My father has a small company: 10 PCs running Windows, 1 running Windows Server 2000 and 1 Fax/Printer.
I want to remove the server and make the network based on an Online server. Can I do that? If yes, how? By using a Windows VPS? Linux VPS with VMWaRE? I'm not sure if that's a viable option, if there's other, please tell me.
If you're using the server as a local network server (File shares, Exchange, SQL Server, Domain Controller, etc), you should not move it to the cloud.
These servers should be as close as possible to the clients in the network to optimize response time, so moving it to the cloud will make things much slower.
In addition, these servers should usually not be internet-facing (except a mail server)
Edit: The server is only used for Email, Backups, Fax and an Accounting software. Just that, very simple. If it wasn't for the Accounting software, I would move to a Linux VPS.
What I want to understand is: Can I still use the online server/VPS to do the same thing as the physical server? If yes, what should I learn first?
BR
Looks like you are determined to move to the cloud. I hate to advertise, but here is what happened. I moved one of our backup servers to the Amazon EC2 and it was pretty much easy as setting up a local server. It just took some time to understand the instances, images and elastic IP. But once done, everything worked like charm. I have not used rackspace, so don't know what advantages you get over the other.