As you might guess, I'm a complete newbie to Azure and have no knowledge of it at all.
I have a project for which I need to find the most efficient and cost effective solution. Rather than me ask questions, perhaps its better I explain the project and hopefully someone will be able to tell me if Azure will provide a solution.
I have an on premise SBS 2003 R2 server which I need to replace due to the end of life of Server 2003 R2. This server provides, AD, Exchange and File & Print services to around 40 users. I have been given the remit of 'spend as little as possible and use Cloud services as much as possible' to achieve the migration but I don't want it to be at the expense of productivity and end user harmony.
I have started trialling Office 365, which will hopefully take care of the File and Exchange side of things. So far the users have found it a bit frustrating trying to navigate to files on SharePoint. They are unable to effectively map a drive or explore to SharePoint and they are frequently asked to enter their O365 password, on top of their local domain password. Although I've not tried Single Sign On, it sounds like this might resolve the issues we're having with O365.
From what I've heard, I'd need an on premise AD server in order to implement Single Sign On, so this means buying a new on premise 2012 server to replace the 2003 SBS server. This obviously means expense. I'm wondering if there is an alternative solution that addresses the Single Sign On problem and gives me AD features, such as group policy, but without the necessity for an on premise server. Ideally it would also give me print server features too.
Has anyone any idea if Azure can provide an effective solution to my project or have any other solutions. If not, I'll have to get the on premise server.