Case Studies

Caspian One - Hosted Exchange (Shared)

The Client

Caspian One, a banking and broadcast technology recruitment company with offices in London, Toronto and Bournemouth.

The Challenge

Suffering from a lack of 24/7 support from their original Hosted Exchange provider and a rigid contract. A cost-analysis proved hosting in-house wouldn't be economical.

The Solution

To implement a 24/7/365 fully-supported, fully-managed Microsoft Exchange 2010 service that is scalable and secure.

Caspian One, the banking and broadcast technology recruitment company, has chosen Databarracks' new Hosted Microsoft Exchange service as a cost-effective, fully-supported, out-sourced solution for their email communications.

Databarracks, which have been delivering managed services since 2003, now provides Caspian One with fully-managed, hosted email on a shared platform, situated in one of the most secure Tier 4 data centres in the UK.*

Their client, Caspian One, has offices in London, Toronto and Bournemouth, with a total of approximately 90 mailboxes and four domains.

"Our Microsoft Exchange was already out-sourced with another company but they only provided hosting and no support," reveals Louisa Palmer, Office Manager at Caspian One.

"This caused problems and meant we couldn't get urgent help when we needed it most."

Frustrated by a lack of support, Caspian One initially considered hosting their Exchange themselves but after carrying out a thorough 3-year term cost analysis, they decided otherwise.

"When we compared the price of Databarracks' Hosted Exchange with operating our email in-house, they were roughly the same," reveals Caspian One's Director, Marcus Graziano.  "And that's before we took into account all of the operating and management costs."

"What's more, it would leave us with a single server without any resilience," adds Graziano. "With Databarracks we know our email communications are highly available and totally secure.

"Most importantly, we get 24/7, year-round support from skilled technicians, which we're making a lot of use of."

Databarracks' contract provides Caspian One with more flexibility as it charges per month. "With our old hosting company, we used to pay for mailboxes on an annual basis, which meant when staff left, we had to carry on paying for unused mailboxes until the end of the year," reveals Palmer.

"All our email licensing and security issues are also taken care of by Databarracks," she adds. "So our charges are now scalable and predictable - with no hidden costs."

In addition to the extra support Caspian One now receives, Databarracks' Hosted Exchange solution gives them increased functionality: "It's great to be able to log in, change passwords and create rules ourselves, rather than relying on an outside company to do it for us," adds Palmer.

Databarracks created the mailboxes and implemented Symantec.cloud for anti-virus and anti-spam filtering of emails. Migration was carried out swiftly and smoothly over a weekend, whilst Caspian One migrated their own email history to the new hosted environment.

Databarracks also backs up their Information Store, the huge file in Exchange, meaning all the mailboxes are protected.

"It made sense financially to opt for Databarracks' hosted solution and it's a company we trust because they've been providing us with online back up for several years," reveals Graziano. "Knowing that our business-critical email communications are being hosted on robust hardware in the safest possible environment, gives us great peace of mind."