We're in discussions with a new client that is currently hosting 4 VMs in a colo facility. Here are the details:
- Headquarters has about 20 workstations
- Manufacturing plant has about 40 workstations
- Roughly 60/40 split of laptops/desktops
- VM 1: DC and Exchange 2010 (to be moved to Office 365)
- VM 2: Great Plains
- VM 3: Terminal Server, only used by about 10 people at HQ to access Great Plains
- VM 4: SQL/web server, unsure of purpose at this point
- Roughly 1.5TB of data in total - not sure how much of that is Exchange
- 50 meg NLAN between HQ and data center and 6 meg NLAN between plant and data center
- WatchGuard firewall at datacenter
- The two locations share very little in terms of data or files - they're almost separate entities in that regard
Our discussion has revolved around moving to Office 365 and bringing the servers back in-house. I need some help in figuring out the best way to structure this.
Here are my biggest questions:
- For the plant, what should be handled locally vs. remotely? E.g. an inexpensive DC on-site, but all data stored at HQ? Or everything running through HQ? How would you do it?
- Given the answer to #1, what's the best way to connect the two locations to each other and to the internet? Open to all options here, regardless of cost, but it should be equivalent to or better than the current arrangement in terms of reliability and speed.