Email Archiving Software comparison: Saas vs Private cloud vs On premises

Email Archiving Software Comparison: Shared SaaS vs Dedicated Cloud vs On Premise Server

Organisations looking at deploying an email archiving solution have three types of email archiving service solutions to select from:

Shared SaaS Email Archiving On Cloud
Dedicated Email Archive On Cloud
Dedicated Email Archive On Premise Email Archiving

This email archiving solutions comparison article aims to help organizations understand and compare the working of these three solutions. The pros and cons of each and the fit of each of these email archival solutions.

(We have assumed the use of AWS Cloud for the dedicated cloud setups.)

Essentially an organization is looking to retain a copy of every mail exchanged by all users in a secure enterprise email vault in order to recover and serve compliance requests.

Email Archiving Solutions Comparison- Saas vs On Premises vs Private cloud

Attribute	Shared SaaS Archiving On Cloud	Dedicated Email Archive Solution On Cloud	Dedicated Email Archive Solution On Premise
Model	With SaaS Archiving, Simply Subscribe, Configure and Consume the services.	Provision the server and storage infrastructure on the dedicated cloud. Next, deploy the Archiving software on this infrastructure, and finally configure for high availability and security, and use this setup.	With on premise email archiving, provision server and storage infrastructure in premise (bare metal or virtualized). Next, deploy the Archiving software on this infrastructure and finally configure for high availability and security.
Infrastructure	No infrastructure required at your end except an Internet connection to allow transport of mail from the Primary mail servers to the Archival service on the cloud.	Setup a server and storage on the dedicated cloud, in your own AWS cloud account, and install the chosen email archiving software on it. The instance type and storage capacity will depend on the number of users and the retention period. There are two options to connect this to your Primary mail servers: Over the Internet or With a direct connection between the data center and the cloud (DirectX)	First of all, setup a server and storage in your data center, and install the chosen email archiving software on it. The server capacity and storage capacity will depend on number of users and the retention period. The users access this over the LAN/WAN.
Working	A copy of the mail from the Primary mail servers is pushed into the multi-tenant SaaS setup over the Internet The users of the organisation now access the self-service portal over the Internet or over a direct connection between the data center and the cloud (DirectX) to help them discover and recover mail on demand The administrators can manage the setup and serve compliance requests via the Admin Panel	A copy of the mail from the Primary mail servers is pushed into the dedicated Archival setup over the Internet OR over a dedicated link between your data center and the AWS cloud (DirectX) The users of the organisation access a self-service portal over the Internet or over the direct connect to help them discover and recover mail on demand The administrators can manage the setup and serve compliance requests via the Admin Panel	A copy of the mail from the Primary mail servers is pushed into the dedicated Archival setup over the LAN The users of the organisation now get a self-service portal to help them discover and recover mail on demand The administrators can manage the setup and serve compliance requests via the Admin Panel
Pros	Opex model, pay as you go, no Capex required No maintenance and monitoring of infrastructure Guaranteed performance and durability of data Elastic storage Solution and platform designed for high security	Captive private deployment with full control and the benefits of a cloud platform. Opex model, pay as you go, no Capex required	Captive private deployment with full control Can use existing components for compute and storage (if available)
Cons	Archiving and access to the archival application on the cloud can put pressure on the Internet bandwidth	Setup needs to be designed for reliability, security and high availability Re-architecting required for growing storage demands Re-architecting required for new security threats Plan upgrades and updates of the software in order to handle new solution demands Internal Teams to maintain and monitor the setup 24/7 and deliver on SLA High storage cost on cloud, so need to plan for cost optimisation	Setup needs to be designed for reliability, security and high availability Re-architecting required for growing storage demands. Re-architecting required for new security threats Plan Upgrades and updates of the software in order to handle new solution demands Internal Teams to maintain and monitor the setup 24/7 and deliver on SLA Capex to purchase and AMCs to maintain the infrastructure Setup needs a backup solution in place for disaster recovery

Bill of Material (BOM)

Attribute	Shared SaaS Archiving On Cloud	Dedicated Email Archive Solution On Cloud	Dedicated Email Archive Solution On Premise
Recurring
Subscription cost of the email archive software	Depends on the SaaS service chosen	Depends on the email archival software license purchased	Depending on the email archival software license purchased
Cost of support	Included	Mostly this will be extra, and over and above the software license cost	Mostly this will be extra, and over and above the software license cost
Server and storage	Included	Server instance and storage on the cloud in Opex model	Server and storage with AMCs in Capex model
Monitoring and Maintenance	Included	Customer needs to deploy systems and teams for maintenance and monitor the setup 24/7	Customer needs to deploy systems and teams for maintenance and monitor the setup 24/7
Service Desk	Customer needs to deploy a team to handle end user queries	Customer needs to deploy a team to handle end user queries	Customer needs to deploy a team to handle end user queries
Direct connection to the cloud	Optional to reduce pressure on Internet Bandwidth – as actuals from the service provider	Optional to reduce pressure on Internet Bandwidth – as actuals from the service provider	Not required
One time
Onboarding	Most services include onetime cost into the subscription	Extra	Extra

Microsoft 365

Salesforce

Microsoft Onedrive

SendGrid

Freshdesk

Google Workspace

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Conclusion: So Which Email Archiving Service To Go For?

We hope this article provided sufficient inputs about SaaS vs on-premise pros and cons. The scope of cloud vs on-premise comparison being comprehensive, we have covered all bases including working, infrastructure, email security, model, onboarding, support and many more.

From the email archiving solutions comparison above; SaaS archiving services which are easy to sign up and offers too many benefits for businesses to ignore.

Popular email solutions like Microsoft Exchange, Google Apps, Office 365 etc also have a native email archiving solution. Many would think that these native archiving solutions are enough of a guarantee for data security. However, there are situations such as accidental loss of mail data, which may require a business to consider a third-party email archiving solution such as Vaultastic for an additional security for their critical mail data.

Want to learn more on email archiving?
We suggest you watch a video of how email archiving works, use a live demo account of the product (no sign up required) and then sign up for a no-obligation free 30-day live trial.

Want an in-depth discussion?
Our archival experts are ready to talk to you, one on one to suggest archival best practices, to help you manage email storage better, learn how to make use of all the archived business email for business intelligence and stay ready for regulation compliance. Contact us today.

(A slightly different variation of this article has also appeared on StartupCity’s February 2017 edition.)