Let’s give the definition of a “cloud” just in case you need to double-check your understanding of the concept. The cloud (computing) stands for the software and services that run on the Internet, rather than locally on your computer. They are granted in an on-demand format, so you don’t need to own and maintain a data center or any computing infrastructure. On top of that, the popularity of could software and services is evident as cloud hosting brings in at least $545 billion in annual revenue.
As the “cloud” part is clear, let’s now focus on what “cloud email” could actually mean.
Case #1. Email client + cloud-based provider
The chances are that you are already using it. Email client running on a cloud-based email infrastructure lets you own an individual mailbox, sending and receiving emails any time. Thus, if let’s say, you use a Gmail or Yahoo email account, you are using cloud email, while your emails are sent, managed and stored on remote servers. Almost 99% of people in the world use cloud connections to exchange emails.
Case #2. Cloud mailbox providers with the entire cloud infrastructure
This one is rather about business workflow than personal use. In this case, “cloud email” stands for cloud email hosting, user management (when the company sets accounts and permissions for their employees), additional email features, backend support, upgrade maintenance, and access to a pool of remote sending and receiving servers. Employees can access data via mail clients from any place allowing for an improved work experience, collaboration, and enhanced flexibility. Cloud email hosting and service providers help your company to connect its internal and external resources, and tolerate mail server malfunctioning without significant business losses.
Case #3. Cloud email sending service
These are the cloud-based email services used on the one hand for email automation, and on the other hand, for email functionality development. Cloud email in this sense stands for the cloud services providing bulk sending with an enhanced emphasis on deliverability, tracking and analytical tools (i.e. on email performance, security issues etc), and scaling your email business needs.
Cloud email providers or cloud email services? Let’s make it clear
As there’s much confusion and controversy on the web about the terms cloud email provider and cloud email service and they are often used interchangeably, I distinguish cloud email solutions in the following way:
Cloud (email) mailbox provider: offers email client + cloud email services + add-on features + backend technologies. Think of a cloud mailbox provider in analogy with an Internet provider. As you sign up with an Internet provider, you get the cable, the support services, the access to the Internet and many other add-on features which you may or may not use. You pay for all of this altogether.
Cloud email sending service: this is a certain service you pay for being managed in the cloud. In our particular case, we talk about cloud email sending services. The focus here is on serving (and delivering) the toolkit for automated email sending while computing operations for this service take place in the cloud run on the remote server clusters.
Now that this is clear, let’s proceed without further terminological obstacles.
Cloud-based email or on-premises hosted email — what is the difference?
This question is about where you need your data to be stored. On the remote cloud servers, or on the actual hardware servers on-site? To choose the right email hosting solution consider these three factors:
- Security requirements
- Financial capacities
- Technical resources
Clearly, if your organization is involved, for example, in government, military, highly-qualified and competitive research activities, you should consider building your own email infrastructure and setting email hosting on-premises. Deploying a corporate email server on-site requires the company to spend a lot of financial and technical resources. The company has to spend on equipment, licenses, physical security technologies, the email platform, the physical space for the local data center, the power for the servers, and the technical support personnel responsible for maintenance 24/7. Moreover, consider rescaling and increase in traffic if the business grows. This would lead to buying additional hardware and excessive technical expenses. Finally, the most difficult part about in-house hosting: if the server goes down for any reason, the business would be totally paralized, and you won’t be able to notify anyone about it via email.
Cloud mail server hosting lets the company cut expenses. The provider is responsible for all maintenance, support and upgrade costs, and you pay for the rental and services only. Unlike with a local server, the configuration of the cloud can be readjusted through a virtual interface if you need it. The cloud can be scaled without buying additional hardware. The cloud is a dynamic pool of resources from multiple physical servers, and when there is some trouble with one server, you are still in the game with email traffic, as the other server from the pool will be able to pick up the email workload and keep it running.
On-premises email hosting and data storage is safer and provides more control, but it requires a lot of expenses and resources to build and maintain. However, at a lower scale and long-term, in-house hosting might prove cheaper than the cloud one.
