What to do with the Mail server

GJUK · 8 Jul 2012 at 21:53

Hi Guys

After some ideas....

A small Company has 1 Mail server based at the owners house, broadband connection, about 5 people access 9 email accounts, from their homes/on the road.

The server is a Dell PowerEdge 840 running windows 2003 and smatermail..it works but owmer would like something that uses less electricity and less noise...so what to do with it?

I can replace it with something newer, or move the mail server to the cloud...VPS?

what options would I need to look at costing up/presenting to the owner.

Would Amazon EC2 be an option?

Gary

GJUK · 8 Jul 2012 at 23:09

mrbell1984 said:
Get rid of it and get a normal mail server in the cloud or Google Mail (Apps).

His mail was hosted in with an ISP, but he had quite a few issues so he not keen on going back to that, the current set-up works and he very happy with it, except for the fact the server sits at his house..

I have a look at google mail apps

Just wondering what other cloud option to present to him...

Thanks

GJUK

GJUK · 9 Jul 2012 at 09:00

Zarf said:
Go Cloud.
Hosted Exchange for that few users would probably be about £30 a month. Less than the electricity costs of doing it local, plus far less hassle for you to set up and run.

Makes me worried about my job security in the IT industry, there's not going to be much call for in-house datacenters or full time admins shortly, just makes too much sense to push it all into the cloud once the current hardware cycle runs out.

I going to look at hosted Exchange...Microsoft looks like a good choice...but will look around companies wise

As for the IT industry....cloud is taking off no doubt, but there still lots and I mea loads of companies that will not move to the cloud, so I think we are safe for some time to come

IT job sites seem to be rather full of new jobs....

GJUK

GJUK · 9 Jul 2012 at 10:15

K@rl said:
I would consider having a Windows VPS or a HP Mircroserver.

I use a VPS as my primary server and a HP MS as my secondary as a backup. If they don't need too much storage (less than 100GB) then it could work out a cheap alternative that will give them much better speeds than over a BB line.

They will need nowhere near 100GB, so I thinking either a VPS (recommendation?) or hosted Exchange (again recommendations?) with a HP at his house as a backup server (Can Provide basic File storage as well)

GJUK · 9 Jul 2012 at 10:16

Nunzio said:
A remote server and local home backup.

I think this is the route to take, so recommendation on companies/set-up to use?

Regards

GJUK

GJUK · 9 Jul 2012 at 12:11

Currently looking at Microsoft Office 365 Exchange only for now....will look at the whole package...and talk to the owner

GJUK

GJUK · 9 Jul 2012 at 21:26

Swarfega said:
Google Apps is free for for up to 10 users. Used to be 50 but Google nurfed it

As a Google Apps user I would highly recommend it. Great for small business. Serious companies though should go hosted Exchange, why? Cause Exchange is the shiz init.

I have a domain that I use for playing with mail software so have trying google apps...I got a link to a trail for office 365, so will give that a go...

GJUK

GJUK · 11 Jul 2012 at 11:44

Office 365 up and running....I like...but then I like using exchange.......

also using Google Apps so will be talking to the owner soon....

Anyone used a cloud drive? (mapped drive over the internet) for sharing files between users? Company have started generating *.DWG files that need to be shared between 2-3 people..

GJUK

GJUK · 1 Aug 2012 at 11:31

Hi guys, after playing with a few systems, looks like we be going for MS Office365

I'll update this thread once we start the change over ;-)

GJUK