Best server setup for small business?

cannedhams on 09/06/2015 - 15:38

Hola all,

I have to upgrade our server, which is running Windows Server SBS 2003. It can no longer support even vaguely up to date versions of office. I think I have stretched it as far as it can go.

Unfortunately Microsoft has discontinued Small Business Server and is only flogging Server Essentials now, which does not come with Exchange.

This is a shame as I really liked and appreciated SBS, it did a lot of things out of the box and did them reasonably well.

So the options for us now are:-

1) Move to a total cloud based solution. Very difficult. We have huge amounts of data (3-4 terabytes) and also access files frequently.

2) Use Microsoft server essentials, and the cloud based version of Outlook/Exchange, and continue hopefully much the same as before.

3) Some other kind of physical server. Probably Linux based. Very difficult, as we have server side applications that we need to run in windows, and I suppose we will have to run them in some sort of virtualised environment.

We are tending towards 2, with some distaste, as even not having our emails located on site seems a bit radical.

Computing

Comments

  • DealzEddy123 on 09/06/2015 - 16:26

    probably better to ask this on a tech forum like whirlpool

    • cannedhams on 09/06/2015 - 17:12
      +2

      I tried once. The responses were mainly along the lines of "you b*stard, how dare you set up your own server without paying one of us. I hope you're satisfied that our children have put out with a bowl to beg in the street etc etc…"

      • Bonsaichop on 09/06/2015 - 19:23
        +2

        Try the Overclockers Australia forum great community of people there.

  • bonezAU on 09/06/2015 - 16:28
    +1

    A new budget server, MS Server Essentials & Hosted/Cloud Exchange mailboxes would be my recommendation if you have a large amount of data you need to work with locally.

  • mrmarkau67 on 09/06/2015 - 16:36
    +1

    Yeah option 2 is better. Don't run an Exchange server yourself. Ugh. Dirty.

  • leighjames on 09/06/2015 - 17:50
    +1

    Opt 2…. cloud to expensive… Office 365 or Gmail Apps is the trick. Your on the right track!

  • trex on 09/06/2015 - 17:55
    +1

    You could consider getting a NAS unit like this.

    • supports cross platform (microsoft, iOS, android)
    • has syncing to cloud via its Cloud Station app
    • Mail server
      etc

    DS415 where 4 stands for 4 HDD bays and 15 is the model year)

    I can't sing enough praises of Synology. I bought a DS214 for my home use and it blew me over in terms of what it offers.

  • badonde on 09/06/2015 - 18:03
    +2

    Option 2 - Office 365 is awesome.

    • [Deactivated] on 09/06/2015 - 21:58

      I've only heard negative feedback about it, although not from tech savvy people.

  • [Deactivated] on 09/06/2015 - 20:24
    +1

    Whirlpool is the WORST place for this kind of advise, you want OCAU for this.

    Use Office 365 for Business or Enterprise (depending on your overall solution) to handle email, instant messaging, video conferencing, etc.
    Use Windows Server Essentials to run things like your domain controller and active directory, it integrates with Office 365 nicely.
    User Hyper-V as your hypervisor beneath Server Essentials. It doesn't come with Essentials, but it is free to download anyway.

    You can use something like SkyKick to migrate your current on-premise Exchange into Office 365, you just need to setup your Azure AD synchronization first.

    With Office 365 plans users get 1TB of storage EACH for personal storage and then you get 10GB base for shared storage (extra 500Mb per user and you can buy more).
    50Gb mailboxes for everyone, the Enterprise plans get unlimited archiving or as an option for the Business plans.

    Thats the low down anyway.

  • airzone on 09/06/2015 - 20:26
    +2

    Option 2. (n.b. my personal email is on exchange online… It's easy). Consider your backup solution for that volume of data… RAID isn't backup. As trex mentioned, the Synology NAS boxes are great - I have one and have it set to sync critical data to cloud storage… But they won't run Windows Server based applications.

    Oh, and how dare you set up your own server? My kids are begging on the street.

  • [Deactivated] on 09/06/2015 - 22:01
    +1

    You could use Zentyal or something similar for your email. Just don't expect the same feature set and expect to pay someone to set it up and maintain it for you. I have to agree with others though, option 2 does look the best.

  • mskeggs on 09/06/2015 - 22:13
    +1

    If you have good connectivity (either NBN or other telco fibre available) I would go with a full cloud solution.
    If you are bandwidth constrained, I would look at a hybrid with local file but mail/apps in the cloud.
    It really is much cheaper/easier to get 'somebody else to do it'' especially as it is hyper competitive now.

  • DARK KHAOS on 10/06/2015 - 07:31
    +1

    4) Keep your old server. then put in a front end smtp server (one that gets updates). Or just setup a relay or pop connector.
    Remove all remote access RWW etc. Never browse the web on the server.

    • cannedhams on 10/06/2015 - 13:54

      Too many issues with sbs 2003. Sbs 2011 resolved most of these, but they're not selling it anymore.

      We haven't been able to use rww for a while anyway, as it was quite a bit of hassle getting it to play nice with newer versions of Internet explorer.

  • ltjet on 10/06/2015 - 07:40
    +1

    I agree with the half half approach unless you're set on having everything on site.

    If you do want everything on site a new server running hyperv. Then spin up a server essentials virtual machine and a Unix based one for mail.

    There are a whole bunch of tutorials everywhere on how to setup mail. I'd recommend postfix and dovecot with something like ox for the webmail interface.

    If you need assistance shoot me a message or email and I can forward some guides I've used if you went down the Linux/on premises option.

  • mick1 on 10/06/2015 - 09:25
    +2

    Here's my 10 cents worth:

    1. Do things slowly in stages. Get each bit bedded down first.
    2. Sort out your email first. Unless you have thousands of employees, it makes no sense to run your own mail server and all the issues that come with that (which get worse every year.) MS or Google for Business are both good products, though you lose a little control over everything. If you go with Google, you can use a product like Spanning to keep a cheap archive backup of every email sent or received (so even if a user deletes emails you can get them back.) Google is the cheaper option, and in my opinion slightly more reliable. Either way cloud is way cheaper in the end. One of my clients hosting its own email was paying more for Kaspersky AV each year than the whole cost of cloud hosted email.
    3. Look at your 3 to 4 TB of data. Do you access it all or is part of it archive ? Is it all mission critical stuff ? Do you currently have offsite backup ? Do you need to access it remotely ? If part is rarely accessed use an archive solution instead for that data.
    4. If you have server side applications that need to run on windows, then there is not much point in bringing Linux into the equation, as you'll be running windows server somewhere (locally or hosted.) If you'll only have the one local server, I wouldn't have it virtualised. That would just add another level of complexity with relatively few benefits.
  • cannedhams on 10/06/2015 - 13:56

    Thanks for all the replies one and all. Seems like option 2 is the way to go.

    It will be good to get up to speed with office and exchange. Exchange 2003 is starting to grate a little. But 12 years is a good run.

  • DaveB on 12/06/2015 - 08:36

    We do a product that includes hosted AD, Office 365 for email and a fully managed onsite NAS for data storage. Flick me a message if you'd like more information.
    We've found this fulfills the requirements you've set out and have completed many migrations from SBS03 to this product.

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