Mimecast and file server destruction Mimecast is a UK-based supplier of unified email management services. Around the end of 2002 it started to build an appliance function that would unify the many daisy-chained email functions, (anti-spam, anti-virus, data leak prevention, signaturing) that were all implemented as separate boxes through which emails had to flow …
I'll tell you where Joe Manager's subject X e-mail is, it's out there in the bleeding cloud, and that's where it's staying, because our ISP connection / our ISP's backbone / MIMEcast's ISP's backbone / MIMEcast's datacenter ISP connection / delete as appropriate developed a fault, and now I can't even email a couple of pages of code to the guy at the next desk or look up that bug report I was sent yesterday.
Outsourced email is a great way to ensure that when your internet connection goes down, far more of your internal operations are disrupted than need to be. Everybody thinks it looks like a saving, but they haven't factored in the costs of either a) arranging redundant internet connectivity with failover and multihoming or b) having to completely shut up shop for the day if your line goes down.
Show me one system with 100% uptime. Not even the big G can pull that off. Also, show me a company that will continue to offer such a massive service after it's gone bankrupt. Even with advanced warning, to construct and execute a backup system takes well over a week in a small business, probably over a month for a big one.
I think I'll be sticking with my local tape copies, thank you very much.
It is not outsourced email. Mimecast's system sits between traditional mail servers and the intertubes -- they don't replace them. They do replace all the spam/virus filters, the attachment/sigs stuff, local archiving, etc, and allow easier search, etc and remote mail access (e.g. check mails via secure Web connection, or send/receive mail via secure Web because your Exchange server has fallen over again -- a lot more likely than a carrier-class datacentre falling).
So if your Internet connection goes down you still have access to local mail stores. Needing super-urgent access to archives is not that common - it's more often needed in e-discovery, etc.
And @ Xander -- you telling me that your local tape archives are 100% reliable and available? Puh-leeze. Assuming you remember to actually DO the archive...
Mr Compliance also says don't lie about the value of your assets and your liabilities. I don't know if you've been watching the news lately, but it seems to me that nobody in authority pays any attention to Mr Compliance if it puts their bonuses at risk. So Mr IT Director won't be listening to Mr Compliance will he.
This is glorified hosted email service. As for backing up a cloud -- it is the same old "Legacy Backup" infrastructure. Cloud customers just don't see it. Tiered Storage for online archiving and parallel recovery streams --- big deal. Nothing new here.
The real questions is do you want the provider having all of your email archived along with all of their other customers? Probably not :)
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