I am interested in learning more about “cloud hosting” for a small business server. Our office (12 daily users, 4 remote) operates on a local machine running Windows Server 2012 R2. It is inevitable that the server will need to be replaced or upgraded (it is six years old), and I wondering at what point it would make sense to move all this to a hosted environment.
The current server runs basic Microsoft Office applications, as well as QuickBooks Enterprise, and currently houses less than 600GB of data files. The remote users, who use the server throughout the day, connect via VPN through a SonicWall device.
Should I consider moving all this to “the cloud”? We have only had a few hardware issues, but I anticipate this may accelerate as the equipment continues to age. Also, I believe we will be looking at an end-of-life date for Server 2012 sometime next year.
Any thoughts or recommendations would be very much appreciated; I’m not sure where to begin. Unfortunately, our small-town IT service providers leave much to be desired, and our small business cannot justify a full-time IT person.