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Old 09-22-2017, 09:55 AM   #1
troutman
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We are looking for business cloud server and support for a small office with three staff and three computers. Our current provider wants about $2000 per month, which seems excessive for the size of our office. Must be very secure (law office).

Please let me know if you can provide a competitive quote.
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Old 09-22-2017, 03:00 PM   #2
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Old 09-25-2017, 11:02 AM   #3
GoinAllTheWay
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We've been looking into this as well as our current server is getting a bit long in the tooth. 15 users in our office. Costs are astronomical. Just the monthly cost would cover the price of 2 new servers before the first year is even up, and that's not including the cost to get it set up.
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Old 10-01-2017, 08:53 AM   #4
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This is a big part of what I do for a living, and I am just going to point out a few things that you may not consider as part of the cost.

Note: We mostly use Azure hosting, but the same basic principles are the same for AWS, Google. Most of this stuff does not apply to putting your own server into a colo, but I am assuming that is not what you are talking about.

First important point, if you are using on-prem email services, stop now and move to Office 365. This is so obviously beneficial on so many levels that if you haven't moved already, your IT company is probably not very bright, or you resisted far too much when they suggested it.

1. No Hardware Concerns.

When you move to a cloud based service, you are not tied to physical hardware. This means that when your hardware would get old, run out of warranty, need to be replaced, you don't have to do that. The cost of paying someone to do that is often just as much if not more than the cost of the server and warranty. I recently did the basic math with a client, and if they paid us $15k ($8k hardware, $7k labour - both rough guesses, I am not a sales guy) to buy and migrate them to a new physical server.. They could instead pay us $7k to move them to a cloud based service for their main line of business application for their company data and move their remaining files (forms/HR/training type word/pdf stuff) into Sharepoint, which is included for free in their Office 365 subscription that they already use. The extra cost of this cloud hosting would be about $350 a month, which is about $12,500 over 3 years. TCO is almost $20k over 3 years, which is $5k more than the physical server suggestion that they were considering.

The big bonus here is in 3 years when their physical warranty would have run out, they can keep running on their cloud server and not give a care. So they save $15k on the cost they would have spent on purchasing and moving to a new physical server. Add in another $12.5 over 3 years, and they are looking at a 6 year TCO of $32,000. This is ~$2k more than they would have spent on physical servers over that time, which is not a very large difference, but it is a difference. It would be unlikely that you would need to upgrade your server OS at this point in time, but for the case of simplicity, lets assume that you will and that the cost of doing such a migration is the same as doing a physical migration (in reality, it will actually be cheaper in almost all cases). If you didn't you are essentially saving that $7k every 3 years that they would have needed to pay to move to a new physical server. It is also important to note that they also would have had to pay their Line of Business app vendor to move over data each time, at a cost of about $1000, but I am going to discount it here in this general example, but it should be something you should consider.

What do they get for that extra $2k? See below.

2. Physical Security.

What happens if someone breaks into your office and thinks (like an idiot) that that fancy server box is going to get them some sweet $$ for crack. Your data is gone. Hopefully you had a backup and insurance - neither of which are free, but lets assume they are- and can get back up and running in 3 or 4 days. After all you have to get new hardware, get everything restored, etc. That downtime costs you some money, but let's assume for now that you are able to muddle along with no large disruption to business, so your cost here is also zero. This assumption here is actually kind of insane, because there is no way this would be realistic, but maybe your business is able to withstand this kind of outage. The real cost here is that your data is all 'out there'. Hopefully you had encrypted drives on your server, because if not, someone is pulling all your data off that server and selling it to someone. How much is that going to cost your company if all your data is compromised? This amount won't be zero, I promise, especially if you deal with client's data.

If your data is in the cloud, you don't need to worry about someone walking away with your server. Sure, it is still sitting on a server rack in Kelowna, or Colorado, and someone could walk in and steal it, but if you have ever been to a small data centre in downtown Calgary where there is a guard with a shotgun, and you need to do a retinal scan to get in, you will realize that risk is much lower than it is sitting in a closet in your office.

3. Data Security

One of the main things that people say is that they can't have their data in the cloud, because they don't have physical control over it. I am assume that you are not concerned about this because you are already in the cloud, or are considering it. I will just say that even if you are spending $3k on a router and having it monitored properly, your data is just as secure, if not more so by being stored in most data centres. The weakest link is almost certainly your on-prem network.

4. Environmental Security

A lot of this is kind of the same as the physical security stuff, so I won't rehash, but if you have a cloud based server, you don't need to worry about that closet being super hot in the summer, dealing with special venting or air conditioning. You don't need to worry if the office burns down or there is a flood. Sure all these concerns exist in a data centre as well, but they are mitigated more there and they are built into the cost. No 4am wakeup call from your IT company who got an alert that your server was overheating, that's for sure.

5. Remote access to your data.

Depending on your company, access to your data outside the office can be a positive, or a negative, and there are ways to obtain this access without bring cloud based, so I won't dwell on this much more than saying depending on where your data is, it can be much easier to access it remotely, if desired.

6. Flexiblity

If your company is always staying the same size, not planning on any short term growth, then this might not be a big concern to you, but the ability to deploy an extra server to host a new application, or duplicate your setup in China/Europe/whatever, on short notice is a thing you would be thinking of, cloud hosting makes it a lot easier. I have a client who is adding new locations around the world 2-4 time a year, and we can add capacity at will with little fuss (China is harder, due to Great Wall, etc, but still very doable). If you double your load during the summer and then essentially go dormant in the winter while maintaining a minimal office staff, you can save a ton of money compared to buying hardware which will handle your load in the summer but just sit there depreciating during the winter. I have a client who does seismic, who was practically non-operational for over a year, but is starting up again recently. If they had been on Azure, we could have shut down servers for 5 days a week while they were slow, saving them a huge chunk of change. Maybe you are a 9-5 shop, and your server doesn't have to be on for 14 hours a day. There is a ton of options available, but they don't apply to everyone.

All of that said, moving to the cloud isn't normally cheaper, but I think you get more for your money than with buying an on-prem server. There are also ways of letting you save money depending on the access you need. There are also many situations were moving to cloud hosting is not a good idea, but that depends on your business, what kind of data you have and how you use it. Your IT company should know this, but it is possible they are trying to sell cloud based services for some other reason, like they make more off it or are mindlessly pushing something they heard in a conference or read in an article.

If you have more questions, feel free to post them here or send me a PM and we can arrange a quick phone call with me or if you would prefer to have more of a sales type call, I can put you in touch with someone who does that kind of thing.
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Last edited by Rathji; 10-01-2017 at 09:12 AM.
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