Which SharePoint Plan is Right for Me?

Over the years, Apps4Rent has been offering numerous off-the-shelf SharePoint plans including versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, and SharePoint Online; editions: Foundation, Standard, and Enterprise; hosted, semi-dedicated, dedicated, and farm solutions. Although we continue to have customers on all these plans, the most popular plans currently are Hosted SharePoint 2016, Hosted SharePoint Foundation 2013, and SharePoint Online. These plans are the most economical ones and satisfy most of the needs of organizations for collaboration. For Foundation plan, there is no per user cost and unlimited users can be added. For organizations that need more control or customization of their SharePoint implementation, we offer ready-to-go semi-dedicated, dedicated and farm solutions. Organizations that wish to work with us on developing and managing custom SharePoint implementations – on-premise, in the cloud, or hybrid – should contact our sales desk. We have provided below some guidance on how to select the most suitable plan.

We provide a variety of SharePoint solutions to our customers as outlined below.

1. Hosted SharePoint environments:
   We provide Hosted SharePoint Foundation 2010 and Hosted SharePoint Foundation 2013 since its inception. We are the only providers to launch Hosted SharePoint 2016 since the day SharePoint 2016 was launched by Microsoft. We also provide Hosted SharePoint Server 2010 (Standard/Enterprise) as well as Hosted SharePoint Server 2013 (Standard/Enterprise) in the hosted/multi-tenant environment.
2. Semi Dedicated/Flex Environments:
   These environments have a Dedicated Front-End server and shared database SQL Enterprise servers. Flex environments are available for all SharePoint versions and variants.
3. Dedicated SharePoint Servers:
   These are dedicated SharePoint servers with dedicated SQL servers. Dedicated SharePoint Servers are available for all SharePoint versions and variants.
4. Farm Environments:
   The farm environment has different virtual machines running different server roles. So one machine would have SharePoint role installed; while SQL would be on a different machine and Active Directory on a different machine. This is for higher workloads and/or if customer is looking for high availability.
5. Office 365 Online SharePoint Offerings:
   We are also a Microsoft CSP and have added Office 365 to our range of products. Microsoft CSP is an “by invitation only” program introduced by Microsoft and allows us to sell Office 365 and its a-la-carte offerings bundled with 24 x 7 support and services.

Due to a plethora of options available now, it’s easy to get confused about the right solution for your organization. Besides, choosing the right platform can save you from painful future migrations due to lack of features and save valuable dollars. Here are some guidelines which can help you in choosing the right offering.

First, you would need to decide if you need a Hosted Platform or a Dedicated Platform. Here are some guidelines which can help you.

1. Hosted SharePoint Vs Dedicated SharePoint:
   We provide Hosted SharePoint environments with Out of the Box SharePoint features enabled. Most of the functionalities work from in the Hosted SharePoint environment. However, since the environment is shared; there are some restrictions which are put in place to keep the product seamless and consistent-feature wise.

   Hosted SharePoint is cost effective for some of the tasks outlined below:

   • Out of the Box SharePoint Features.
   • Document Sharing/ Blogs/Wiki templates
   • Public Facing Site/Anonymous Access
   • Workflows.
   • Integrating with MS Office/Outlook.
   • Access as a Site Collection Administrator.

   Flex/Dedicated and Farm SharePoint environments are good for the following tasks:

   • If you need to install 3rd party applications, then Flex or Dedicated SharePoint Server environment is the best offering.
   • If you need access to Central Admin or need to remotely login in the environment, then Flex or Dedicated SharePoint Server environment is necessary.
   • If you are looking for full administrator access to the server to make changes then Flex or Dedicated environment is needed.
   • If your app requires registering DLL’s or installing third party applications, then Flex or Dedicated Server environment is necessary.
   • If you would like to make server wide or server side changes then you will have to signup or upgrade to our Flex or Dedicated server plans. Some of these limitations are due to the technology itself in hosted environment and some are to make sure that the environment performs are optimum level at all times.
   • Other aspects like getting access to web.config file; unique IP; Sandbox solutions; access to PowerShell or command line are all.
2. Host with us or with Microsoft:
   Once you have decided the right platform and if hosted platform is ideal; then the following table will help you. One thing you need to remember is Office 365 SharePoint Online plans are charged on a per user basis; while some of our Hosted SharePoint offerings like SharePoint Foundation has unlimited users for as low as $8.95 per month and they cover wide range of functionalities. Choosing the right option here can save you and your organization a lot of money.

   All our offerings for SharePoint including SharePoint Online from Office 365 come with 24 x 7 support via phone/chat and e-mail.

3. Hosted SharePoint Vs SharePoint Online:

   Hosted SharePoint is an out-of-the-box SharePoint environment. This is offered from our state-of-the-art SSAE16 certified datacenters in New Jersey. SharePoint Online is not a full-fledged SharePoint environment. Microsoft has made few changes to the features sets and spread it between two offerings. It is hosted within Microsoft’s data centers.

   Hosted SharePoint is cost effective for some of the tasks outlined below,

   • Public Facing Site/Anonymous Access. This feature is not available with SharePoint Online offerings of Microsoft.
   • Document Sharing/Blogs/Wiki templates.
   • Workflows.
   • Integrating with MS Office/Outlook.
   • Access as a Site Collection Administrator.
   • Future migration back to your on-premise SharePoint environment.

   SharePoint Online is ideal for the following tasks

   • If you are looking for large storage space, then SharePoint Online is the best solution as you get 1 TB of space per user for file storage and sharing.
   • If you plan to use other Office 365 features in future like Skype for Business, then SharePoint Online is a good option.
   • Integrating your Active Directory without a Dedicated SharePoint Server environment.
   • Hosting an Access App. With SharePoint Online-Access Services come at a cheaper option when compared to our offering.
   • Automatic update to latest SharePoint version.