Is the Time for VMware in the SMB Over?
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Don't look to migrate "old" workloads, get the "new" or "current" workloads to the colo then focus on retiring the old stuff.
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WSUS should not go to colo. But Microsoft is offering a WSUS replacement option soon that will make you likely not want to run that at all, which is nice.
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From what I am seeing here, retiring some stuff, making some changes, you probably can't EVEN justify colo but should go to cloud. There is too little here to make owning a physical server justified.
But if you HAD to keep physical servers for some reason, I don't see any reason to have more that two 1U servers for this tiny workload (in addition to a storage device on-premises probably.)
That reduces the cost even further. Maybe as low as $100/mo but no more than $140/mo.
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But to me, it looks like you could probably drop to just 2-3 cloud servers. This doesn't shave cost over the colo hosting, but it makes the cost of buying and maintaining the servers themselves go away.
We use Azure for AD, for example. Two small Azure Windows servers and all of our Windows licensing is included in the cost. If you go 100% cloud, you don't need to deal with server licenses or CALs anymore! That's pretty huge.
You could consolidate workloads a little and get everything onto two cloud instances, likely.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Move to Office 365 and one huge workload (Exchange) and one small one (ISA) go away completely. That's a huge first step.
I have a huge concern over this. Our entire staff manages the calendars for the physicians, when using Outlook 2010 or 2013 in cached mode, frequently the calendars would not be updated as people are trying to add/change/delete items from the physician calendars. Disabling cached mode in Outlook completely solved this problem.
What kind of bandwidth requirements will Outlook have when moving to O365? -
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Move to Office 365 and one huge workload (Exchange) and one small one (ISA) go away completely. That's a huge first step.
I have a huge concern over this. Our entire staff manages the calendars for the physicians, when using Outlook 2010 or 2013 in cached mode, frequently the calendars would not be updated as people are trying to add/change/delete items from the physician calendars. Disabling cached mode in Outlook completely solved this problem.
What kind of bandwidth requirements will Outlook have when moving to O365?We have this issue right now, what we did originally was setup an single account to handle calendars, then add this account to each users calendar list. It updates instantly in most cases. However it is a bit cumbersome and sometimes the share is flat out rejected. So I am testing Sharepoint online calendars at the moment.
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@scottalanmiller said:
WSUS should not go to colo. But Microsoft is offering a WSUS replacement option soon that will make you likely not want to run that at all, which is nice.
Yes, but will it work for Non Windows 10 systems? That asked, I do plan to upgrade to Windows 10 in house within one year of release assuming MS allows OEM Windows 7/8/8.1 pro licenses en mass to be upgraded to the same user (i.e. my office created passport account). I don't want the head ache that is managing Key Cards for Office.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Move to Office 365 and one huge workload (Exchange) and one small one (ISA) go away completely. That's a huge first step.
I have a huge concern over this. Our entire staff manages the calendars for the physicians, when using Outlook 2010 or 2013 in cached mode, frequently the calendars would not be updated as people are trying to add/change/delete items from the physician calendars. Disabling cached mode in Outlook completely solved this problem.
What kind of bandwidth requirements will Outlook have when moving to O365?Outlook uses a bit, but you can measure your environment today and know exactly how much. But keep in mind, that ALL connections that are currently from other offices will go to Office 365 and not your central office so the total that you have today is the total for all sites. So while there is the negative of going over the WAN, there is also the positive that other sites will go direct and not hairpin through the WAN like they are now. So you might see very little impact, or possibly even improvement!
If you want to improve it even more, move to OWA and the bandwidth essentially drops to zero as all of the load is handled externally and things are not shipped in and out of the office via the WAN at all.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
WSUS should not go to colo. But Microsoft is offering a WSUS replacement option soon that will make you likely not want to run that at all, which is nice.
Yes, but will it work for Non Windows 10 systems? That asked, I do plan to upgrade to Windows 10 in house within one year of release assuming MS allows OEM Windows 7/8/8.1 pro licenses en mass to be upgraded to the same user (i.e. my office created passport account). I don't want the head ache that is managing Key Cards for Office.
