Migrating from physical to cloud servers

[YCDCN]

hi,

 

Has anyone moved from physical to cloud servers?

 

If so what advice do you have?

[jmak]

Don't use MS Teams - if you do go with MS, just stick to SharePoint online or OneDrive with files on demand. It works quite well, but IME Teams just gets in the way. Make sure you're using a recent version of Windows 10.

 

GSuite is better to use and easier to administrate. Even if you're not using GSuite, it integrates better with MS Windows and applications than their own product does...

 

Get someone else to own the decision. Get a senior level sponsor who will use it and advocate its use.

 

I may have had some teething issues [emoji16]. But almost 100% PICNIC from my investigations. Some of it is about training and setting expectations. It's not exactly the same to use as a file server, but between the cost savings and the advantages of the overall system, I would still go for it again - just a few lessons to learn for implementation if I was doing it again.

[Katy]

Depends what you are wanting to do - shift document storage into the free cloud (i.e. OneDrive/Sharepoint or whatever the Google equivalent is), or just shift on prem virtual machines into Azure.

 

Currently in the process of doing both of these, anything specific you want to know?

[localzuk]

We haven't, but the main advice is that moving to the cloud is not simply uplift what you have and slap it into cloud VMs. You'll spend a fortune doing that and gain nothing. You have to look at what you actually want to achieve, and then develop your services using SaaS cloud services - eg Office 365 or Google Apps, with some other bits thrown in.

[TechMonkey]

Don't use MS Teams - if you do go with MS, just stick to SharePoint online or OneDrive with files on demand. It works quite well, but IME Teams just gets in the way. Make sure you're using a recent version of Windows 10.

 

GSuite is better to use and easier to administrate. Even if you're not using GSuite, it integrates better with MS Windows and applications than their own product does...

 

Get someone else to own the decision. Get a senior level sponsor who will use it and advocate its use.

 

I may have had some teething issues [emoji16]. But almost 100% PICNIC from my investigations. Some of it is about training and setting expectations. It's not exactly the same to use as a file server, but between the cost savings and the advantages of the overall system, I would still go for it again - just a few lessons to learn for implementation if I was doing it again.

 

& As ever everyone has differing opinions.

We are using Teams successfully within our team and getting adoption increasing across the school. The only issue we hit, that is about to be resolved, is the Teams installer. We are actually planning on trying to phase sharepoint out unless specifically needed so staff use Teams to interface with their departments.

 

I think it will depend on how often you use each, I find GSuite a bit clunky and unclear where stuff is, whereas O365 seems fairly logical to me now. The only annoyance is how O365 stacks permissions or licenses. GSuite seems less powerful and restrictive in how it applies policies. I also do not like how you can not assign a lot of things by device, so software is deployed per user to Chromebooks, using up storage and meaning if we wipe a profile it takes ages for them to log on next time.

 

I would say we have now integrated O365, Office, Azure and Windows 10 extremely well, allowing staff to access externally, on personal devices and on School devices not on the Domain. We have integrated GSuite as well to allow SSO, so Google services can be used with no extra thought. This is with all native tech except one small third party app, which is another annoyance, but hey ho.

 

All personal areas are in OneDrive and Shared areas are moving slowly but surely. School devices are being managed and that management is progressing in leaps and bounds (although I still prefer the Chromebook model). We need to sit down and look at our next steps but we have trimmed down a lot of servers and are looking where we could cut next.

[jmak]

& As ever everyone has differing opinions.

We are using Teams successfully within our team and getting adoption increasing across the school. The only issue we hit, that is about to be resolved, is the Teams installer. We are actually planning on trying to phase sharepoint out unless specifically needed so staff use Teams to interface with their departments.

 

I think it will depend on how often you use each, I find GSuite a bit clunky and unclear where stuff is, whereas O365 seems fairly logical to me now. The only annoyance is how O365 stacks permissions or licenses. GSuite seems less powerful and restrictive in how it applies policies. I also do not like how you can not assign a lot of things by device, so software is deployed per user to Chromebooks, using up storage and meaning if we wipe a profile it takes ages for them to log on next time.

 

I need my sarcasm marker again - I would agree that MS has its strengths.

 

For the way we work, I can't see Teams being useful any time soon. It works great for office style jobs (not desk bound - it's particularly valuable for mobile workers). Our teachers use a lot of files which don't open natively in Teams, so the workflow when you click on a file is download, then open with, then save as, then delete from downloads. Ironically, installing per user is one of the issues we have, especially the OneDrive client.

 

Also, I should have been clearer - I meant using GSuite File Stream works better in Windows than OneDrive Files on Demand/SharePoint/Teams. But of course YMMV.

 

Overall, yes, I think the systems are mature enough now. Both platforms have their strengths. They're both free for schools, so try them and get someone else to own the decision so that they can justify the choice to staff and you slightly reduce the chances of having to take all of the flack.