Moving from Exchange Online Plan 1 to In House Exchange 2016
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@magroover Since you stated that you were directed, I assume there is no keeping Office 365? Because it is only $4/user/month for Exchange Online. If you are going to be purchasing a SPAM servicve for $1/user/month, that brings the difference to only $3/user/month.
To install Exchange, you will have to setup AD last I knew. So you will have to deal with a DC and Exchange Server.
You will need to buy Server 2016 Standard, Exchange Server 2016, 28 Server 2016 User CALS, and 28 Exchange 2016 User CALS.
That is going to add up fast.
Then you have to buy a backup solution.
Was the math shown to the business? Or was this some abstract technical discussion?
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@DustinB3403 I've been thinking about investing more time in using CentOS as a premise-based server. I am not whether there are more opportunities for sysadmin or for app development, which has been my more recent role. Managing the actual LOB apps used and customizing, doing reports.
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@JaredBusch said in Moving from Exchange Online Plan 1 to In House Exchange 2016:
Was the math shown to the business? Or was this some abstract technical discussion?
@JaredBusch I know this last bit was rhetorical.....
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@JaredBusch I had all of that firepower ready in our meeting yesterday. We have some gold old boys here that never wanted to be in "that cloud". They also wanted to clamp down on the use of Dropbox.
Office 365's backend has come a long way and from a compliance standpoint I can't really imagine using anything else i.e G Suite, because what else is left?
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@magroover said in Moving from Exchange Online Plan 1 to In House Exchange 2016:
@JaredBusch I had all of that firepower ready in our meeting yesterday. We have some gold old boys here that never wanted to be in "that cloud". They also wanted to clamp down on the use of Dropbox.
Office 365's backend has come a long way and from a compliance standpoint I can't really imagine using anything else i.e G Suite, because what else is left?
There are a lot of email supplier options, but few that have the same features of Exchange (or O365). This is one such item I'd really try and push back against.
If you're already hosted, you're in about as good of a position as you can be.
(This kind of reminds me of GitLab opting to bring services in house)
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@magroover said in Moving from Exchange Online Plan 1 to In House Exchange 2016:
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.
This is enough hardware, but barely. Leased? Ewww.
Backup your shit to 4TB USB drive or something.
Wipe the system.
Install Hyper-V Server 2016
Create a VM for the DC and a VM for Exchange.
Put your shares on the DC.
Setup Exchange.
Test.
Migrate.
I would guesstimate this project at 100 hours, because setting up Exchange sucks.
So on top of the software costs from my prior post, you have $10,000 in labor if you bill at $100/hour. I have no idea what your cost is to the company, hint it is more than your salary, but you get the idea.
Send the owner an invoice for the software and labor.
Also add a line that you will have to migrate everything in 2 years when the server lease expires.
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@magroover said in Moving from Exchange Online Plan 1 to In House Exchange 2016:
Is it common practice to virtualize the file storage in a VHD file or just access that array directly from the guest OS?
Always VHD.
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@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.
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@magroover said in Moving from Exchange Online Plan 1 to In House Exchange 2016:
@JaredBusch Im actually an employee here, unfortunately. Archaic thinking. Unbreakable mentality about the cloud.
I am just saying before wasting a month. send them an invoice of what it will actually cost. And if you are making $80k (what you noted for the previous admin) then your cost to the company is certainly close to $100/hour.
Put the numbers in black and white and flat ask them if they wish to waste this money. if they say yes, then do it.
Side note: since email is inherently something that goes over an outside network to send and receive from third parties, how is it ever not at least sometimes cloud?
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@JaredBusch said in Moving from Exchange Online Plan 1 to In House Exchange 2016:
Side note: since email is inherently something that goes over an outside network to send and receive from third parties, how is it ever not at least sometimes cloud?
This can't be overstated.
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@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.
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For reference:
$80k = $38.33 / hour
1.5 times that for average employee cost = $57.50 / hour
Then you have your portion of the building and utilities, etc.
So even if you calculate at $60 / hour, a 100 hour project will cost them $6,000 in labor.Licensing is $3,560
$700 Exchange 2016
$700 Server 2016 Standard
$1,500 for 28 x Exchange User CALS
$660 for 6x 5 packs of Server 2016 User CALSPlus whatever your backup solution will cost
Plus monthly Server updates and maintenance
Plus SPAM filter costs.All that versus $1,344 / year for Office 365 Exchange Online Plan 1.
Let's take that less $12 / year by 28 users is $336 / year for SPAM filtering.
So Office 365 is only $1,008 per year by comparison.
Take the above $9,650 (which is not all costs) divided by $1,008 per year in comparative Office 365 costs brings us to 9.48 years before you see savings by bringing this in house.
And that 9.5 years is low because some costs are not known (backup & maintenance).
Can they expect to still be running this software in 9.5 years?
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@magroover said in Moving from Exchange Online Plan 1 to In House Exchange 2016:
@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.
This right here tells me you did not present a business case.
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@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.
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@magroover Well, then roll it out and watch that leased server burn.
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@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.
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@JaredBusch If I came back and said I need a new $15,000 server to make this work, they would tell me to do it. Almost a guarantee.
Actually thinking about doing just that and reporting back here.
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@magroover I would buy a new server from @xByteSean or something instead of even looking at anything on that piece of shit lease.
You can get a solid server for less than $5k that will more than meet your needs. and you can no touch that existing setup until you are ready to migrate it to a VM or soemthing after this project is done.
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@magroover said in Moving from Exchange Online Plan 1 to In House Exchange 2016:
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.
Did you immediately respond with "so you decided to go cloud then, great, was really concerned with the corner cutting and going on premises like you didn't think this was a real business or something."?
If not, that should have been your reaction.
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@magroover said in Moving from Exchange Online Plan 1 to In House Exchange 2016:
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.
You may want to train them on this. That one guy made mistakes was one thing. And they should dig into their own processes as to how that happened. Did they hire poorly? Did they train poorly? Did they micromanage like idiots? Did they not manage well?
We can assume, no matter how bad the previous guy was, that some degree of management failure happened too.
Now what do we see continuing? Super basic management mistakes that we'd expect from newbies with no clue how to run a business.
Mistakes that they are making...
- Continuing to run IT themselves rather than hiring someone that knows what they are doing to run it. The partners are retaining the IT management role themselves. Are they qualified to do this?
- If the owners are not qualified IT pros but make IT decisions, then that signals that they lack management qualifications too. This is an incredible mistake for someone to make. Even high schoolers can recognize was a basic management mistake this is.
- Their reaction to a security breach is to ... be less secure and eschew common sense security practices? That is, quite literally, insane. Security cannot be derived from emotional panic. Nor from hubris. Those are the reactions I sense here.
- They say that they don't want to cut corners, yet they sound like a weekend hobby... but not a serious one. They aren't up to par with my house. If they were out having drinks with me and described how they work and tried to tell me they were a "real" business, I would just laugh at them. They aren't even "can pass off over drinks as real business people" level here. They are below the home line.
- Why are you being treated as if you were the former IT person? Are they demented and can't tell one person from another? Ask them this directly (not the demented bit) and ask why you are being forced to do IT poorly as a form of "punishment" when the person who made the original mistakes isn't there any more and has no connection to you. How can they call themselves managers if they are messing up so dramatically?
- Ask them why they are not trying to solve the problems of the past but are using past mistakes as the foundation for making even more mistakes.