When I did the math Office came out to be about the same when looking at an Office 365 subscription then when purchasing outright, which is why we are moving new users and updated computers to O365, may be worth looking into for you.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
WSUS should not go to colo. But Microsoft is offering a WSUS replacement option soon that will make you likely not want to run that at all, which is nice.
Yes, but will it work for Non Windows 10 systems? That asked, I do plan to upgrade to Windows 10 in house within one year of release assuming MS allows OEM Windows 7/8/8.1 pro licenses en mass to be upgraded to the same user (i.e. my office created passport account). I don't want the head ache that is managing Key Cards for Office.
That I don't know. But as a path forward, it is important to consider in planning.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Move to Office 365 and one huge workload (Exchange) and one small one (ISA) go away completely. That's a huge first step.
I have a huge concern over this. Our entire staff manages the calendars for the physicians, when using Outlook 2010 or 2013 in cached mode, frequently the calendars would not be updated as people are trying to add/change/delete items from the physician calendars. Disabling cached mode in Outlook completely solved this problem.
What kind of bandwidth requirements will Outlook have when moving to O365?Outlook uses a bit, but you can measure your environment today and know exactly how much. But keep in mind, that ALL connections that are currently from other offices will go to Office 365 and not your central office so the total that you have today is the total for all sites. So while there is the negative of going over the WAN, there is also the positive that other sites will go direct and not hairpin through the WAN like they are now. So you might see very little impact, or possibly even improvement!
If you want to improve it even more, move to OWA and the bandwidth essentially drops to zero as all of the load is handled externally and things are not shipped in and out of the office via the WAN at all.
Calendar management of other people's calendars is critical. As long as you can see multiple calendars in OWA like you can in the Outlook client, that would be doable, this is not the case with OWA 2010, to manage another user's calendar, you have to switch users to that .....uh..er.. nevermind.. clearly there was an update. It now appears that one can mange calendars in OWA 2010 just like in Outlook 2010.
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@coliver said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
WSUS should not go to colo. But Microsoft is offering a WSUS replacement option soon that will make you likely not want to run that at all, which is nice.
Yes, but will it work for Non Windows 10 systems? That asked, I do plan to upgrade to Windows 10 in house within one year of release assuming MS allows OEM Windows 7/8/8.1 pro licenses en mass to be upgraded to the same user (i.e. my office created passport account). I don't want the head ache that is managing Key Cards for Office.
When I did the math Office came out to be about the same when looking at an Office 365 subscription then when purchasing outright, which is why we are moving new users and updated computers to O365, may be worth looking into for you.
I purchased my Exchange Server and Office licenses 4 years ago, I think that was about a year after O365 started. My boss is very anti monthly payments - no matter what.
I realize I gain all of the benefits of a hosted solution, but the dollar for dollar cost of Exchange/Office in house was less expensive than O365 over a 5 year period. This did not take into account power usage on a server we already had (i.e. no hardware purchase) or cooling. Perhaps power and cooling costs went up some installing Exchange, I'm not sure.I will still be looking to move to Office 365 when the current SA expires because it will be easier monthly payments instead of the shocker $25K a year we paid for the initial purchase.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Move to Office 365 and one huge workload (Exchange) and one small one (ISA) go away completely. That's a huge first step.
I have a huge concern over this. Our entire staff manages the calendars for the physicians, when using Outlook 2010 or 2013 in cached mode, frequently the calendars would not be updated as people are trying to add/change/delete items from the physician calendars. Disabling cached mode in Outlook completely solved this problem.
What kind of bandwidth requirements will Outlook have when moving to O365?Outlook uses a bit, but you can measure your environment today and know exactly how much. But keep in mind, that ALL connections that are currently from other offices will go to Office 365 and not your central office so the total that you have today is the total for all sites. So while there is the negative of going over the WAN, there is also the positive that other sites will go direct and not hairpin through the WAN like they are now. So you might see very little impact, or possibly even improvement!
If you want to improve it even more, move to OWA and the bandwidth essentially drops to zero as all of the load is handled externally and things are not shipped in and out of the office via the WAN at all.
