“If it’s not your core business, then go to the cloud”

In 2018 do you really need a server room? It depends on a lot of factors, but generally if you are a small business with without a specific onsite requirement for TI services then the answer is no.

There are times when this is not the case

With the continued creation of a huge number specific online tools and cloud based services, it no longer makes sense to try and house infrastructure onsite. The cost of hardware has come down significantly over the years and buying a single server from Dell, HP or IBM is relatively cheap. However, to understand your Total Cost of Ownership you need to consider a number of items around this one hardware purchase.

Theres a number of things you will need to provide for your server

• Adequate space to house the system
• It needs to be somewhat phyiscally secure
• Adequate cooling, relying on the overall office aircon probably wont cut it
• The server will require a Uniteruptable Power Supply (UPS) of some sort to ensure it can stay running in a power outage or at the very least shutdown cleanly when power is gone.
  
• You need to ensure you have correct electrical setup in your specific phyiscally location to install this equipment.
• You need to ensure that the OS is maintained at a minimum is patched regularly.
  
• Software will likely cost as much or more than the hardware and will need to be purchased and most likely yearly subscriptions will be required.
• There is a replacement cost for all of these items as well and a specific lifecyle in which they will need to be replaced, in most scenarios every 3-5years.
• Have you considered data protection and how you will backup the server
• Do you have a DR plan in place for when (not if), there is an issue with your server?

Thats a lot of things to consider, especially for one server. Some of these items can be expensive. Building and outfitting a physical space in your premises can be expensive. Obviously, the individual costs go down per server if you are installing more than one. You may have a system that is not so critical, so redundancy or Disaster Recovery could be not a big issue.

So it could be very feasible to install that server. However, if what your trying to solve is something another company has solved with an online solution, why wouldn’t you consider that solution.

There are a myriad of online tools and solutions that can provide a number common business functions.

The most common of these is email. The biggest two players by far are Google with it’s Google Apps offering and Microsoft with Office365. Both of these solutions offer email plus a number of other tools for collaboration, storing and sharing content and ways to either include your Office licensing and or use a competing product.

Finanically they are costed, per user per month, which is great for your cashflow. The offerings are usually tiered and so users get what they need, and not everyone needs to be the same.

A lot of problems are solved within online solutions like this: Instead of one or two servers there are hundreds or thousands serving your content to you in different geographic zones You have access to your data from anywhere. You dont have to manage the solution. It’s updated, patched and maintained by a highly qualified team of experts. I’m pretty good at setting up Microsoft Exchange server for email, but I’m pretty sure the 2000 guys they have internally doing it probably do it better. New features are pushed to the cloud based solution faster than the on-premises. This is specifically true of Microsoft and there current way of doing business. If you are running Office 365 your Outlok, Word and Excel gets a few more tools.

Google and Microsoft are usually the big players (as well as Amazon). But they only provide a core number of solutions. There are a number of online tools which leverage the cloud to provide other specific tools, for things like accounting, payroll, crm, marketing, online shop fronts etc.

Back in the day (Editor: You’re show your age here), most small businesses in Australia used MYOB and we all hated it. It was not very easy to use, it was aweful as an IT guy to administer, it was difficult to backup and update. However, look online these days and quick google search shows 20 popular tools (including MYOB which I’m sure is better), which are online, cloud based, pay per user per month, style setups.

So instead of the MYOB laptop which you need to come into the office to use, you can use a cloud based setup, give each user a login and you can do your payroll from where ever you have internet access.

“Tradesmen don’t spend time making screwdrivers, they buy them and use them to do there trade”

If you make coffee, spend your time making coffee, not patching an email server. If you are an electician, don’t waste time worrying about disaster recovery. If you make soap, make soap, don’t build complex monitoring solutions for your online collaboration tools.