Convert Small Business to Cloud Computing

K

KapsZ28

2[H]4U
Joined
May 29, 2009
Messages
2,114
So there is a small business that I work with and they currently have a single server running SBS 2003. Right now the server is used for sharing data, hosting QuickBooks Enterprise, using Outlook Business Contact manager (requires SQL,) and keeping their data backed up. It is setup so that remote users can VPN into the server and still access everything they need. There are about 8 employees total.

Now they are looking to move everything into the cloud instead of keeping a server onsite. What would you suggest here?

They need to keep their QuickBooks Enterprise, so that would most likely need to be setup on a Windows Server OS in the cloud. Business Contact Manager can probably be replaced with something else that allows them all to share the same contact list. I know there is Exchange Online, but I would prefer to stick with just one company for the entire cloud. They would also need their local data backed up. I would say they can store all their data in the cloud, but they will also need access to certain data offline to do their job.

I've never really been involved in cloud computing over the Internet. I am more familiar with products like Citrix in an enterprise environment. Personally I think it would be great to have them all setup using XenDesktop. This way everything is already configured and they can't screw it up. Plus it can be used offline and I could setup Citrix Receiver on their smartphones. Not sure if there is any online cloud computing that would offer this type of service. Especially at a decent price.

They want to look at this place, http://www.atlanticmetro.net/. But from their website it is hard to tell what I could actually setup.

I know Amazon offers a lot of cloud computing. Could I actually get a server setup through them with Exchange, QuickBooks, etc?
 
why do they want to use "the cloud"

What is their local internet connection like?

Are they aware of the downsides of off-site infrastructure?

What you would be getting in theory is a scaleable VPS system. Good for heavy IO or CPU tasks that are 24/7 but have low demand and high demand periods.

If they want to offsite mail why not go with google apps?

Citrix is a good way to go, I agree with you. XenDesktop does take out a lot of the pitfalls of offsite servers, the ability to publish entire systems that can still be used while there is connectivity issues is a god sent. I would say co-lo a cluster of XenDesktop / XenServers. It would be better than they have now and better than this rather weak looking "cloud computing" system they are looking at.
 
Last edited:
Probably just to get rid of the server. Especially now that they have Comcast for their internet and the SMC router Comcast gave them sucks.
 
They probably saw a commerical that said "to the cloud" and "yay cloud" and now the owner wants his stuff "in the cloud".

I would talk them out of it personally, going to hosted exchange means giving up a lot of control. When they want to make any changes it could take a while, and that's even IF the changes they want can be put in.
 
my manager thinks that anything off site is "The Cloud"

I don't think I have ever had a manager who actually had a clue, I suppose thats why I there though I am slightly less clueless then them. :D
 
To make a long story short, the business is partially a family business. Although there are several partners. My brother does sales, my cousin is a partner too, which is the one inquiring about cloud computing. But....he also happens to be the new CEO of http://www.atlanticmetro.net/. He came from an IT background a LONG time ago. I haven't a clue what he does with all of his businesses. When he first mentioned using Atlantic Metro, he was referring to setting up QuickBooks in a VM and using RDP to access it. That isn't cloud computing to me. I could put that on my home server and give them all remote access.

Part of the reason he most likely wants to do cloud computing is because I have been doing their IT for the past three years. Pretty much for free and he knows I am not going to help them 24/7 since I have my own job. Although the server I setup for them about 3 or more years ago has been working perfectly fine.

Before they were using OptOnline and everything ran good. I was able to remotely manage the server easily. They moved to a new location and now have Comcast and a piece of crap modem/router. If I can get Comcast to switch to a decent modem and go back to the Cisco router I was using in their other office, then it would work perfect again. Not sure we can change the modem.

It would be nice to remove myself from the equation, but I can't think of a good way to setup cloud computing that would meet all of their needs easily. Especially with QuickBooks. Unless I went with a hybrid approach. Use the cloud for file management, and email. Then switch to a standard 2003 server with the QuickBooks database and Business Contact Manager on there.
 
but don't forget if their net is crap then how is hosting their gear outside the office going to help?
 
Jay_oasis said:
but don't forget if their net is crap then how is hosting their gear outside the office going to help?
Click to expand...

