Moving IIS c/w SQL Express DB Offsite (CRM)

drew · 28 Jun 2021 at 20:33

Hi All, we have a CRM (Gold Vision v7) that runs on our server locally. I contacted them to look at the options but baulked at the £800 a month they wanted!

I'd like to shove it into the cloud for ease of accessibility by our users.

It currently runs on our local Server 2012, am I right in thinking the lowest cost option would be a cloud server like this? https://www.simplyhosting.com/cloud/servers

There are very few users, less than 10 so not worried about server load and the amount of space required is limited.

I need to find someone on Upwork to do it but not sure what to ask for.

Thanks in advance.

whitecrook · 28 Jun 2021 at 20:39

£800 for what? If you put in cloud then you still have to pay £800?

why can your users access the system where it is now?

drew · 28 Jun 2021 at 20:53

whitecrook said:
£800 for what? If you put in cloud then you still have to pay £800?

why can your users access the system where it is now?

That's to host and manage it on their servers.

We have a complicated setup for internet and the server it runs on is a dog (due to be upgraded).

whitecrook · 28 Jun 2021 at 21:31

£800 seems cheap tbh. £800 and they host it and manage it ? You're probly not far off wasting that amount of time and money posting these sorts of Qs to internet forums. never mind your hosting fees, your tme setting it up, coordinating, on a (probably?) non-supported / non standard system ?

drew · 28 Jun 2021 at 21:46

£9600 per annum is "cheap" to host a small CRM?

Deleted member 77746 · 28 Jun 2021 at 23:06

Backup your SQL database - how big is it?

Have you checked the prices directly from them?
Cloud or On-Premise, CRM Hosted Your Way | Gold-Vision CRM

drew · 29 Jun 2021 at 08:28

To use their solution was 800 a month. To use our own cloud we had to upgrade to 10 users from 5 which made the difference negligible.

It’s been running relatively fine on our server and we pay them for support annually. To move from version 7 to 8 means you have to get a SQL server which I am not going to do.

The database is around 800mb

On Holiday · 1 Jul 2021 at 23:13

What's your current CPU + RAM + Storage in the server and how much of that is actually being used?

£800/month is probably 10x more than what you could realistically be paying but all depends on your server resource usage.

I'd avoid simplyhosting though, part of the Register group who swallow up companies and turn them bad.

Drop me a message/trust if you like, happy to give some impartial advice and prevent you getting ripped off

drew · 2 Jul 2021 at 14:58

On Holiday said:
What's your current CPU + RAM + Storage in the server and how much of that is actually being used?

£800/month is probably 10x more than what you could realistically be paying but all depends on your server resource usage.

I'd avoid simplyhosting though, part of the Register group who swallow up companies and turn them bad.

Drop me a message/trust if you like, happy to give some impartial advice and prevent you getting ripped off

Thanks for replying, its sat on a HP MicroServer that's running our Domain Controller right now, this has 13gb of RAM with 2 x Xeon E3-1220L

I just checked the MDF file is 9gb, i'm not sure how much processing power it uses

Our DC was moved onto this MicroServer as a temporary fix by our IT company when we ran out of disk space due to the way it was originally setup (something to do with deleted files not actually freeing up disk space!)
The MicroServer is really struggling so looking to get the CRM off it as part of a decommission process and putting a new DC in.

On Holiday · 2 Jul 2021 at 16:10

As a very budgetary estimate to give you an idea and stop you getting ripped off ("£800 is cheap" lol), a dedicated server exceeding those specs (E3-1230v3 / 16GB / 2x 500GB SSD in RAID 1) with semi-management (i.e. enough to get your Gold-Vision running) would set you back £135/month excl VAT.

If you can check actual usage of the server i.e. within Windows itself then you could likely find you don't require that much CPU + RAM and could even drop to a VPS for even more savings.

drew · 4 Jul 2021 at 19:46

On Holiday said:
As a very budgetary estimate to give you an idea and stop you getting ripped off ("£800 is cheap" lol), a dedicated server exceeding those specs (E3-1230v3 / 16GB / 2x 500GB SSD in RAID 1) with semi-management (i.e. enough to get your Gold-Vision running) would set you back £135/month excl VAT.

If you can check actual usage of the server i.e. within Windows itself then you could likely find you don't require that much CPU + RAM and could even drop to a VPS for even more savings.

It's using very little resources. I think a VPS would be fine. Is it as simple as finding a professional and say move that from here to there please?

#Chri5# · 5 Jul 2021 at 09:45

Have you considered the security aspect before you move anything? If you're currently hosting it on-prem, is the CRM "exposed" to the Internet for any sort of remote access? If you move the server(s) to a cloud, how can you secure the access? What protocols does it use? If it's all browser based then HTTPS traffic is obviously encrypted but who is going to ensure the the web server end is suitably configured and locked down? Depending on the cloud provider you may be to restrict access to a whitelisted group of IPs but do you have any remote users on dynamic IPs or mobile devices who want access?

drew · 5 Jul 2021 at 12:37

The solution currently uses active directory logins, it was open to the world via a url and then accessed with a password, but something happened to our network so its not accessible now unless you're inside the network either on-prem or VPN.

Deleted member 77746 · 5 Jul 2021 at 12:43

You could get a vpn on site and have users dial into it. You would need to test to see how fast this solution would be though then that means you would save the cost on moving the database.

Do not open that database up to the world without over viewing security.

drew · 5 Jul 2021 at 20:34

Bouton Aide said:
You could get a vpn on site and have users dial into it. You would need to test to see how fast this solution would be though then that means you would save the cost on moving the database.

Do not open that database up to the world without over viewing security.

What about moving it to a VPS and only allowing connections via a VPN from our office that has a fixed IP?

On Holiday · 5 Jul 2021 at 23:04

drew said:
It's using very little resources. I think a VPS would be fine. Is it as simple as finding a professional and say move that from here to there please?

Is the Golden Vision software something you can re-install yourself on a fresh copy and Windows and then import your data in? I'm not sure you'd find a provider willing to go through, and take responsibility for, the initial setting up of the software so if that's something you could do then that would be best.

drew said:
What about moving it to a VPS and only allowing connections via a VPN from our office that has a fixed IP?

That works fine, yup.

Caged · 6 Jul 2021 at 16:28

Build a VPN tunnel between the new hosting location and your on-prem AD, then use something like Azure AD Application Proxy to secure access. You can even do Kerberos with it.

#Chri5# · 6 Jul 2021 at 17:48

Another thing to consider before moving is what your backup requirements are for the servers. If you're going with Azure, you could look at Azure Backup but work the costs out

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/services/backup/

If it's another hosting provider, look at what they offer and consider worst-case scenarios. Would you want a copy of the SQL DB (plus any relevant application settings, custom reports etc) in your possession as a fall back?