On Prem Vs Cloud

[Fringe]

Morning Peeps ,

Recently Started working for a Small Company of around 100 People but only 64 Users are working on devices. Everything in our Business is currently on prem . With there only been so little user base is there any point of being Cloud based ?

Thanks

 

[Fringe]

• What are your main files and applications - Office 365 Full Package , we do use some bespoke software that requires a USB Dongle to use at all times , But this is CAD design stuff
• What are the main systems in use Windows with one Linux Machine
• What is your current system/s e.g. Windows Server 2019 Currently
• What are your requirements from your existing and new system. - We need to be more secure , Make sure was have cold storage and so on for the next 30 years due to a Government Contract.

Sorry for been Vague about things i have been in 2 weeks and been given this as a Project. For me i have always been on Cloud with all my previous companies this is my first on prem in a hell of a long time.

So for me i would like to push cloud but cant seem to figure out how they will use the Dongle side of this CAD application they use.

On another Note they seem to use UltraVNC from home to log Direct in to there machine and and access there dongles for the CAD side. There has to be a better way Surely lol

 

[Fringe]

Thanks so much for the advice. I think hybrid is going to be the way to go for the company tbh
Thanks again

 

[Fringe]

How are they using VNC? Hopefully it's via a VPN.


Don't push cloud just because it's what you know and what you want.

Justify the benefit it brings to the business i.e. it will save £X over Y years, or it will allow everyone to collaborate better (e.g. moving to online multi-user spreadsheets), or it is more reliable than the on-prem exchange that is on it's last legs.


Not everything needs to be cloud based.

I get where you are coming from i think a Hybrid will work best then.

Thanks for the help

 

[Fringe]

As for VNC i have just asked they do use a VPN for it.

 

[Fringe]

I'm retired so my technical knowledge is well out of date so let me raise some semi-technical issues:

How sensitive is the data? It is a commonplace (true or not) that the major cloud providers have been hacked or coerced by China and / or the USA.

Do consider redundancy. The cloud is just another person's computer. So if that computer fails - datacentres do burn down - you need a plan. If the connection to that computer fails you need a plan. Typically you will have a duplicate in a geographically distant datacentre, but that will cost money. And, more locally, consider resilience: what if a workman with a digger cuts your connection to the internet?

You Couldn't have summed this up more for us and we are going to work Hybrid where we can. this works for the company and us.

The only thing we need to now find is Cold storage for 30 years but looking in to using Azure for this unless anyone can recommend any company that is competitive

thanks

 

[Fringe]

ow i should leave this here as well : https://basecamp.com/cloud-exit
because i thought about it with a reddit post. not sure who read it but its kinda relavent.


tape backups and Iron Mountain considered?

will defiantly take the Iron mountain in to the meeting on Monday they didn't seem to like the idea of backup tapes

 

[Fringe]

I would put your SSO and anything else windows server related in Azure (email/SharePoint/AD/etc)

Get a decent NAS on prem to manage backups for the laptops and some local file
storage.

What CAD software is it? If it's old Autodesk you might save some money and gain a lot of cool features moving to one of there newer offerings. We had CAD guys for years rebelling against moving to Fusion360. After 1 week of using it they would never go back - the speed of their conversion was in our project plan as 6 months - we had them all over voluntarily in 3 weeks after they saw it in action with the head engineer evangelising it.

The Cad software has been Designed for the company use but can only operate with a Dongle connected to the users desktop , we are waiting for the company that did it to give us a better way to use it weather its Licenced on the Server.

i did bring up the NAS but its just more things for us to look after.

 

[Fringe]

?
Isn't that literally your job?
It sounds like you want everything on the cloud because it makes life easy for you, rather than it actually being a benefit to the business

So it is but on the other hand we both look after the cnc machines , the sql side of the databases and we have to make all the changes to the products that we sell on the cad side. But because all the products we sell most of our time is taken up with that.

It's not that we are being lazy or anything it's the fact we need to lighten the burden on us both.

If we where just the it side it wouldn't be so much of a problem.

Another aspect of hosting a NAS would be the fact space is a issue we have one small room that we have to use for our servers / equipment and sadly our office is shared with another team so we don't have the space in there either.

 

[Fringe]

the CAD softeare for me given the limited info i have is the concern.
will the company who designed it be around in 30years? and who has the source code/do you have contractual access to the source code should you choose? or are you only licenced for the end product?
you can have the data but if you dont have anything to open it on the data sort of becomes worthless..

As for how long this cad software will be around is a who knows the company that built it got bought out 3 years ago from what i was told.
I would hope there is some long-term plan with it going forward.
As for the source code we don't have access to that. We are only licenced for the end product. The guy who created it locked it down to dongle use only because his business partner at the time tried to run with it to China.

 

[Fringe]

ah thats understandable.
but its something that need to be thought about as part of the long term strategy :/
theres the possibiliy they will turn around and say they are no longer suporting it. or the code base needs a complete re-write to suppot new operatinve system ect (hefty price tag goes with it).
at any raite im going of topic.
if you have custom cad the autodesk contructioncloud probably isnt what you want. unless its just bolt on to autodesk prducts.
offsite back up and regular restore is my thinking at the moment. Week day/Week/Month/Yearly depeneding on your level of needs
cost and time to repalce the USB Hardlock Dongles in case of Fire/theft/damage

out of interest what sort of data volume are you looking at

HP are looking to do a (TAAS) Tin As A Service model which is realtively cheap. it was a no goer for us for other reasosn but this is a possible use case. the Dongles would need to be sent obviously, if you have a few stagger sending them as machines are sorted out and tested. this also supplies a secure remote connection. you might get court in the 5year repalcement policy (not a bad thing) so that also needs to be considered. staff can be added and removed to remote pools.
they also offer NAS shared storage. for cad this could be what your looking for. still need to look at alterantives for backup as a whole

So as for data that we need to back up am currantly gathering that information as we speak. The data will increase over time obviously but will take a huge jump soon due to new contract with the government.
Can't thank you enough for the assistance here it's abit out of my scope.
I have about 6 projects on and have till October to complete , so upgrade all machines ,replace all old machines , decommissioning old servers installing new ones , I have had to get a rmm tool inplace and a ticketing system but I have ticked those 2 off rather quick.
It's all just abit hectic lol

But thanks again

 

[Fringe]

thanks for the support guys , So we are now looking to use get a NAS and do everything in house. so let the planning begin!