Hey, so I recently had the idea of proposing some new ideas, I had for the IT infrastructure of my local scouts organisation, mainly it's own nextcloud instance and website (and if that works well, maybey a matrix server and wiki, but website and nextcloud are much higher priority right now). But, I am wondering, what the best way to do the hosting would be. Using a VPS would be pretty nice, because there would be no upfront cost, but we would have to pay monthly fee and that's pretty hard to pitch for a new and untested idea, especially because we don't have that much regular funds/income. The other option would be to self host on hardware that stays in the building, but I am not quite shure, but then we would have a pretty steep upfront cost and I am not 100 percent shure, if we even have a proper network in the building.
The main thing, I am trying to ask here is, if any of you have ever done something similar before and if so, how you did it. Also I am thankful for any advice in general. I have done this already for my family, but doing this for an entire organistation is an entirely different thing. Thank you very much in advance!
Well, for once you need a commissioned data processing contract with Microsoft to let Microsoft (a third party) process your users private data. And probably a case-by-case study as Office365/Teams/... consists of a wide variety of different services and products and has lots of configurable options as well. And then we had the Datenschutzkonferenz come to the conclusion Office365 is not allowed in 2022. And it got messy after that. A big debate. The EU and several German states and different institutions doing reviews over the years and coming to different (sometimes opposing) conclusions. And the law concerning data safe harbour / EU data boundary got updated. And we have 2025 now and the situation in the US changes daily. On the upside I believe they've all renewed the Data Privacy Framework certifications so it's legally possible to use the services. But I don't think the debate is solved or over yet. And you'll get some 50+ pages PDF instructions on how to configure your company/organization's cloud office to be in line.
I suppose it's similar for Google? But I see less professional use of their cloud services, I believe it's more popular with smaller organizations and individuals. Honestly I don't know much about that one, I've never considered Google for data that need protection, as that company is one of the largest data leeches on earth.
In any case OP needs to qualify for their NGO programs, as both Google and Microsoft cost about $1,000 a year for like 15 people and that's well above their weight. And GDPR compliance for group members and commissioned data processing is a business feature, that's not in your average private (free) Google account.
Other than that, you can google "office365 gdpr" (or dsgvo) if you haven't heard of it yet and see all the different opinions out there.
So……no, there’s no debate about what you said there is debate around - GDPR.
Your cost estimates are incredibly wrong btw. Microsoft offer Microsoft 356 Business Basic for non-profits up to 300 users for free, including 1TB of OneDrive storage.
I don't think you read what I wrote. The debate is if and how cloud office solutions can be used according to law. Obviously that's about the GDPR because that's how the law concerned with it is called...
And the second thing: That's what I wrote?! I could improve a bit on the grammar...