moving away from server 2019

Ish · 1 Nov 2021 at 15:27

Hi All

I helped a small local charity setup a used Dell server which is running server 2019 and they used it for AD, file server and a few gpo's. They have 5 clients.

They now want to get rid of the server and just keep their files on onedrive/teams as they don't really work from an office anymore.

Is there anyway of managing the clients at all without a server. The main thing is to ensure that they are saving on onedrive/teams rather then locally on the the client where files could be lost.

glenimp617 · 2 Nov 2021 at 08:01

Ish said:
Hi All

I helped a small local charity setup a used Dell server which is running server 2019 and they used it for AD, file server and a few gpo's. They have 5 clients.

They now want to get rid of the server and just keep their files on onedrive/teams as they don't really work from an office anymore.

Is there anyway of managing the clients at all without a server. The main thing is to ensure that they are saving on onedrive/teams rather then locally on the the client where files could be lost.

If you mean management from a central location like group policy, updates, av etc etc then I believe there are certain products out there which can do it with a locally installed agent.

The obvious shout out would be office365 and intune (but cost). I'm sure there's other third party products which are pretty good.

Andre · 2 Nov 2021 at 08:09

Microsoft are quite generous with charities, might be worth contacting them - you could then use Azure AD which gives you all that they would require for either free or a greatly reduced cost

Ish · 2 Nov 2021 at 23:11

Thanks both. I was just looking at Azure today as they do get basic Azure AD as part of their non profit office 365 subscription.

nightmare99 · 14 Nov 2021 at 19:55

Microsoft give 10x Microsoft 365 Business Premium licences free to non profits so that gives you Office, Intune, Defender, AzureAD P1 etc https://www.microsoft.com/en-GB/nonprofits/microsoft-365

Hellsmk2 · 19 Nov 2021 at 19:28

Ish said:
Thanks both. I was just looking at Azure today as they do get basic Azure AD as part of their non profit office 365 subscription.

Azure & Intune would be absolutely the best way to go.

Deleted member 77746 · 19 Nov 2021 at 19:40

oh honestly for 5 users it wouldn't even be worth having a central server. If you get them 0365 with a 1TB storage plan or even more if they need it - it should be enough space as long as they have a good connection they should be alright.

Then redirect their desktops to a OneDrive location for each system, nothing will be lost then.

You can manage workstations no problem free now remotely with Quick Assist.

What speeds their net?