SoftNAS Makes the Move to Intermedia’s Exchange Email in the Nick of Time

The Background

As the leading provider of cloud Network Attacked Storage (NAS) software, data specialist SoftNAS Inc. understands the importance of using high-uptime cloud services for mission-critical data. An expert in delivering enterprise-class protection and availability, its NAS solution is easy for customers to manage and flexible enough to run on public, private and hybrid clouds.

As a startup trying to save money, SoftNAS originally had decided to host its own server to meet its Exchange mailbox needs. SoftNAS was closely familiar with cloud software’s ease-of-management, but it also knew of the unpleasant complexities that could be related to managing its own on-premises Exchange. What an understatement this proved to be. Managing its own Exchange server continually proved to be a huge nuisance. The staff was regularly getting hit with inordinate amounts of email spam, and SofNAS was experiencing at least one or two email outages each quarter. SoftNAS knew that if it didn’t do something and fast, the business impact of these outages could potentially be massive. Little did the company know at the time that it was about to lose its email server AND the backups entirely…

SoftNAS Makes the Move to Intermedia’s Exchange Email in the Nick of Time

Company Profile:
SoftNAS is the leading provider of software-defined NAS solutions in the cloud.

Industry: Cloud NAS provider

Headquarters: Houston, Texas

Intermedia’s customer since: 2014

The Challenge

The IT staff tried to set up a high-availability configuration using VMware to improve upon the outage situation, but the technical hurdles with setup and management were too extensive.

Rick Braddy, CEO at SoftNAS explains: “Managing Exchange was taking an inordinate amount of time. When we looked at the dollars per hour for the work involved, and the possibility of the system going down, it wasn’t worth it. The risk of do-it-yourself Exchange was too high.”

Meanwhile, SoftNAS had a sizable customer in the oil & gas industry using Intermedia’s Exchange Email. Braddy had helped the customer with an IT migration project and became familiar with the hosted email solution as a result. It worked very well for the customer’s hundreds of users and received high praise. The customer’s confidence was reassuring, but would Intermedia’s hosted Exchange service be affordable for a smaller company like SoftNAS?

The Solution

After evaluating several cloud email solutions including Microsoft® Office 365™, SoftNAS determined that Intermedia’s Exchange Email offering was a cut above. While most providers charged for migration, Intermedia included support from its expert migration team at no added cost.

As a result, the migration process was smooth and painless. In addition to the easy transition, SoftNAS gained a whole suite of enterprise-class features that it was looking for, like reliability and mobile device support. Intermedia’s built-in spam and virus protection was also important because spam had become a big time-waster for its staff.

SoftNAS’ migration to Intermedia occurred just in time too. While moving an IT project from beta to production, SoftNAS accidentally lost its internal Exchange server and most recent backup data. “If we had not migrated to Intermedia prior to that system failure, we would have lost email and possibly business as well,” Braddy said.

Intermedia makes all of the pain of managing Exchange go away, so we can focus on operations and grow of our business.

RICK BRADDY,
CEO, SoftNAS

Products They Use

The Results

SoftNAS now enjoys the email uptime, high-reliability and consistency it was trying to achieve all along. “Since switching to Intermedia in 2014, we have had zero email outages,” said Braddy. The IT staff no longer carries the burden of managing Exchange, which easily saves us 10 to 12 hours or about $1,000 per month, ongoing. “Intermedia makes all of the pain of managing Exchange go away, so we can focus on operations and grow of our business.”

The company has grown from 10 to 40 mailbox users. Intermedia’s HostPilot® control panel has made it very easy to configure user accounts and mailboxes. “Instead of dealing with somebody in IT, our office manager can manage email now. Non-IT people can do it,” he said.

The spam problem is gone too. Advanced Email Security automatically filters nearly all spam before it reaches user inboxes, resulting in happier and more productive employees.

Braddy is thrilled with his overall experience with Intermedia’s Exchange Email and recommends it to any business looking for a flexible and highly scalable business email solution. “The email management man hours are gone. The workflow interruptions are gone. The headaches related to system maintenance support and Infrastructure are gone. And in their place, we’re enjoying seamless business email without outages. Working with Intermedia’s expert team is worth every penny. We’ll never go back.”

Braddy concludes with these words of warning for other businesses managing their Exchange on premises. “Whether its the hassle and disruption of spam getting through your filters, or something more serious like unscheduled recurring downtime, running your own Exchange server is a total headache. Intermedia relieves businesses of the management headache, while acting like insurance. We thank our lucky stars every day that we made the switch when we did.”

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