Server Suggestions for Small Business

[macally]

I've got a friend who has approached me for some advice regarding setting up a server for a small business of 5 employees. They essentially want email/shared contacts/shared calendars and network drives that can be accessed onsite and off site.

I've tried suggesting that they use Office365 as it looks like it'll do all they want, but for 5 employees it'll cost them £414 per year so they're sort of against that idea.

Server wise, would there be any major disadvantage to building a Core i3 system to use as a server? I was looking at the HP Microserver but unsure whether that would cope with SBS2011 with 5 people using it?

 

[macally]

Why not a Synology NAS?

Not sure a Synology NAS would fulfull all requirements (i.e. email/shared contacts/calenders/etc). They've already trialled Google Apps but wasn't suitable.

Might be worth them bearing in mind that the elctricity to run such a server would come to about £80 per year. Worth taking that in to account with regards to costs, as well as the fact that maintenance/faults will have to be sorted by staff rather than having full support.

Thanks, I will pass that info on.

 

[macally]

I am sure their requirements are much less than that of business that run online shops, websites, email servers etc on Synology NAS's

Can you please suggest a model that will do what's needed?

 

[macally]

Office 365 do an Exchange only option now. That would cover the email, contacts and calender side of things and should only come to around £169.20 a year for 5 users.

File shares could be managed with a small NAS as suggested above or look in to some cloud storage such as Skydrive/Google Drive/Dropbox?

Thanks. I've already made those suggestions to them.

The exchange only option works out at £203.04 inc vat, plus £200(ish) for a decent NAS, so in the first year at least, the cost would be the almost the same as the Office365 solution, and they currently use SugarSync but aren't happy with the way it works so skydrive/google drives/dropbox would all pretty much be the same.

I'd be happy to suggest a NAS if it can act as an email server (with shared contacts and shared calendar) but have just tried the Synology live demo and can't see how the shared contacts and calendar would work.

 

[macally]

Probably the best bet if there is someone there to set it up for them is a ML110 G7 and SBS 2011 (possibly essentials).

The reasoning is;

• Getting a branded server comes with warranty and in many cases on site service. The ML110 G7 is a great entry level server (the IBM x3100 M4 is the IBM equivalent and I am sure Dell also do one). The ML110 comes with 1 year NBD support and can be upgraded to 3 years pretty cheaply (the IBM model comes with 3 year 4 hour on-site support where I am but you would need to confirm UK support and warranty).
• SBS 2011 Standard comes with Exchange, Sharepoint foundation, Remote access services inc calendar etc. Whilst it will be made end of life it will be supported for quite some time yet and to get the separate software packages works out far more expensive.

Against building a cheap server is support should it fail. Who will provide that support and what is the cost to the business in both financial and reputational terms should that server not be available.

Most businesses what a set of hardware and software that, once set-up, will just run. If they do not have their own people who can maintain the servers and sort out the issues then a service contract is the better option.

Put it this way... You build them a server and 3 months later it has a problem... are you going back to fix it ?. What happens if the problem is user error, what happens if it keeps reoccurring ?. What happens if their business looses a big contract because their server went down and you were not available to fix it.

RB

Thanks for this. I'll definately take a look at the HP Server, however, I will be available to do support for them and am looking at some sort of service contract as well, although, this would be better if I can just pick up the phone and speak to HP

Agree with RimBlock, the Office 365 option negates (or at least massively reduces) the need for hardware/software support. It's worth the slightly higher cost, especially when it's only around £35 per month to save and hassle in the future.

As I said, I've already made that suggestion but they don't particularly want to be making monthly payments for the lifespan of their business... understandable I guess.

Google for business?

That's what they're using at the moment but they're not 100% happy with it as a permanent solution.

 

[macally]

google apps free for email and calendar

depending on nature of documents and how they want to work possible dropbox free or the paid version of there is more than 2gb of docs

whats their complaint with google apps?

They are currently using the Google Apps for Business.

The problem with Google Apps is that when using Outlook, the shared contacts system doesn't work 100% of the time (and required an application running on windows to work at all). It's not a 'built in function' if that makes sense.

Their problem with Dropbox/etc is that it can be quite slow when working on large files.

 

[macally]

For 5 users remember not to over do it. Something simple, clean end elegant. I think some sort of cloud approach will be perfect, as long as they have an Internet Connection. 5 Users is extremely small to worry about in house stuff I think.

I completely agree but I can only make suggestions to them but if they don't want to use cloud solutions, what can I do?

 

[macally]

Are they paying you to implement anything?

That hasn't been discussed yet. They asked me 12 months ago and I set them up with Google Apps for Business and Sugarsync. They've just come back to me asking for my advice again and specifically asked about setting up a server - I gave them the option of Office 365 and a price for server/windows sbs2011

 

[macally]

oh, have they come back with a decision yet. Yes people can advise but it's up to someone else what they would like to implement as long as they pay the right price for setups.

They point blank refused office365 due to costs and because a server running small business server 2011 would be cheaper than office365 over 2 years.

I think my best bet would be to setup a view vm's on my laptop so I could demonstrate the server option, then also trial office365 to see how they compare.