Converting to completely mobile office

[HCHTech]

I have a small attorney's office customer, 3 attys, one assistant and one receptionist. They have an aging SBS2008 server that is functioning solely as a domain controller and file server. They use Gmail for communication and calendaring. I have previously pitched hosted exchange but they were not interested in changing. They now want to get rid of their server and move to 100% online storage. They are replacing their workstations with laptops so that everyone can be mobile and work from wherever they are. They are planning on downsizing their office to just a conference room for occasional client meetings.

I've never had a business customer request this kind of arrangement before - What service would you recommend to this client for secure file storage & access?

 

[mrapoc]

Something like this?

https://www.google.com/intx/en_uk/work/apps/business/

 

[HCHTech]

Yup, that's on the list, along with Dropbox for Business, Opendrive, Box, and I'm sure a dozen others. Do you have any experience with the Google solution? How does it handle simultaneous access, for example? Are there granular permissions? Versioning? I'm hoping to steal some wisdom from someone who has gone down this path before...

 

[Markverhyden]

What kind of clients do they have? Going cloud does not free them from meeting the various statutory requirements for security.

1. All laptops will need FDE.
2. Their cloud storage provider will need to be HIPAA, PCI, Sarbanes/Oxley, and other standards compliant depending on who their clients are.
3. You should get all of them 3g/4g/LTE cards so they do not use public, such as Starbucks, AP's. A VPN service as well.

That being said we all know how difficult these companies can be when it comes to getting them to adhere to the real requirements. I just migrated a small health care provider to iMacs as part of their cloud strategy. Since my responsibility was just the iMacs the FDE was taken care of. But their ISP connections were not up to spec and they ignored that part.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Office 365. They get the latest versions of Office, a must for Word and Excel hounds that legal firms are, plus OneDrive for Business that will comply with all the alphabet regulations that Mark mentioned. Yes they will not like to move from gmail but frankly I've never found Google Apps to be all that good and it will be cheaper and easier to manage everything under one host.

 

[pcpete]

Does Google allow multiple access of non Google documents? By multiple access I mean it will not allow two people to edit it at the same time to prevent multiple versions.

 

[sieow13]

Google Apps still need regular office documents to be converted to THEIR standard to allow multiple edits on Chrome via Google Drive. Might pose a problem there.

Nobody likes to migrate. It's painful. But since the ball has started rolling, Office 365 will be the best all-round "one-size-fits-all" solution. Complies with regulations, free office updates, hosted exchange, One Drive for sharing.

The 100% compatibility with Office documents is the primary reason for a good experience.

 

[HCHTech]

I suspect that the consensus around O365 is correct. They do municipal work only, so no HIPAA or FINRA, but they are already balking at the suggestion of FDE. We have a meeting next week to discuss. I'm just hoping they don't show up with a stack of best buy laptops they got "on sale!". Ugh.

 

[Markverhyden]

They sound like others I've worked with. Trying envision their business as not needing to meet any security requirements. FDE is not a huge deal. There are variants of Truecrypt available which is free and meet the requirement. I don't see why businesses are so against using FDE. If they maintain a regular backup it's not a major deal. If the machine is lost or stolen it's virtually impossible to access the data. If there is some kind of data recovery situation it can still be done as long as they have the password and key.

 

[nlinecomputers]

They sound like others I've worked with. Trying envision their business as not needing to meet any security requirements. FDE is not a huge deal. There are variants of Truecrypt available which is free and meet the requirement. I don't see why businesses are so against using FDE. If they maintain a regular backup it's not a major deal. If the machine is lost or stolen it's virtually impossible to access the data. If there is some kind of data recovery situation it can still be done as long as they have the password and key.

Most lawyers I've known seem to be incredibly unorganized. They are fearful of losing the password, just like they lost their yahoo passwords, and thus losing everything. One of the reason I like bitlocker for this as most lawfirms have a domain and thus you can give an admin AD rights to gain access to any bitlocked drive. Plus I require that all bitlocked drives have the password printed out and placed in safety deposit box.