I know. I was thinking about that too. For whatever reason, they went with Comcast's 10 down 2 up business plan. Although I speed tested it the other day at 30/5. Not sure if it was a fluke or Comcast made a mistake with their plan.

To me it just seems easier to keep a server inside the office. Its not like they are using much. Files, SQL, and QuickBooks. It would just be a matter of getting VPN working properly through Comcast's router.
 
I'd like to chime in here.

I'm all for cloud (read: hosted) solutions if they fit the bill - it can certainly make your life easier.

At my office I am moving almost everything out to the cloud:

There are 4 full time employees and 60 'independent contractors' with about 1/4 of them in the office all the time. This is spread over 2 offices about 20 miles from each other.

Accounting Software: Hosted on a Windows Box in the cloud (by the developer). Accessed via Terminal Services.

Email: I migrated the company to Google Apps. The employees use Outlook and the independent contractors can connect however they please (POP3/IMAP/HTTPS). This was probably the best decision I made and after years of Exchange server management I have that monkey off my back. I made this change about 3 years ago and we've never had any downtime since.

Phone System: I moved to a Virtual PBX and ported out all the numbers for the company. By utilizing VOIP vs. leased lines and POTS we have saved a bunch of money and not given up any features. There was a Point-to-Point T1 that connected the two offices mainly for voice for the old phone system and some data. Now that line is being replaced by a bridged VPN.

File Storage: This is the only thing I haven't bitten the bullet on. I've looked at using Amazon S3 storage but the reality is that a good chunk of the data that is stored locally currently is very large and productivity would go down the toilet if people were waiting to download/open 200-300mb+ files.

All in all however I couldn't be happier moving stuff out of our server room and into the 'cloud'. The most important thing I had to do was monitor the network and increase our bandwidth. Originally the company got by fine with a 6mbps ADSL line. Moving everything to the cloud however had me change our internet to a 18/2Mbit FTTP U-Verse line w/ a 12/1 cable connection backup.

The amount of money and time saved has been enormous.
 
aphex187 said:
I'd like to chime in here.

I'm all for cloud (read: hosted) solutions if they fit the bill - it can certainly make your life easier.

At my office I am moving almost everything out to the cloud:

There are 4 full time employees and 60 'independent contractors' with about 1/4 of them in the office all the time. This is spread over 2 offices about 20 miles from each other.

Accounting Software: Hosted on a Windows Box in the cloud (by the developer). Accessed via Terminal Services.

Email: I migrated the company to Google Apps. The employees use Outlook and the independent contractors can connect however they please (POP3/IMAP/HTTPS). This was probably the best decision I made and after years of Exchange server management I have that monkey off my back. I made this change about 3 years ago and we've never had any downtime since.

Phone System: I moved to a Virtual PBX and ported out all the numbers for the company. By utilizing VOIP vs. leased lines and POTS we have saved a bunch of money and not given up any features. There was a Point-to-Point T1 that connected the two offices mainly for voice for the old phone system and some data. Now that line is being replaced by a bridged VPN.

File Storage: This is the only thing I haven't bitten the bullet on. I've looked at using Amazon S3 storage but the reality is that a good chunk of the data that is stored locally currently is very large and productivity would go down the toilet if people were waiting to download/open 200-300mb+ files.

All in all however I couldn't be happier moving stuff out of our server room and into the 'cloud'. The most important thing I had to do was monitor the network and increase our bandwidth. Originally the company got by fine with a 6mbps ADSL line. Moving everything to the cloud however had me change our internet to a 18/2Mbit FTTP U-Verse line w/ a 12/1 cable connection backup.

The amount of money and time saved has been enormous.
Click to expand...

I have some questions.

1. Who did you use for hosting Windows?
2. With the Google Apps, can you use your own email address rather than gmail? ([email protected])
3. Who did you use for the Virtual PBX? I was looking at http://www.virtualpbx.com/ and it looks like they may be worth while. This is one of the reasons they have Comcast. I told him to get FiOS, but for some reason Verizon could not port their phone number but Comcast could. I would think with a Virtual PBX you could probably port any number you would like?
 
