Hi Everyone,
First post here, I'm doing some preliminary planning for a small business with 3 branches, each connected by VPN to the main branch. There are only about 10 employees per branch.
They use 3rd party software for point of sale and inventory management. The software is M$ only and require M$ SQL server and Windows Server for their software to run. The licencing costs for those have proven very expensive for such a small company.
Bandwidth restrictions have made me nervous about hosting active directory through the VPNs so I plan on setting up domain controllers and file servers at each branch.
To save a few thousand dollars I was considering going with Linux for each one of theses branches. However, this would mean that the entire company then would have a mix of Linux and windows servers.
This isn't a problem for me but if I were unavailable for some reason and another IT contractor had to step in I'm concerned I would be a mess to find someone with both Linux and Windows administration experience (it's a rural area).
I'm also wondering if i'm underestimating the time and cost to get these Linux servers up and running and integrated with Server 2016.
I know there are a lot of variables involved but I estimate the cost savings to be around $5,000 dollars with the Linux instead of windows at the branch stores.
So which, in your opinion, is the better investment?
