Hosted Exchange and Private Cloud based Drop-box like solution

[mic_y]

Good day,

I am investigating the use of some cloud based solutions for my employer.

Firstly, any solutions that you suggest need to be hosted only locally (agreements with one of our clients require data to be stored only in South Africa).

We are looking at both a hosted exchange solution (currently using an in-house exchange server) as well as some kind of file-syncing solution similar to dropbox, but where all the data is stored on servers located within South Africa.

If anybody knows of, or is able to offer some kind of solutions that would fit the bill, please assist.

Kind regards,
Michael

 

[guest2013-1]

i wouldn't go for exchange at all, but that's just me.

also, with the most popular CDN's available in SA, it's safe to adopt Office 365 and not have to sacrifice on speed. Dropbox type solution also uses the most popular CDN's that are all hosted locally these days.

 

[mic_y]

i wouldn't go for exchange at all, but that's just me.

also, with the most popular CDN's available in SA, it's safe to adopt Office 365 and not have to sacrifice on speed. Dropbox type solution also uses the most popular CDN's that are all hosted locally these days.

Hi Acid

I do agree that Google Apps is an awesome solution and use it in another project I am involved with (outside of the day job), but in the current environment at the day job.

Thanks for the info. While I do realise the DropBox and Office 365 use local CDN's unfortunately due to contractual obligations that exist, this is not really good enough. Would there be any way to ensure that the content stored is never replicated to an internationally located server (I realise that even if this did happen, it would be nearly impossible for the client to prove that it did, but management has stressed that the servers are to be located in SA only, and nowhere else)

 

[rrh]

Hi Acid

I do agree that Google Apps is an awesome solution and use it in another project I am involved with (outside of the day job), but in the current environment at the day job.

Thanks for the info. While I do realise the DropBox and Office 365 use local CDN's unfortunately due to contractual obligations that exist, this is not really good enough. Would there be any way to ensure that the content stored is never replicated to an internationally located server (I realise that even if this did happen, it would be nearly impossible for the client to prove that it did, but management has stressed that the servers are to be located in SA only, and nowhere else.

Your management is correct in stressing that the servers should be located locally.

In fact, a large number of businesses don't realise that by storing data overseas they may well be breaking the law.

 

[Bern]

It really depends on if you want a fully managed solution and what the core needs are that must be addressed.

A nice combination for communication and document management (not just file storage&sync) would be something like
Zimbra for email and calendering
Kablink (Onprem) for a full document management etc or just ifolder for document syncing.

You could then host the servers in CT and JB for redundancy and lower latency (assume you have offices in both).

Both have fully supported licensed versions if you need to go that route.

Otherwise create a world of cost and pain and get a managed Exchange and SharePoint solution from any of the big boys.