Cloud Server and Collaborative Tools

[Hoddo]

Looking for some business IT recommendations.

We currently have 40 employees. 35 local and 5 remote.As of next month we will have an international office which, by year end, should have 5+ staff.

Our current server (file and email) is located in our office (3tb storage), remote staff connect via a slow and unreliable VPN, which will not be fit for purpose when the international office opens. I am exploring cloud based file sharing options like Dropbox Enterprise, BOX, or Google Cloud services as a way to host and share files. There is an internal concern about who owns the data if we should choose one of these well known systems, us or the supplier?

It would be fantastic to have cloud based collaboration (like Google Docs) and bring version controls to our documentation.

Has anyone had any experience of these systems?

Also, we run an email server located in our office running from rackspace. Would you keep this or, for the low cost, consider a switch to something like Google business suite?

Edited by Hoddo on Thursday 16th February 12:59

[Hoddo]

randlemarcus said:

Personally, I'd be looking at Office365, using a mix of SharePoint and OneDrive for the files, Exchange for the email, and getting Skype for Business for IM and potentially voice.

Your data is definitely your data, regardless of Cloud flavour, at least in terms of IP.

Does Office365 offer a company wide file server or does everyone keep their files in their personal OneDrive?

[Hoddo]

geeks said:

doogle83 said:

randlemarcus said:

Personally, I'd be looking at Office365, using a mix of SharePoint and OneDrive for the files, Exchange for the email, and getting Skype for Business for IM and potentially voice.

As a new start up this is exactly what we've done, including Skype for voice calls and it's all working pretty well currently.

^^ is the right answer really.

There are other options at getting at on premise content without VPN but its price might be prohibitive given the user base. You can file host in the cloud and the IP is yours and you own the document however you have to be careful of data at reset regulations etc. Not a massive issue as Azure now has a DC in the UK and AWS is fine as well.

The other considerations include what type of device has access to the content. If you go down the O365 route look at some of the EMS/intune stuff as a bolt on.

IT guy has been looking at QNAP MyCloud and creating our own cloud from the internal server. I understand the logic behind this but can't help think for the relatively low cost of MS365 it offers a seamless cloud based netwrok and feature rich experience for an expanding business. Thoughts?

Appreciate all the help folks. My IT knowledge is basic so I'm getting most of your comments but some of the IT specifics are going over my head, for example, what is EMS/intune?

[Hoddo]

TwistingMyMelon said:

Before you go cloud, how good is your connection? A few years back I worked in a Reading office that could only muster 5mbs best and other rural offices that were 2mb

Bonding worked in those cases, but going cloud means all your eggs are in one basket so factor in connection redundancy

Great point but thankfully we have a dedicated line so this would not be an issue.

[Hoddo]

plasticpig said:

Hoddo said:

Great point but thankfully we have a dedicated line so this would not be an issue.

Unless some idiot in a JCB breaks your line or you provider goes bust (both have happened to clients of mine this year). I would always go for a solution where your files / data is replicated to local storage as well as being on the cloud. It's even possible to replicate between two different cloud providers.

Our IT would always keep a local backup of all files regardless of what solution we went with. Don't think he could sleep at night if he didn't.