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School me on IT

 
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eeven73
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PostPosted: Apr 07, 2015 11:55 am    Post subject: School me on IT Reply with quote

What kind of set up would anyone recommend regarding a small business server with less than a dozen workstations.

We got quoted from Pacific Office Automation and I felt they wanted an awful lot of money to rent a server and trouble shoot.

Please be advised you are speaking to a layman.(I turn 40 this year)

Thanks in advance

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jason_ssr
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PostPosted: Apr 07, 2015 12:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

what will the server be hosting?
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eeven73
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PostPosted: Apr 07, 2015 1:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ERP software mainly.

we do NOT have a big IT personel infrastructure

We outsource email hosting, don't know if that is smart.

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ohsix
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PostPosted: Apr 10, 2015 5:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

My company is about that size. We have 2.5 servers. One for our e-mail running Exchange. One for our Oil and Gas accounting software and common drives. And a small (the .5) server for our office phone system which is irrelevant to your question.

We bought our servers from Dell. I think they were ~$4,000 each and cost another ~$4,000 total to set them up. We use a contract IT company which charges $950/month for server maintenance/upgrades and we get a discounted rate of $65/hour for all other IT related upgrades and troubleshooting. I think they're pretty honest on the hours billed and very responsive when we have a problem. I don't think they've ever taken more than 5 minutes to respond to an issue. I know it's not feasible for them to work in Oregon, but that's what we pay for good IT service in west Texas.
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RampageWake
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PostPosted: Apr 10, 2015 6:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It has been a while since I've done IT work so I am of no help, but my wife is in a similar situation setting up for 3-5 ppl. I recommended a single server running 2012 Server Essentials as it integrates easily with Office365 that she uses. 10 years ago with ~25 employees we hosted our own mail, ftp server, dns, & web, but those things have become such a commodity I don't see the point in DIY at a small shop. The quad core server she got with 48GB RAM and 3TB disk can run other several other [virtual] machines. I am familar with VMWare so it did not matter that MS Server 2012 does not include V-Sphere. Her separate machines running Oracle, SQLServer, Linux environments, etc... can all be virtualized on the one [physical] box. There are downsides to having everything on one box, but the upsides outweighed the risks in her situation.
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chavez
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PostPosted: Apr 10, 2015 6:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

No SMB should be hosting their own email servers anymore. It is not cost effective nor is as reliable. The only reason would be for someone who is over the top about privacy, but that's a whole different story.

What part of your ERP software needs to be on a "server"? Are you really just using the "server" as a fancy place to store your centralized files? What I mean, really, is are you just using the "server" as a network attached storage device?

The CPA in my office uses tax planning and prep software. It needs a "server" to host the database files. So what I ended up using for him, is a midrange NAS device (2 drive array in RAID 1), and mounted it as a drive on the machines he runs the software from. Works flawlessly and has for 4 years straight.

I dunno, but the days of domain controllers and what-not for SMBs appear to be nearing their end. I don't even bother buying the "Professional" versions of Winblows anymore - it's no longer necessary.

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PostPosted: Apr 11, 2015 5:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

chavez wrote:
No SMB should be hosting their own email servers anymore. It is not cost effective nor is as reliable. The only reason would be for someone who is over the top about privacy, but that's a whole different story.
*queues clintonemail.com jokes*

What part of your ERP software needs to be on a "server"? Are you really just using the "server" as a fancy place to store your centralized files? What I mean, really, is are you just using the "server" as a network attached storage device?

The CPA in my office uses tax planning and prep software. It needs a "server" to host the database files. So what I ended up using for him, is a midrange NAS device (2 drive array in RAID 1), and mounted it as a drive on the machines he runs the software from. Works flawlessly and has for 4 years straight.

I dunno, but the days of domain controllers and what-not for SMBs appear to be nearing their end. I don't even bother buying the "Professional" versions of Winblows anymore - it's no longer necessary.
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eeven73
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PostPosted: Apr 13, 2015 7:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

chavez wrote:
No SMB should be hosting their own email servers anymore. It is not cost effective nor is as reliable. The only reason would be for someone who is over the top about privacy, but that's a whole different story.

What part of your ERP software needs to be on a "server"? Are you really just using the "server" as a fancy place to store your centralized files? What I mean, really, is are you just using the "server" as a network attached storage device?

The CPA in my office uses tax planning and prep software. It needs a "server" to host the database files. So what I ended up using for him, is a midrange NAS device (2 drive array in RAID 1), and mounted it as a drive on the machines he runs the software from. Works flawlessly and has for 4 years straight.

I dunno, but the days of domain controllers and what-not for SMBs appear to be nearing their end. I don't even bother buying the "Professional" versions of Winblows anymore - it's no longer necessary.


In my laymans understanding, Yes we are really using the server to store centralized ERP and Accounting software and files and accessing with 12 or so workstations.


Quote:
We bought our servers from Dell. I think they were ~$4,000 each and cost another ~$4,000 total to set them up. We use a contract IT company which charges $950/month for server maintenance/upgrades and we get a discounted rate of $65/hour for all other IT related upgrades and troubleshooting. I think they're pretty honest on the hours billed and very responsive when we have a problem. I don't think they've ever taken more than 5 minutes to respond to an issue. I know it's not feasible for them to work in Oregon, but that's what we pay for good IT service in west Texas.


The quote I refered to was in the 1k per month range for "support". Frankly, that isn't a huge sum until we think about it in the framework of $12K a year regardless of need. Maybe it is a fair deal, dunno.

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Broccoli B
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PostPosted: Apr 14, 2015 9:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Around here, instead of paying a monthly fee for support you buy a bucket of hours ahead of time. Typically those hours would expire 1 year from purchase if not used. Basic workstation/server support around here is $150 to $225 an hour.
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PostPosted: Apr 14, 2015 3:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Have you looked in to having it hosted in the cloud. I forget the service we use but we now host our accounting (quickbooks enterprise) is hosted by a third party service. Works quite well. We are also in the process of building out Open ERP. Hope to launch in Q3.
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eeven73
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PostPosted: Jul 28, 2015 8:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Trying to upgrade our email hosting.

Currently been on hold for 90 min and transfered 4 times.

So..... anyone have any recommendations in regard to small business email hosting companies? Looking for 30-40 boxes with 3000Mb capacity per box.

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PostPosted: Jul 28, 2015 10:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

https://products.office.com/en-us/exchange/exchange-online
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chavez
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PostPosted: Jul 28, 2015 2:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This^

No need to look any further.

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eeven73
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PostPosted: Jul 29, 2015 6:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks guys, I honestly didn't realize Microsoft offered hosting.
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PostPosted: Jul 29, 2015 4:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

eeven73,
We use google for work. We are a smaller company with intent to grow, but it seems to work well since most of us are mobile.
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PostPosted: Aug 09, 2015 1:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Chad H wrote:
eeven73,
We use google for work. We are a smaller company with intent to grow, but it seems to work well since most of us are mobile.


Same here. We have been very happy with it thus far.

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