Small Business Needs Active Directory

Currently the small business has about 10 computers 1 FreeNas Server and 10 employees.

Until their recent move into a new office they have each had their own computer with local accounts.

However now they will start having employees use different computers at different times of the day.

This is where the need for Active Directory comes in.

What kind of server hardware would you suggest to fill this need. Additionally what kind of server software should I use. I was thinking Microsoft Small Business Server Standard 2011.

EDIT: The business is a simple service business which simply uses Microsoft Word, Excel, Publisher. They also use the Google Apps for Business, and one other online application (that is hosted somewhere else) So the hardware needs are minimal.

EDIT 2: The business is a non-profit so costs for software are very low thanks to http://techsoup.org so I'm mostly wondering what server software would be best for my needs without too much included that I won't be using.

Solution 1:

Due to the fact the company only has 10 employees and doesn't need anything drastic, I'd recommend Microsoft SBS 2011 (Microsoft Small Business Server 2011). This would easily be able to cope with your needs, it's easy to manage and can hold up to 75 users if you go for the "Standard" edition or 25 if you go for the "Essentials" edition.

Regarding hardware, I'd personally say you only need one tower server to run all this. You could then have shares (if required), Active Directory and a lot more (however by what you've posted this is all that's required). A simple tower server (however the specification depends on their exact requirements, but custom builds are available) will easily be sufficient.

Hope this helps. Please feel free to ask if you require any additional help or information.

Solution 2:

Small-business-server is designed for just that use-case, it's a very strong product. As for hardware, we can't really recommend anything since needs are very dependent upon just what you do there and how it gets done.