When an electrical transformer blew out at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn., last spring, the campus was without power for a week. Generators helped keep critical services up and running, including the school’s computer systems. Still, the academy suffered a disastrous loss of email when the on-premise servers reached capacity.

As it happened, however, about a 100 staff members were piloting a cloud-based e-mail service that week. They were the only people on campus who didn’t lose the use of e-mail during the blackout. Keep reading →