Cloud Storage v Server located in office

Derek W

Derek W

Derek W

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Joined
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Designing Buildings
Morning All,

Wasn't sure exactly where to post this so opted for here.

I work in an architect's office and we currently have a server located in the office to store all our emails and drawings. Last week we had a hack and our files all got locked out and we lost a weeks worth of work (weekly backup) but managed to recover some from temporary files.

Our IT guy is wanting to put in another server so that one deals with the emails and the drawings are kept on a separate device to safeguard against it being hacked again.

We had inquired about a cloud based storage system but he seemed to shy away from this as there would be a delay to access drawings and we would suffer a lag as such?

Does anyone work in a cloud based storage system in the grraphics / 3D / architecture world have any issues like this or is it our IT guy pushing 'old tech' since it perhaps suits him more?
 
Cloud will obviously rely on your internet connection, so you imagine downloading a typical drawing from the internet and that will be what like your cloud setup could be in terms of speed. Then again, things like OneDrive have local copies that are kept in your machine and synced to the cloud which would be a lot faster.

Another thing to address is why your server was compromised. In what way was it hacked?
 
He might lack the necessary experience to manage a cloud setup. A lot of it depends on how things get used, but storage is dirt cheap and they do offer services to replicate/sync files locally.
 
Back when I worked at an MSP one of our big clients was an architects firm and they trialled cloud storage and it was just far too slow for the huge CAD drawings and so forth. Depends what your needs are really, this should be his job to spec up and trial really lol.

In my mind, I would be looking at moving your emails to the cloud e.g. Office365 (Potentially could be savings here with licensing of Office software etc?) and then have a server locally in the office that serves your files. What is your current backup solution, is it offsite to a cloud provider or onsite to tape or something?

Simply splitting up emails and drawings is not going to stop it from being hacked, has a thorough investigation been done to see how you were hacked or is this IT guy trying to paper over something he fcked up and just going to bill you for a couple new servers?
 
Donnie Fisher said:
Cloud will obviously rely on your internet connection, so you imagine downloading a typical drawing from the internet and that will be what like your cloud setup could be in terms of speed. Then again, things like OneDrive have local copies that are kept in your machine and synced to the cloud which would be a lot faster.

Another thing to address is why your server was compromised. In what way was it hacked?
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Biz.Kid09 said:
Back when I worked at an MSP one of our big clients was an architects firm and they trialled cloud storage and it was just far too slow for the huge CAD drawings and so forth. Depends what your needs are really, this should be his job to spec up and trial really lol.

In my mind, I would be looking at moving your emails to the cloud e.g. Office365 (Potentially could be savings here with licensing of Office software etc?) and then have a server locally in the office that serves your files. What is your current backup solution, is it offsite to a cloud provider or onsite to tape or something?

Simply splitting up emails and drawings is not going to stop it from being hacked, has a thorough investigation been done to see how you were hacked or is this IT guy trying to paper over something he fcked up and just going to bill you for a couple new servers?
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We've done a bit of digging ourselves and it appears that we were part of the Microsoft Exchange Server Breach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Microsoft_Exchange_Server_data_breach. We did get an email from Netcraft Takedown Service warning us about it (15th of March) and we forwarded this onto our IT guy but he was claiming the patch didn't work on existing systems and needed to be rebuilt and patched on a fresh install?!?! The files all got encrypted on the 19th, the guy came in on the weekend and got things back up and running but one of our backup drives was taken away. We lost a weeks worth of work however, the IT guy had said previously that we experience a couple of lags during the day when the server is having a 'screenshot' taken. This happens daily so we are now thinking instead of losing a weeks worth of work we should have just had half a day since there would have been a screenshot on Thursday lunchtime with the hack occurring at 1am Friday morning.
 
I would be offloading e-mail to the cloud with Office 365. Also, why are your backups only taken weekly? If it's critical work, it should be backed up nightly to a local device (incremental backup rather than full image) and then that is backed up to a cloud server for extra drive failure protection.
 
