Where to start...
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@mmicha other than the obvious reason of not wanting to maintain hardware on premise (maintenance, support, acquisition costs) is there another compelling reason to want to move to a cloud environment - from a technical stand point.
Cloud has these negatives
- Long term cost
- Vendor lock in
- Limited support - support package dependent
- Performance (internet) can be a limiting factor
What are your 2012 servers currently doing for your organization, I assume file and print, domain and email. Anything else?
5TB of space isn't a lot but that is likely the total growth of the company over its life, what is your annual delta?
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@mmicha said in Where to start...:
Hello,
Just looking for some help on where to start first...
My company needs to start upgrading some of our infrastructure. Currently we are running on ESXi, with less than 15 VM's across two hosts. Everything is Windows (2012) and linux.
We still have Exchange (2013) on-premise.
My thought is that first step should be get the email to Exchange Online.
Then move our systems to a cloud somewhere. Build out a site to site to a their datacenter and slowly build / upgrade things.
Total storage of VM's / Exchange is less than 5TB.
Thanks.
I agree with your plan overall, but I'd also consider taking a hard look at those 15 VMs and see how you can deploy those in the cloud while reducing costs. Cloud workloads give the advantage of being elastic which can save you money if you deploy your applications correctly. If you just move VMs over 1:1 you aren't really leveraging the power of the cloud.
Can these applications be deployed so they can scale by using containers or at a minimum leverage autoscaling! Keep your normal operating cost is low, and only spikes when you need the resources.
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@dustinb3403 said in Where to start...:
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Cloud has these negatives- Long term cost
- Vendor lock in
- Limited support - support package dependent
- Performance (internet) can be a limiting factor
You have no idea what you're talking about.
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@irj said in Where to start...:
@mmicha said in Where to start...:
Hello,
Just looking for some help on where to start first...
My company needs to start upgrading some of our infrastructure. Currently we are running on ESXi, with less than 15 VM's across two hosts. Everything is Windows (2012) and linux.
We still have Exchange (2013) on-premise.
My thought is that first step should be get the email to Exchange Online.
Then move our systems to a cloud somewhere. Build out a site to site to a their datacenter and slowly build / upgrade things.
Total storage of VM's / Exchange is less than 5TB.
Thanks.
I agree with your plan overall, but I'd also consider taking a hard look at those 15 VMs and see how you can deploy those in the cloud while reducing costs. Cloud workloads give the advantage of being elastic which can save you money if you deploy your applications correctly. If you just move VMs over 1:1 you aren't really leveraging the power of the cloud.
Can these applications be deployed so they can scale by using containers or at a minimum leverage autoscaling! Keep your normal operating cost is low, and only spikes when you need the resources.
Cloud is not a solution for everything. Get off of your high horse.
The conversation needs to be understood if cloud performance would even work for the individual environment. Latency delays or large file usage to Azure or wherever don't work for solutions like AutoCAD without crazy high Opex costs to get the performance to match local performance considerations.
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@dustinb3403 said in Where to start...:
@irj said in Where to start...:
@mmicha said in Where to start...:
Hello,
Just looking for some help on where to start first...
My company needs to start upgrading some of our infrastructure. Currently we are running on ESXi, with less than 15 VM's across two hosts. Everything is Windows (2012) and linux.
We still have Exchange (2013) on-premise.
My thought is that first step should be get the email to Exchange Online.
Then move our systems to a cloud somewhere. Build out a site to site to a their datacenter and slowly build / upgrade things.
Total storage of VM's / Exchange is less than 5TB.
Thanks.
I agree with your plan overall, but I'd also consider taking a hard look at those 15 VMs and see how you can deploy those in the cloud while reducing costs. Cloud workloads give the advantage of being elastic which can save you money if you deploy your applications correctly. If you just move VMs over 1:1 you aren't really leveraging the power of the cloud.
Can these applications be deployed so they can scale by using containers or at a minimum leverage autoscaling! Keep your normal operating cost is low, and only spikes when you need the resources.
Cloud is not a solution for everything. Get off of your high horse.
The conversation needs to be understood if cloud performance would even work for the individual environment. Latency delays or large file usage to Azure or wherever don't work for solutions like AutoCAD without crazy high Opex costs to get the performance to match local performance considerations.
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@dustinb3403 The systems I'm currently running that make up the major stuff are two domain controllers, file server, sql server, iis server, exchange server, wds, and accounting system.