Calendar management of other people's calendars is critical. As long as you can see multiple calendars in OWA like you can in the Outlook client, that would be doable, this is not the case with OWA 2010, to manage another user's calendar, you have to switch users to that .....uh..er.. nevermind.. clearly there was an update. It now appears that one can mange calendars in OWA 2010 just like in Outlook 2010.
And we are on 2013 now, with several updates into the 2013 series, and 2016 is due soon! So the OWA system just keeps getting better and better over time.
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@coliver said:
When I did the math Office came out to be about the same when looking at an Office 365 subscription then when purchasing outright, which is why we are moving new users and updated computers to O365, may be worth looking into for you.
What were you comparing? $12/mth/user for O365 vs buying Pro Plus with SA ($765 first 3 years, $300 every three years after that?)
This math seems to show that as long as you stay on SA, outright purchasing is cheaper.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Move to Office 365 and one huge workload (Exchange) and one small one (ISA) go away completely. That's a huge first step.
I have a huge concern over this. Our entire staff manages the calendars for the physicians, when using Outlook 2010 or 2013 in cached mode, frequently the calendars would not be updated as people are trying to add/change/delete items from the physician calendars. Disabling cached mode in Outlook completely solved this problem.
What kind of bandwidth requirements will Outlook have when moving to O365?Outlook uses a bit, but you can measure your environment today and know exactly how much. But keep in mind, that ALL connections that are currently from other offices will go to Office 365 and not your central office so the total that you have today is the total for all sites. So while there is the negative of going over the WAN, there is also the positive that other sites will go direct and not hairpin through the WAN like they are now. So you might see very little impact, or possibly even improvement!
If you want to improve it even more, move to OWA and the bandwidth essentially drops to zero as all of the load is handled externally and things are not shipped in and out of the office via the WAN at all.
Calendar management of other people's calendars is critical. As long as you can see multiple calendars in OWA like you can in the Outlook client, that would be doable, this is not the case with OWA 2010, to manage another user's calendar, you have to switch users to that .....uh..er.. nevermind.. clearly there was an update. It now appears that one can mange calendars in OWA 2010 just like in Outlook 2010.
And we are on 2013 now, with several updates into the 2013 series, and 2016 is due soon! So the OWA system just keeps getting better and better over time.
Remind me, do you like OWA or hate it?
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@Dashrender said:
I purchased my Exchange Server and Office licenses 4 years ago, I think that was about a year after O365 started. My boss is very anti monthly payments - no matter what.
I realize I gain all of the benefits of a hosted solution, but the dollar for dollar cost of Exchange/Office in house was less expensive than O365 over a 5 year period. This did not take into account power usage on a server we already had (i.e. no hardware purchase) or cooling. Perhaps power and cooling costs went up some installing Exchange, I'm not sure.Did he account for your time? The value of the lost opportunities from running current software rather than outdated? The cost of you running Exchange instead of doing something valuable to make the shop run better or more efficient or cheaper? Did he include the cost of storage? Of backups? Of risk? Of update cycles and patching? Of liability if there is a breach (is it your risk or Microsoft's risk?)
These things add up over time. None of them are crippling. But most are ignored when someone is trying to justify going against industry best practices and common patterns.
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I think OWA is poor, but better than Outlook. Neither are very good.
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@Dashrender said:
@coliver said:
When I did the math Office came out to be about the same when looking at an Office 365 subscription then when purchasing outright, which is why we are moving new users and updated computers to O365, may be worth looking into for you.
What were you comparing? $12/mth/user for O365 vs buying Pro Plus with SA ($765 first 3 years, $300 every three years after that?)
This math seems to show that as long as you stay on SA, outright purchasing is cheaper.
It is only $12/month/user if you plan on hosting Exchange in house, if you don't and move that to the O365 as well then you are only paying $7/month/user for that Office Subscription (with Outlook).
Either way we weren't doing SA (not my decision) so I was factoring in the cost of new license every 5 years to stay current.
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@Dashrender said:
How many SMBs have separate AD from File and Print?
I never put file and print services on domain controllers. I always want DCs to be DCs and nothing else. When you get combine setups like that its usually people running SBS or essentials. File and Print service can almost always go on the same server, no reason not to even with datacenter licensing.
