Online Services Business Scenarios

While Microsoft suggests that companies may want to license their users for both on-premise and online services, that approach may not be economically or technically feasible for many companies because of limited integration between the two architectures and the cost of maintaining duplicate systems and licenses. However, many companies may find it useful to split their workforce into on-premise and online communities, thus reducing the costs of on-premise systems and gaining greater flexibility overall.

Azaleos, a vendor of management services for such “hybrid” systems—it provides remote management of on-premise Exchange and SharePoint systems and has extended Exchange monitoring to Microsoft’s Exchange Online service as well—has identified several scenarios where hybrid systems can play a role.

Split-role provisioning, in which knowledge workers use faster and more capable on-premise systems while deskless workers use online servers.

Acquisitions in which an acquired company can be moved quickly to an online system under the new owner’s domain, reducing integration time and complexity, while the acquiring company’s own employees can continue with on-premise servers.