The rest are mostly linux machines running ubiquiti controller, openvpn.
The idea of the cloud is mostly due to a sister company shifting to INAP / Single Hop. We also have a charity as well I support hosting one server in the cloud.
The part I do like is not having to worry about the infrastructure. Upgrading hybervisors, etc. I don't need to worry as much about power loss which can be an issue from time to time.
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@mmicha said in Where to start...:
The idea of the cloud is mostly due to a sister company shifting to INAP / Single Hop
Got it, so they are moving to a colo service that offers cloud services. There are definitely benefits (as outlined above) but there are also negatives to making this move.
From what you've listed I don't see anything that may have a major impact on the cost, besides possibly the file and sql servers.
Depending on the Cloud provider (INAP in this case) you may save some costs long or may end up stuck there with no easy means of moving your environment to another platform.
@IRJ is of the mindset that everything I say is stupid or insane but the consideration needs to be understood.
The DC's are completely minimal to operate, the tiniest of VMs run anywhere should suffice as they don't have any heavy workload.
The Fileserver depends, based on what kind of files you're hosting, cad files or word excel powerpoint type stuff. Then of course there is the issue of your internet connection to and from the Colo for this that has to be considered, on the LAN you're likely using 1GBe throughout (if not higher speeds). Is your ISP capable of supporting that (if so at what cost)?
With SQL I'd have to know how it's being used but this is also easily moved, and can be scaled.
I ask this only because I'm curious why bother using IIS today, company website or some other service? It might make sense to move this workload to a website hosting provider entirely.
I'm assuming WDS is for Windows Deployment Services - you may have major performance issues getting this to work over an internet connection.
What accounting system, quickbooks?
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Sql in azure is so easy. You could also run it on Linux if you wanted to do so, but I'll take one click backup and restores in Azure for ease of use. Who wants to deal with database servers when you don't have to do so.
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@dustinb3403 As far as our file server goes, it mostly holds word, excel, pdf's, and yes autocad files our engineers create/use.
The IIS system runs an internal costing and sales app. Our actual website is hosted elsewhere.
WDS I figured wouldn't work, but I also considered intune with M365 for that possibly.
The accounting system is Sage ERP 300. It's a POS in my opinion.
Our internet can scale, we are on fiber at at 50mbps currently.
Would you see any benefit to a split environment of cloud and on-premise if things like autocad files became slow to open?
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@irj said in Where to start...:
Sql in azure is so easy. You could also run it on Linux if you wanted to do so, but I'll take one click backup and restores in Azure for ease of use. Who wants to deal with database servers when you don't have to do so.
(raises hand) I'll take "burn in hell" for nothing -
As mentioned - your work load doesn't seem to be heavy or specialized. AZURE, AWS or similar will all be able to handle the work load. You can - if you wanted to - go Vultr for your UBNT Controller for next to nothing.
Can you look at dropping the file server for use with OneDrive - leveraging O365 a bit more? NOTE: You still need to back up your O365 to an external. MS isn't going to do that,.. and I wouldn't recommend it anyway.
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@mmicha said in Where to start...:
@dustinb3403 As far as our file server goes, it mostly holds word, excel, pdf's, and yes autocad files our engineers create/use.
The IIS system runs an internal costing and sales app. Our actual website is hosted elsewhere.
WDS I figured wouldn't work, but I also considered intune with M365 for that possibly.
The accounting system is Sage ERP 300. It's a POS in my opinion.
Our internet can scale, we are on fiber at at 50mbps currently.
Would you see any benefit to a split environment of cloud and on-premise if things like autocad files became slow to open?
I would actually draw up plans for a split environment for just that use case.
What workloads would easily run offsite, IIS, SQL, etc and what systems benefit the most from being onsite.
File servers that hold CAD files won't necessarily require being on site, but its worth considering depending on how these services are used. A simple hypervisor (or pair) with enough capacity and performance virtualized and setup to replicate between the sites (and a backup offsite BackBalzze B2 AWS Storage etc etc) could offer the best performance, while giving you a high level of reliability.
Of course you'd have to take into consideration things like internet capacity, backup systems, power considerations etc. INAP could very well be a single datacenter (I don't know and didn't look) that while it likely has all of the above, if a site outage occurs, you'd be out of business as well.
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@mmicha said in Where to start...:
@dustinb3403 As far as our file server goes, it mostly holds word, excel, pdf's, and yes autocad files our engineers create/use.
