23Jun2016
20Jun2016
Migrating Companyweb from SBS to Office 365 SharePoint Online
Microsoft Windows Small Business Server comes with a watered-down implementation of SharePoint called Companyweb (or WSS). Whether you are migrating from a full-blown SharePoint environment on-premises or the basic Windows Server-included Windows SharePoint Services, you are going to have to come to terms with one major migration hurdle: Microsoft provides no real migration tools or...
02Jun2016
Why I have a hard time recommending Exchange on-premises
Not that long ago, picking Exchange on-premises over Office 365 used to be a thing. As in, there were legitimate reasons I might choose to keep a self-hosted Exchange server rather than go to Office 365. However, I think it's time to put those days behind us, once and for all--especially in the...
26May2016
Migration path from SBS to Office 365 & Windows Server 2016
So many small businesses adopted Microsoft's Windows Small Business Server (SBS) product--now that the product has been discontinued, these organizations tend to need a little more guidance regarding the migration path forward from SBS 2003, 2008 or 2011. Do I still need an On-premises Windows Server? With the option to move most SBS Server functions...
02May2016
Get Rid of My Servers!
If the cloud is supposed to be so great, then why do so many small businesses still have servers? It is a fair question. The truth is, you probably do not need to maintain servers on-premises, but that doesn't mean you won't still want to. The majority of small businesses (the "S" in...
28Apr2016
The Cloud is Faster Because it is More Iterative
It is perhaps no surprise that many organizations have been adopting cloud and mobility the way they would have adopted a new server upgrade in the past, but that's not quite right. We have been trained to take changes in larger leaps and bounds, and less often. In the cloud, there cloud be several...
31Mar2016
Comparing Costs: Azure IaaS vs. On-Premises Server Hardware
Most people do not compare costs of running infrastructure in Azure to traditional on-premises deployments appropriately. To begin with, it is almost impossible to compare them apples-to-apples. For example: as soon as you deploy a VM in Azure, all of your data will be written into 3 different storage locations by default. If you select...
24Mar2016