Business Server/Emails Etc.

[Marky]

Hey all,

Firstly - I apologies if this isn't in the right forum - I really thought about it, but it could go in multiple forums, and since this one was the most popular of the few I picked, I threw it in here Dons - Feel free to move around if you think it's better elsewhere...

The company I work at has one server in the office that is regularly backed up. It holds the files that everyone in the office has to have access to, it runs the bespoke database we use together, and it holds the Quickbooks master files so that multiple users can work on the same Quickbooks file. It also runs the Exchange server for all our email accounts (no more than about 20 email accounts).

The server is old... There's no two ways about it, it's old. It runs an old, basically unsupported, version of Windows OS (Small Business Server 2011!!), and it's really really slow. It's gotten to the point where it is really effecting our workflow, and since we're changing our main database and moving forward, I feel it is time to upgrade our server situation.

I am currently in the process of moving us off the bespoke database, to a fully supported cloud-based database. So in the next couple of months, the server will only be needed for files that everyone needs to access, and the email exchange accounts.

Additionally, we also have a website that is apparently supported by 1&1.

So I am looking at what we can do to improve our computer system. We currently have a contract with an IT company that comes to site once a month and spends about two hours doing maintenance things (I assume...). I have spoken to the guy that comes in a few times about it, and he insists we really need to put the email accounts into the cloud, as the exchange server is what is bogging the server down. He has quoted me £5/per email account/per month - Which would equate to about £100 a month for our exchange server to be hosted in the cloud.

I know that there are other email services we can use, so I have asked him about the advantages/disadvantages of moving away from Exchange - His response was that Exchange is the standard, and the best solution for us. But I have to say, I have my doubts, and I wonder if he has said this because what I want to do may make him a bit redundant?...

I have a few ideas of things to do to improve the situation:

1. Order a server in a Datacenter and use it for; file storage, website hosting, and email accounts (whether or not we need exchange is to be debated)

or

2. Leave the web hosting with 1&1, use the likes of Dropbox or some other cloud service for our file management, and find some other solution for our emails

Both options effectively mean everything is in the "cloud", which I am happy to do. The other option would be to replace server at our office for something else, but I wonder if it is more hassle than it is worth?

We're only a small company, and we want to keep costs to a minimum. Our current storage space used is around the 480GB mark, however a lot of this could be archived - I wonder if we could probably get it down to no more than 100GB. The overall requirements for the company are:

• One central space for shared files (preferably accessible out of the office too) (Backed up regularly)
• 20 Email Accounts (some are shared access, and we use Outlook if that matters)
• 1 Shared Calendar
• 1 Shared Quickbooks Database

• Web hosting (Small Website only, probably quite low traffic) - However, this is managed by 1&1, and I may not touch it - I haven't decided if it's worth it yet

If anyone is able to give me a bit of advice with this, I would greatly appreciate it!

Thanks,
Marky

 

[nightmare99]

This will not be a full reply but the tech is correct you want to move to Microsoft hosted Exchange for the email at least, either Exchange Online Plan 1 £3 +vat / month per user or preferably Office 365 Business Premium £9.40 +vat / month per user. you are using Exchange at the moment so moving to anything other than Exchange will be inferior with the exception of perhaps G-Suite. Ideally you want to be migrated off that server in the next year as all of the components that make it up are going end of support around Jan 2020.

With Exchange Online / Office 365 you only license actual users, shared mailboxes do not cost extra.

 

[Marky]

This will not be a full reply but the tech is correct you want to move to Microsoft hosted Exchange for the email at least, either Exchange Online Plan 1 £3 +vat / month per user or preferably Office 365 Business Premium £9.40 +vat / month per user. you are using Exchange at the moment so moving to anything other than Exchange will be inferior with the exception of perhaps G-Suite. Ideally you want to be migrated off that server in the next year as all of the components that make it up are going end of support around Jan 2020.

With Exchange Online / Office 365 you only license actual users, shared mailboxes do not cost extra.

What benefits does Exchange offer over any other email option though? The only thing I can think of that we use when it comes to Exchange is the emails and the shared Calendar.

 

[nightmare99]

Solid sync for mail, contacts, calendars and tasks. Large hosted mailboxes 50GB, server side out of office rules, ediscovery for compliance. Its pretty inexpensive so I'm not sure why you would use anything else unless you have some crazy compliance requirements and have to stay on prem.

 

[Armageus]

Solid sync for mail, contacts, calendars and tasks. Large hosted mailboxes 50GB, server side out of office rules, ediscovery for compliance. Its pretty inexpensive so I'm not sure why you would use anything else unless you have some crazy compliance requirements and have to stay on prem.

Gmail/gsuite ticks all those boxes as well


With regards to replacing the file server side of things, sounds like a decent NAS would cover this, something like a Synology or Qnap

 

[nightmare99]

Yeah I did mention G-Suite but as they are coming from Exchange it may be best to stick with that

 

[Cromulent]

I'd get everyone a Business Premium Office 365 account. It comes with email, OneDrive for Business (1TB of cloud storage for each user), the latest version of Microsoft Office for both desktop and mobile and shed loads of other stuff that I haven't investigated yet. Office 365 Business Premium costs less than £14 a user a month.

 

[Marky]

Solid sync for mail, contacts, calendars and tasks. Large hosted mailboxes 50GB, server side out of office rules, ediscovery for compliance. Its pretty inexpensive so I'm not sure why you would use anything else unless you have some crazy compliance requirements and have to stay on prem.

Realistically, I think we're doing away with using the Calendar and Contacts sync with Exchange, and we don't use Tasks. So really only need Exchange for the emails. I'm more than happy to move away from Exchange to be honest.

Gmail/gsuite ticks all those boxes as well


With regards to replacing the file server side of things, sounds like a decent NAS would cover this, something like a Synology or Qnap

I think I'm definitely going to look the possibility of using Google Business. It's definitely an option that's out there. I was also considering using a NAS for the central files - Would I be able to have it continually back up to an external drive that we could take home every night to protect from fire? Also, would it be more affordable to use a NAS rather than buying some server space elsewhere in a Datacenter?

I'd get everyone a Business Premium Office 365 account. It comes with email, OneDrive for Business (1TB of cloud storage for each user), the latest version of Microsoft Office for both desktop and mobile and shed loads of other stuff that I haven't investigated yet. Office 365 Business Premium costs less than £14 a user a month.

Hmm I'll have to look into this also - Never realised they offered this service! Thanks

 

[DaleTheWhale]

I'm pretty sure QuickBooks and Microsoft teams are integrated.

Would be worth looking at if you go with Office 365 as you can setup a Team with Sharepoint for your files, shared planner and then QuickBooks all in one place.