This is something that we're not 100% sure about. The weekly backup is something we have in house but we were under the impression that things were being backed up onto the IT guys server / cloud (we don't know which) every day with a snapshot occurring at lunchtime but we couldn't understand why we lost a weeks worth of work rather than just half a day?

EDIT

We do have a client who is in the IT business who has offered some help in finding out what has happened etc as things aren't looking great for our current IT guy who has been emailed also to see what he has to say for himself.
 
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As I'm sure you already know, on-prem systems are complicated and have more risk associated with hacking. The cloud gets hacked too sometimes, but usually the risk of data lose as opposed to data theft is much lower in the case of cloud (it's probably less likely overall too). For the most part cloud providers have enough redundancy that data lose does not occur.

When it comes to bandwidth, it depends on how you work and how fast your connection is. If the files you work with are large enough you may have to use cloud as a backup and data integrity medium as opposed to live storage.

The main issue I tend to find is cost, if your storage needs are between 1-10 TB, cloud is insanely cheap, at 10-100 TB, you're likely still better off with cloud. If you're looking at storing enormous quantities of data, cloud starts getting pricey, and you might find two months covers infrastructure costs (of on prem) for three years, and 6 months covers that and wages for a year. In this case cloud is only justifiable for the security.

If I were you I'd move Email and backup to the cloud for daily backups, see how the cost plays out, then move to cloud fully if it suits your needs.
 
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Derek W said:
We've done a bit of digging ourselves and it appears that we were part of the Microsoft Exchange Server Breach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Microsoft_Exchange_Server_data_breach. We did get an email from Netcraft Takedown Service warning us about it (15th of March) and we forwarded this onto our IT guy but he was claiming the patch didn't work on existing systems and needed to be rebuilt and patched on a fresh install?!?! The files all got encrypted on the 19th, the guy came in on the weekend and got things back up and running but one of our backup drives was taken away. We lost a weeks worth of work however, the IT guy had said previously that we experience a couple of lags during the day when the server is having a 'screenshot' taken. This happens daily so we are now thinking instead of losing a weeks worth of work we should have just had half a day since there would have been a screenshot on Thursday lunchtime with the hack occurring at 1am Friday morning.
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Definitely sounds like a proper investigation needs to be done into what is going on with your IT setup, is this guy just a one man band/contractor or something?

Something seems off with this whole thing, it looks like a bigger issue that will not be solved with him just topping you up with more hardware. As mentioned, email should be offloaded into the cloud at a minimum and the backup situation seems awful for a business, especially one like an architects firm which no doubt goes through hundreds if not thousands of incremental changes to files on a daily/weekly basis?
A lunchtime snapshot seems daft, you even note that it causes lags during the day. This is why you would be running nightly backups both to a local server and then to a cloud provider.

I would be inclined to look at bringing in a new company to assess what your situation is and quote for a new plan moving forward.
 
We used to have an 'IT guy' (actually, there were two of them). The level of knowledge was generally poor (I'm not an 'IT guy' but I often knew more than he did) and he often spent his time googling for answers to problems. I quickly got rid of him and got a larger, more professional IT support company to take over. The service since we made this change has improved significantly. The new company are cheaper too.
 
The IT guy popped in at the end of the day to discuss things with the bosses. Seems to be some confusion on the level of cover from my bosses. However, the backups that were happening were being backed up to our external hard drives :o

Don't know what the full outcome was as I left the office but I'll find out tomorrow!
 
Working in IT myself, whoever this 'IT guy' is you got, needs getting rid of... simply put, badly handled. one who is out of touch with modern methods. Also seems like they're just trying to get you to buy a new server for no reason tbh. All I know is Microsoft licensing for email servers has no small business cheap option anymore. so if that's their plan, I think you'll be better off in the cloud for emails at least.

I may have not truly understood the whole situation but I'd be embarrassed to be this IT guy, and certainly wouldn't keep him as your IT guy.
 
I'd contact some reputable professionals tbh. Be prepared for some sales pitches, but if they know their stuff youll be surprised how much youll learn from a pro even whilst quoting!!!
 
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