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Cheap Server for Basic Remote Use

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  • Servers
  • Business Computing
  • Basic
Last response: in Business Computing
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February 14, 2014 2:45:45 AM

Hi,

I would like some advice. I have been trying to find a cheap solution for our IT dilemma.
We are a small social care company with limited budget.

We have remote units. At the moment staff members create documents and save it on a NAS drive they log into via a browser window. They have to download , work on and upload documents.

Ideally we'd have a server where they have remote accounts and could log into their own session based or VDI account.
No huge processing power is needed as they only use word documents. Nothing fancy is needed.
They should just be able to log in remotely open a document work on is and save it to a shared drive. Without downloading and uploading.

The only issue is what server machine to get and what software 2008 r2? Where can I source an older server?

How many CALs do I need to get for 40 staff members? Is it enough to get 5 CALs as only a few members will use it at the same time remotely?

Thanks for all your input.

More about : cheap server basic remote

February 14, 2014 6:56:04 AM

To do this you are going to need to set up a Remote Desktop Session Host server, which does require additional Remote Access licensing for that version of Windows Server. The version of Windows Server that you use is up to you and your software compatibilities, but I would recommend looking into the newer Server 2012 as there are many new improvements and features.

As for the actual server system, well, that may be a little harder to make recommendations on quite yet as we still need a little more information. You want to plan your server for not just your current projected "average" load but your future growth potential and maximum demand. How many concurrent users do you expect to be connected and operating off the server simultaneously? Doing general word processing and spreadsheets tends to not need a whole lot of system resources, but the newer the software you are utilizing it is most likely going to require more computing resources to run efficiently. Your OS choice also will make a difference in the amount of system resources you need to allocate to your virtual machines for remote desktop sessions. Perhaps, if you have several different people needing different software options or configurations you can actually set up a couple or a few different RDSH virtual machines, which can actually improve performance of each individual VM by spreading out the demand across separate virtual machines. Of course this ends up also requiring a little more system resources.
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February 18, 2014 5:45:36 AM

you may save money and use Google Drive or other free cloud storage services. For example on Google Drive, you can assign rights to certain documents, and people can edit them, just via web browser.
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February 18, 2014 7:07:20 AM

postcd said:
you may save money and use Google Drive or other free cloud storage services. For example on Google Drive, you can assign rights to certain documents, and people can edit them, just via web browser.


I was also going to suggest looking into some form of cloud storage, depending upon your needs. At first it sounds like you wanted to allow all users to remotely access the same software only installed on the server, but if you have that software installed already on everyone's individual computers, then you really just need access to shared data, such as the documents, and not the actual programs. In this case you can go with a hosted cloud storage solution. Microsoft Sky Drive (soon to be One Drive) is one great option that integrates wonderfully with the newer versions of Microsoft Office and Windows, and you can get a subscription with Office 365 and have access to both cloud storage and the latest versions of the Microsoft software. There are a lot of other alternatives out there as well such as Dropbox (and Dropbox for Business.)

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