Small business solutions - cloud?

[RedTen]

Hey all,

Generally I don't do any 'on the side' work but recently I've had a few enquiries from small (2-10 people) businesses looking to improve their setups.

What is your general go to suggestion for small business?

Office 365, local desktops and a small NAS? I know it varies by client but I just wondered what the big names/services are these days.

Any thoughts welcome

 

[Caged]

I think it helps to have something as your source of user and group information from the start, rather than bolting it on later. This could be a full AD domain environment running in the cloud (Azure, AWS), with an optional on-premise domain controller (bearing in mind the CAL requirement) if it was likely that the Internet connection would be unavailable.

If it's a really small number of users then look at something like JumpCloud.

And spend as much as possible on connectivity - if Ethernet over FTTC isn't available then push for a fibre circuit or EFM. None of this will work on ADSL in a way that isn't deeply frustrating. Connectivity is king, and it opens up a world of potential cost savings in other areas.