We use googleApps for our mail and yes you use your own domain, we have 1000s of users all over the world and it has worked well (moving all the users mail was a nightmare though but that was due to the scale of the project)

Bandwidth wise we did see a small increase as most of our users are using the webmail but it didn't really dent our 100/100 line.
 
KapsZ28 said:
I have some questions.

1. Who did you use for hosting Windows?
2. With the Google Apps, can you use your own email address rather than gmail? ([email protected])
3. Who did you use for the Virtual PBX? I was looking at http://www.virtualpbx.com/ and it looks like they may be worth while. This is one of the reasons they have Comcast. I told him to get FiOS, but for some reason Verizon could not port their phone number but Comcast could. I would think with a Virtual PBX you could probably port any number you would like?
Click to expand...

1. The developer of the software "LoneWolf" provides the windows hosting for us.
2. Yes, absolutely. You can try before you buy with google apps to make sure its what you want. Go set up an account and try it out
3. Went with RingCentral first then 8x8. I'm thinking about going with a hosted Trixbox solution now though so I have more granular control of the phone system.

You can port any local numbers you own. I ported 120 numbers - let me tell you however you want PLENTY of time to do this because the losing provider will generally drag their feet when losing a ton of numbers. Note that I ported 120 DIDs and not 120 phone lines. We only need about 8 lines/channels at a time.
 
I guess if you moved everything to the cloud, there wouldn't be much reason to keep all the PCs on a domain, huh?
 
KapsZ28 said:
I guess if you moved everything to the cloud, there wouldn't be much reason to keep all the PCs on a domain, huh?
Click to expand...

Security wise and for file storage. There is a SBS2003 box here that is the PDC and does those basic functions. I've debated on getting rid of it but then I have to control user authentication locally and would end using samba or something similar for file permissions. Doing these basic tasks this thing should run pretty much forever. Perhaps if we decide to move or I do something drastic I may eliminate it.
 
Well, one thing you could do is setup a windows VM on Amazon EC2. The 'small' VM which is all they should need, will run right around $85 a month last I checked, then you have some bandwidth and storage fees. But right around $100 per month would probably be all it would be.
 
Check out opsource, its hosted on vSphere. Its very similar to what I'm working on the in the DoD.

http://www.disa.mil/race

Most likely you're going to be all about IaaS with what you've said so far. That way you have full reign over the OS, etc, after its handed over. You can also buy extra processing horsepower if you need it, etc. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of EC2, but I guess its the pro-VMware-fanboi coming out of me.
 
I think I am just getting more confused with all this cloud computing. I can understand having a Windows OS setup and remoting into it to access QuickBooks.

But let's say I wanted to do this. Have an OS setup in the cloud that hosted the QuickBooks DB and the DB for Business Contact Manager (BCM) that runs in SQL. Now instead of remoting into the server to access everything, I would want to keep QuickBooks and BCM on the local computers and just access the DB on the cloud OS.

I only really understand the office environment and accessing the DB on a local server on the local network. With cloud computing, everything is remote. So how do you setup several clients to access this data? All I can think of is VPN.
 
KapsZ28 said:
I think I am just getting more confused with all this cloud computing. I can understand having a Windows OS setup and remoting into it to access QuickBooks.

But let's say I wanted to do this. Have an OS setup in the cloud that hosted the QuickBooks DB and the DB for Business Contact Manager (BCM) that runs in SQL. Now instead of remoting into the server to access everything, I would want to keep QuickBooks and BCM on the local computers and just access the DB on the cloud OS.

I only really understand the office environment and accessing the DB on a local server on the local network. With cloud computing, everything is remote. So how do you setup several clients to access this data? All I can think of is VPN.
Click to expand...

I do this EVERY DAY, except i use simply accounting 2010, i also have a vpn connection to the server so it't not just a port forward. I also do all my email and word documents excel files etc etc off my rdp box in a vm.

I just setup another server for a company i subcontract to, 2003 server running quick books 2011 they rdp into it over the vpn also and do all their email, the reason for this is so all the data is kept off site it is also backed up every night to a remote site too.

Keeping the data at the office was just a stupid idea, some one breaks into the store and steals the computer POOF all the data would be missing. They were paying 450$ month to have 2 rdp sessions a month plus exchange, I exnayed that and built them a server and now it is all done internally.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top