privileged, confidential, and/or exempt from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any use, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the original sender immediately by telephone or return email and destroy or delete this message along with any attachments immediately.
