SharePoint Online
-
Created: Sunday, 24 August 2014 20:52
SharePoint has been vital for collaboration, project management, and document control for many businesses. Since SharePoint Online was released, it is only right that it become the latest thing on businesses minds. SharePoint Online has come up several times with some of my clients while discussing infrastructure and cloud solutions. Cost seems to be the driving factor for most business to move to the cloud, so it is natural for things to move to SharePoint Online.
I've spent several months researching SharePoint Online, and how to migrate some of my clients that would like to cut costs. The cost to fully license a onsite SharePoint Enterprises server for fifty users could range from $20-30k. This would include Windows Server CALS, SQL Server CALS, SharePoint Enterprise License, and SharePoint CALS. The exact cost could vary depending on how you license your servers, and whether your servers will be virtual or not. There is also the hardware cost if you do not have either a physical or virtual system that can run SharePoint.
My guess is that most SMBs would not want to spend $30k up-front for an enterprise version of SharePoint. Swithing to SharePoint Standard or Foundation could save a lot of money, but you lose features in the process. There is also the option to finance your SharePoint through the various resalers, which is probably the best option for SMBs for whatever reason are unable to use the cloud to host their data. Be aware that SharePoint Online has limitations that on-premise installation of SharePoint would not have. For on-premise SharePoint users that utilize custom code and third-party applications, these applications may not run in SharePoint Online. Additionally, there may be some concerns with financial and proprietary information to be up "in the cloud" on SharePoint.
When you move to SharePoint Online, you have the option to setup SharePoint as an add-on or as part of Office365. The cost for SharePoint Plan 2 would be $7 per user. For 50 users, you would be looking at an annual cost of $4200 just for SharePoint only. Office365 E1 plan would cost for this would be $20 per user for the SharePoint, which would include the price for email and the Office suite. For 50 users, you would be looking at an annual cost of $12k.
With SharePoint cloud-based solutions, storage becomes a concern. The cloud options come with 10 GB + 500 MB per subscribed user + additional storage purchased. In the case of 50 users, you would have 35GB of storage + additional storage purchased. It is not uncommon for a SMB to exceed 35GB of data, especially if it is their primary place to store archived data.
Key points to consider:
- SharePoint Online is a monthly expense, whereas you can own an on-premise version of SharePoint outright.
- SharePoint Online storage is not cheap. It is a also a monthly expense that will continue to grow as your business grows.
- Security is also something that should be considered, and is always a concern with cloud solutions.
- Migration from an on-premise to a cloud based SharePoint is not a trivial task.