The IIS system runs an internal costing and sales app. Our actual website is hosted elsewhere.
WDS I figured wouldn't work, but I also considered intune with M365 for that possibly.
The accounting system is Sage ERP 300. It's a POS in my opinion.
Our internet can scale, we are on fiber at at 50mbps currently.
Would you see any benefit to a split environment of cloud and on-premise if things like autocad files became slow to open?
Sage:... OMG.. .I'm so sorry.. Dealt with this with a NPO years ago... It worked... and I kept it working.. but updates and revisions where a bitch. But - sigh - it's what they used...
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FFS @DustinB3403 just go away for a while.
Your initial response is a pile of flaming shit and things went stupid from there...
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@mmicha said in Where to start...:
Then move our systems to a cloud somewhere. Build out a site to site to a their datacenter and slowly build / upgrade things.
You need to start by stopping and learning the right terms for the things you want.
You used the word cloud and it has zero to do with what you stated want to do. Moving into a colo is not moving into a cloud.
Cloud computing is a very specific task that may or may not be something that is right for your workload.
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@mmicha said in Where to start...:
Just looking for some help on where to start first...
Let's do that.
@mmicha said in Where to start...:
My thought is that first step should be get the email to Exchange Online.
This is absolutely where you should start first. exchange 2013 is EoL soon. No reason to wait until it is dead. Additionally, on-prem Exchange has been under extremely heavy attack for months.
Exchange Online Plan 1 is $4/u/m retail. If you use a partner like DCW (paging @Yonah-S), you can get it all handled in easy monthly net terms billing. Some plan even have a minor discount off of retail.
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@mmicha said in Where to start...:
My company needs to start upgrading some of our infrastructure. Currently we are running on ESXi, with less than 15 VM's across two hosts. Everything is Windows (2012) and linux.
What are these actual workloads, excepting Exchange 2013?
You clarified that a bit here.
@mmicha said in Where to start...:
The systems I'm currently running that make up the major stuff are two domain controllers, file server, sql server, iis server, exchange server, wds, and accounting system.
The rest are mostly linux machines running ubiquiti controller, openvpn.So, the first thing to do here is clean up the mess.
Why 2 domain controllers, still? You are virtualized and the hypervisor platform should not be domain joined, or at least not domain dependent if joined. This means you have zero need for this complexity. Immediately demote one and remove it from your network. If your DC fails, you simply restore from a backup. You do have paid VMWare and valid backups such as Veeam or something, right?
Why a separate Windows file server? That role should be on the DC. If you are going to use a separate entity, then build it on something without the Windows licensing such as a Fedora (pick your Linux flavor) VM running samba. The simple answer is to let it reside on the DC (it can be a separate virtual disk) and then continue to use the existing Windows domain permissions. Moving to a samba server would add learning.
Next SQL Server? /sigh.. So this I assume?
@mmicha said in Where to start...:
The accounting system is Sage ERP 300.
So ignore that, it does not get to go away or get changed until Management moves on to a new solution. The most you do in a redesign like this is recommend to the decision makers to change products.
No the IIS server... Just WTF on this...
@mmicha said in Where to start...:
The IIS system runs an internal costing and sales app. Our actual website is hosted elsewhere.
The assumption here is bad or untrained developer. Because no one intentionally develops for IIS. Move this workload to a better backend and stick it on the same service running your website. Well, assuming that your website is running on something modern.
Finally, what is the point of WDS? It has a purpose, but for what sounds like a small to mid sized company, what is the benefit to the complexity? What are you actually using it for?
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Work interrupted. There is the rest of my responses.
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@jaredbusch I'm actually trying to decipher it, and basically everyone uses that term for everything.
You have public clouds like Azure and AWS.
Then you have everyone else it seems competing against them. The INAP / iland , etc. Who I guess are more colocation type of companies.
The stuff I'm doing and referring to as cloud is running VM's in a datacenter. The company classifies it as a virtual private cloud from my portal.
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@mmicha said in Where to start...:
Then you have everyone else it seems competing against them.
No one else can compete against them. There are basically only 3 cloud providers; Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.
No one else is cloud. Cloud is a specific type of design. You as IT need to understand that. @IRJ or @stacksofplates are free to expand on this as they work in this daily.
Any other use of the word is marketing. There is also nothing wrong with that, but when IT is designing their systems, they have to understand reality from marketing.
