What are you using for Intranet if your on EPIC Online?

Kenny Cruzan · September 14, 2016, 04:42:58 PM

We currently use TAM which we have in-house. Our users connect to TS/Citrix desktop and there is link to our sharepoint site that we currently host. Our SharePoint server is very old and our sharepoint site even older. I think we purchased the template back from company called Intranet Concepts when they showed up to ASCNET conferences over 10 years ago. When we move to EPIC hosted, I sure don't want to lose the functionality of our intranet but without having TS/citrix desktop and our own servers, the only way I see is to go with a hosted version of sharepoint. I don't even know if we can migrate our current site to a hosted solution.
Any thoughts or ideas? How are other agencies handling Intranet sites?

Mark · September 15, 2016, 09:01:34 AM

I thought you were keeping your Citrix environment.

Joshua Conner · September 15, 2016, 09:50:58 AM

We have an 8mb fiber connection through level3 and have about 30 employees and 21 epic licenses.

Jeff Golas · September 15, 2016, 10:38:59 AM

Kenny are you running Exchange too? Maybe O365 could be a fit (it includes sharepoint)

No its not perfect, but day to day it generally works well. Ask me again tomorrow though lol.

Kenny Cruzan · September 15, 2016, 02:54:01 PM

Mark, I am for sure keeping Citrix for at least another 3-4 years. I was just thinking of putting a 5 year plan together and eventually getting away from Citrix environment since everything is going web based. At first we will still use Citrix and keep everything we have now and just add shortcut to EPIC online app. Then eventually, as we get away from TAM and etfile we might see ourselves getting of Citrix and just doing what so many others are doing. I will manage workstations at that time and not servers

By then I will be ready to move on to something else anyway. Maybe renting out boat barns

Jeff Golas · September 15, 2016, 03:24:55 PM

I'm considering partly doing the opposite. A microsoft update broke Vision and Applied refuses to fix it (Thanks Applied!), so I may end up keeping my older terminal server cooking just for archival access to things. Plus that way I dont have to install a 15 year old version of .net to make Vision work.

Kenny Cruzan · September 15, 2016, 03:33:38 PM

I probably will keep citrix going because I love XenDesktop and want to keep it forever

But for the most part, I think down the road if we buy into office 365 and epic online, it might something to look at doing. Just another option is all.

Jeff mentioned using Office365. Does anyone use Appied's hosted exchange?

Jeff Golas · September 15, 2016, 03:49:22 PM

Quote from: Kenny Cruzan on September 15, 2016, 03:33:38 PM
Jeff mentioned using Office365. Does anyone use Appied's hosted exchange?

Do you really want to pay octuple what you'd pay elsewhere, with limited support and 10-years-behind technology? I'm not 100% sure but I think even with the E1 accounts on 365 you get exchange AND sharepoint, at least thats a cheaper option.

I'd look at all the other big players like AppRiver and the like before using Applied's exchange.

The ONE good thing about 365 is that while its cloud hosted, you still have very granular access to the actual server products. It really is running Exchange so you can modify a lot, and the few things you can't do via GUI you can do via Powershell. While this does make it a kludge in some ways, its nice to have that control when you need it.

Sherry Burrell · September 16, 2016, 09:19:29 AM

I looked at Applied's Hosted Exchange but ended up going with Appriver. We were already using them for Spam filtering and the pricing was right. Only 10 mailboxes, but we have 1 shared calendar. They do offer with Office 365, but I already had Office on each workstation.

Mark · September 16, 2016, 09:24:06 AM

With hosted Exchange (which is a shared server) what do you do if someone on the same email server is sending spam, malware/ransomware, phishing emails from same server? How is that handles/managed by the provider or by you? Emails sent from the same server are already trusted, right?

Jeff Golas · September 16, 2016, 11:00:56 AM

Its not your problem Mark. Server names etc are all aliased to your DNS so it all acts like its yours, but so far, in 2 years, I've not had one instance where something was blocked because of a "shared ip address" or something along those lines. I think thats why the SPF and DKIM records come into play now, because sender IPs are becoming more ambiguous than ever.

Mark · September 16, 2016, 11:22:29 AM

I'm talking about someone on YOUR server sending YOU spam. Where it never leaves the box. It's a complaint I was recently made aware of.

SPF and DKIM are definitely good. However, many things don't pass/fail based on it. There are so many incorrect SPF records that it's often ignored. I'm a big fan of DKIM myself, but guess what? That's not used that much either. Sure, if you're sending bulk email you definitely want it - but who looks at it? It's not even an option in Exchange without a 3rd party add-on. Unless you route your outbound mail through a Linux box to sign all messages. (Which I have ready to go, just haven't setup cert yet).

Jeff Golas · September 16, 2016, 11:26:24 AM

Quote from: Mark on September 16, 2016, 11:22:29 AM
I'm talking about someone on YOUR server sending YOU spam. Where it never leaves the box. It's a complaint I was recently made aware of.

How would that happen? It should be locked down. If its somehow directed like that, should be able to pull up logs and block it. In the O365 example the spam/filtering piece is technically a seperate front-end to the actual mail server. The mail server gets configured to only accept mail from the front end, or other systems you wish to bypass it with, but thats settings you have to specify.

Mark · September 16, 2016, 11:34:29 AM

I don't know. It was brought to my attention, so I askith of teh users.