Hi all.

I haven't deployed in house Exchange since Small Business Server or Exchange 2003. I've been directed to bring our email in house. We have about 20 people here and several remote offices with just 8 remote users.

Currently we are running a Windows Server 2012 edition on a very basic Intel server. Basic mirror raid for the OS and separate mirror raid for file storate. Its just a Xeon 3.1GHz and 16GB RAM.

I am authorized to buy the licenses I need, but the server was a terrible lease and I can't replace the hardware for another 2 years. I think it will be enough to support our 20 in house users and 6 to 8 remote users.

We have no Active Directory deployed. Just Windows Server with no AD used for a file share in house.

My questions are;

a.) What version of Windows Server 2016 should I chose? I see Data Center and a Standard edition. Not sure what the differences are.

Since there is no AD in place I am going to just reload the OS discs and leave the data where it is. A clean install of 2016.

b.) What are the differences between Enterprise and Standard Exchange for a small company like ours? I am guessing Exchange Standard and Windows Server Standard will work for me.

c.) What happened to Small Business Server?

d.) I was planning on using Microsoft Protection Server for $1/user per month. Are there better alternatives?

e.) Is it still standard to deploy your FQDN for Active Directory as a private domain? Examples: yourcompany.local vs yourcompany.com vs local.yourcompany.com.

f.) Should I deploy AD in house or user this Azure AD I have seen discussed. Or is Azure AD even on option for a local Exchange deployment.

EDIT

g.) Do I even attempt to virtualize this. I would have 20gb to 30gb active as I archive everything older than 6 months.

@guyinpv said in Moving from full time to part time, what can I automate?:

https://mangolassi.it/topic/10510/home-business-ideas-for-transition-out-of-9-5/637

Im new here so I may have missed previous threads on why your company is a bad place to work. Do you have freelance work or access to opportunities right now? I would be very scared to leave full time employment on the hope of ascertaining web development work.

Why not just keep the full time job and work nights on the freelance dream until its sustainable?

Also it would make no sense from a legal or tax perspective to go from W2 to 1099 without at least a 100% bump in your hourly rate. Your employer currently pays half of your social security taxes, which I believe are 15%.

I was sued for $75k about 10 years ago, and it was an experience that led me to leave self employment. I had about 20 customers over a period of 10 years.

Too boot, it was a company with 2 employees. When interrogatories began he claimed over $1mm in damages. The $75k was just enough in punitive damages to remove it to Federal court, which he intentionally did because all the filings cost more.

My $10k retainer I paid to "teach him a lesson" was gone in 3 weeks.

I had hosted this got a server with some CRM called ACT at a colo. After months of non-payment I turned it off. The truth was that he already went bankrupt. He claimed this caused his business to fail.

Eventually my attorney got my PMI (private mortgage insurance) to take over litigation as he would have taken my house and everything else I had.

Its a long story, but I had the same cavalier attitude for the decade leading up to that. Simply ran a business by filing a sole prop fictitious name registration with the state so I could open a business checking account.

@JaredBusch Im actually an employee here, unfortunately. Archaic thinking. Unbreakable mentality about the cloud.

When I started here they said "Thats our mail server" After lunch I had them around a table saying "No it isn't" And there was a list of other lies the previous IT guy told while paying the bill on his own credit card. I imagine to avoid meetings that end with ridiculous mandates. Maybe $200/month bill to make your $80k/year job easier. IDK. Bad thinking on both sides there.

It's their company and I am their employee. I tell them what they should do, but I do what I am told. At least I will log some overtime.

I did spend the first couple months straightening out database issues and making changes to applications they previously had developed with a contractor. So I feel like some of my time was productive here. And its paying the bills for now.

I think its part fear of the cloud and part CAPEX mentality. I have no idea why they went with a lease. They have the cash.

@JaredBusch @scottalanmiller are you two brothers?

Also a lot of "Freelancers" you will find have at least formed an LLC.

If you do go through with this you need to convert it to a contract or a $40 to $50 per hour rate. I am sure you are thinking your boss would laugh at you over this. They already think you are only work $20/hour.

Which is back to my original point; if you are going to work even 5 hours a week somewhere why not keep it W-2?

@JaredBusch I totally agree. Email is inherently and insecurely passed through the internet. After the last meeting I had I can't imagine giving it another go. I was pretty explicit that there were going to be 2 to 3 weeks of long hours, overtime, etc. "Lets get er done" was pretty much the owner's response.

It had me pretty upset yesterday but I got over it now. It was a 3 hour meeting. In the end I will likely be praised for finally getting things to the place they THOUGHT they were.

Does anyone have an opinion on Atera vs Solarwinds MSP? Apparently gfimax was rolled into the latter.

I'm particularly interested whether the Atera remote control is on par with logmein rescue. Their pricing model makes for a very attractive deal by comparison.

I just discovered the Solarwinds MSP set and I'm not sure how pricing works. From reading about Ninja MSP it seems like there's a lot of issues I see in discussion forums that are going unresolved. It reminds me of what using Labtech was like.

Overall I would like full psa/rmm package like Atera to help me with my existing job and some side clients I am taking on.

@JaredBusch LOL. I used much bigger numbers than that. There are 3 partners, all of which are over 70, one is 83.

The prevailing response was "we don't do things cheap to save money, we don't cut corners". And then a ridiculous amount of speculation about who would hack our cloud based email accounts.

Maybe I am not expressing how demoralized I was from all of this. If I could have started here before the previous IT guy MAYBE I could have made the case.

The bottom line is that these guys are old school and can afford to force everyone to do things based on their archaic standards.

Relevant Example; we have employees who drive 5 hours here each way for a Monday meeting, every week. There is sufficient bandwidth for a great video conferencing solution. They want them here so they can "look em right in the eyeball".

They aren't complete idiots though. The state of West Virginia regular sends a helicopter to pick them up whenever there is a dam issue and they want them there onsite.

I made the best pitch of my life. I think they started to hate me before I gave up.

@JaredBusch on top of the fact that for 2 years they were lied two after rejecting the previous IT guys proposal to move to the cloud. They were so upset about that I nearly wished I hadn't told them.

I saw no reason not to shoot straight though.

And if it EVER goes down even for a second LOL. I don't know guys, I can't decide if another failed attempt is worth the strife it would cause me. Everyone here is happy and I am at a point where its just irrelevant.

It's akin to the saying "happy wife, happy life". I have left the writing on the while as to say "this is not at all what I recommend". I will have to ponder this a little further.

In the channels I have been watching it seems like they go for $100 to $150/user per month plus more per server. I guess this company could save money by replacing my here but then they can't walk in my office and "fling poo". Ha!

It seems like it would take a very long time to find customers. They also talk about cold calling as a primary sales tool.

@Tim_G lol. This become such a persistent thought that I brought it up with my wife. The reply was something like "You need to do whatever they say and keep them happy, are you crazy?"

Then I told her I would actually get a lot of overtime out of it and she was "OMG Why is this even bothering you".

I can not divine the machinations of our leadership. Only that they have worked together themselves for about 50 years and on hearing of the past transgression immediately wanted to the wrong righted.

Any attempt to validate the cloud is now tainted by that potentially validating arguments they likely had with the previous employee.

My wife really put it in perspective for me. Ha

Do you just have the one other site?

DNS Servers authorized?

Reverse DNS configured?

Would love to see your forwarders and resolvers in the DNS Server. Then again I just learned everyone stopped using split DNS so I have some reading to do myself. My last network was about 12 sites and all still 2008 Server AD so a lot has changed.

The last time I saw these I didn't resolve the replication issues and ended up seeing a DC "tombstoned"