So, as some of you might know, I manage a small/medium tourism business. As well as GM, I’m also the IT Manager (and Safety Manager, Training Manager, Head Barista, Chief Toilet Cleaner, etc etc. You get the idea…)
I know we’ve got some super clever people here, and I know just enough to get myself into trouble. So, in the interests of “why pay an expert to do something, when I can do it myself in 5x the time” I thought I might try to revamp our IT systems… So, I’m seeking advice.
Our setup is pretty simple: cat-6 right through the building, coming to a passive bay and then to a 16 port SMC Switch. That’s hooked to an ASUS DSL-AC55U that provides our Wifi and incoming VDSL. That all seems to work just fine for us, so not looking to change too much there.
Computer-wise, we have four, and looking to add a fifth (laptop). There’s also a small NAS that I have setup as backup destinations for a couple of important databases that live on one of the PCs. The PCs themselves all function pretty much independently, with a tiny bit of file sharing to what I call the “main” computer. Really that’s just for convenience though. Important files live on our MS365 OneDrive/Sharepoint, so those can be accessed from multiple points. Email is through our web provider and works fine (no shared calendars though).
Finally, we get to the point(s): is it worth adding a small server or similar to host a file share, or is that not likely to add any value over OneDrive? What else could I do with a server that I can’t do currently? I did run a headless media server for a few years at home, so I’m vaguely familiar with the concepts and SSH etc.
Then, email: I’d love to have shared calendars (particularly so I can get my work calendar on my phone) - if I shifted my email across to MS365 (presumably I can keep our domain?) then would that add that capability or add any other value?
Anyways, this is mostly a thought exercise at this point, as I sit here in the office on a Saturday, while it’s sunny out and my kids and wife are out having fun lol. Thanks for listening!
Move your email to 365 if you’re doing licensing there already. You’ll be able to make shared mailboxes to your hearts content. This may be a minor increase to your existing licensing with Microsoft but probably worth it. You’ll offset the cost by dropping your current hosting provider and maybe even get some more Microsoft features while you’re at it.
I’d recommend not putting any servers on site if you don’t have them already. Especially if you’re already using overdrive and Sharepoint. If you need something like a more traditional file share look into azure files.
Servers mean maintenance, security, availability and life cycle management. You’re in a position where nothing to migrate means going straight cloud. Microsoft can provide everything you need and the cost may seem high but it’s worth not having the on premises headache.
Cheers, that seems in line with my current thinking, great to have that backed up. Will check out Azure
As much as I hate it as a self-hosting enthusiast, I probably have to agree with @Banda@lemmy.world. Unless you’re willing to spend some time (not a lot) on maintenance regularly (this is the important bit) - it’s going to backfire. Cloud is easier.
Having said that, this is the perfect time to establish the foundational attitude towards IT solutions at the company. Cloud is good for massive scaling, but it’s an absolute ripoff at running something all the time. Proprietary vendor lock-in is a pain that inevitably rears its ugly behind at the worst possible moment. So:
- Nextcloud - file sharing, calendar, contacts. Also a ton of other stuff, but we don’t care about it now.
- Postfix+opendkim+opendmarc+spamassassin+postfwd+dovecot is the email solution I use. Sounds daunting, but I found it to be the easiest to maintain as all the moving parts are small individually. I avoid “all-in-one” solutions as they always manage to cock things up during upgrades. I’m also running this on a rolling distro so I never ever have to go through the utter bollocks that’s a major version upgrade.
- OpenLDAP - I’m only looking into setting this one up for myself, and it’s an absolute overkill for a company that has 5 users; pretty much everything integrates with it, though.
Cheers - I’m already so time-poor that’s it’s not funny! So yeah, I think cloud is definitely the answer. Will check out Nextcloud again though - haven’t played with that in 5 or 6 years
I like Nextcloud! But the funny thing is I don’t use it for the cloud file experience, but for the apps. Some things I use it for:
- I’ve disabled Google’s location history and use Phonetrack. I can track where my phone is via Nextcloud and see it on a map, plus history.
- I use the Recipes app for loading recipes in. The actual recipies are in a standard format stored in a folder in Nextcloud (easy transportability in case it stops being supported), but there’s a nice front end that lets you group recipes by category, tag them, etc. And a couple of Android apps to choose from that connect to Nextcloud and show the recipes, which I use when I’m actually cooking.
- I also use the Task manager (synced to the Tasks.org app), I use Nextcloud as the sync server for Joplin, and also have a kanban board where I put things that I need to do from a technical angle (and then ignore them).
These things all use the file storage in Nextcloud, but I don’t typically access the storage directly.
Also I agree with the others, for something business critical and for someone time poor the cloud options “just work”.
Nextcloud is fun to play with though. But it’s temperamental. E.g. every time I’ve got behind on major updates and accidentally tried updating to two major versions at once (using the docker “latest” tag), it always fails irreparably and I have to restore from a backup. Normally the updates are smooth but if I forget this issue then I suddenly find myself with an hour or two of work to get it running again. I’ve had to implement a “no nextcloud updates just before bedtime” rule.
Ooh, I need a decent recipes repository - currently use Keep but it’s getting unwieldy. Might have to check that out for home use!
There’s a standardised format that many sites use. If they do, you can enter a URL and it will download the recipe, image and all. It works pretty well. Can’t do external sharing like some dedicated solutions but works pretty well for me.
Unless you’re in a position to scale up majorly in the near future, and need systems in place for a hundred employees, don’t overthink it. Get yourself a second NAS for all of your critical data, and keep it airgapped from the rest of the network except for your weekly backups.
I’d look into using google for your email and calendar service also, as it has good integration between email and calendars, plus you can share calendars between people.
Cheers, no significant scaling in our near (or middle) future, so good advice there!
I don’t really have anything else to add that hasn’t already been said, so I will just leave you with the route I ended up taking.
I decided upon Google Workspace. The price vs convenience is very high, and I personally have no problems using either Microsoft or Google office software. Google admin is easy for users, and you can easily set up aliases which point to different email addresses. For example, sales@ and info@ can all point to axisential@, and it handles return email addresses as well. I don’t know how MS handles this, as I don’t have much experience with their enterprise side.
Instead of self-hosting a website, storage, etc, for many of the reasons outlined elsewhere in the comments, I went with Google for file storage and Shopify for the web-store. The cost you pay is more than made up for the fewer man-hours of running a system yourself, and the security built in to the platforms. I have experience with Magento, and I will never use it again.
Cheers, good insight there.
