One Server. Four VMs. One Windows Licence Instead of Four. No RAID Controller. Zero Data Risk.
A Chartered Accountancy firm needed a complete office server setup — file server, Active Directory, Tally ERP, and Winman tax software. The conventional approach meant multiple Windows Server licences, CAL costs per user, a hardware RAID controller, and enterprise NAS hardware — several lakhs before a cable was connected.
Techieism built the entire solution on a single well-specified machine: an Intel Core i9 desktop with an NVMe SSD for the OS and Seagate IronWolf NAS-grade drives for data. We deployed Proxmox VE — enterprise open-source virtualisation — and created four isolated VMs. Active Directory and the file server run on Linux VMs at zero licence cost (Samba AD + Linux Samba file server). Tally and Winman share a single Windows Server VM — one licence covering both applications. For data protection, ZFS RAID configured natively in Proxmox replaces a hardware RAID controller entirely: automatic integrity checking, silent error correction, drive-failure redundancy, and instant point-in-time snapshots — all in software, on standard drives.
Four Offices. One Domain. Zero Extra Windows Server Licences.
A multi-office organisation needed centralised identity management — one login for every employee at every location, uniform Group Policy, and central IT control. The conventional path: buy Windows Server for every site, pay per-user CALs, manage separate AD instances, and deal with replication complexity at Microsoft's price.
Techieism deployed four Samba Active Directory Domain Controllers — one at each office — running on Linux servers. Samba AD is fully compatible with Microsoft's AD protocol: Windows PCs, printers, and business applications join the domain exactly as they would with Windows Server. All four DCs are automatically replicated and interconnected — user accounts, group policies, and authentication data stay in sync across every office. If one DC goes offline, the others continue serving login requests without interruption. Result: full enterprise AD infrastructure at zero Windows Server licence cost.
All Offices Connected — No MPLS. No VPN Servers. No Costly Routers.
A multi-office organisation was spending heavily on MPLS leased lines (₹40,000–₹2,00,000 per link per month), dedicated VPN servers, and enterprise routers at every site. The connectivity was expensive, inflexible, and entirely dependent on a single vendor. Adding a new office meant weeks of lead time and more recurring cost.
Techieism replaced the entire stack with an open-source mesh network. We deployed OPNsense open-source firewalls at every office location — giving each site enterprise-grade security, traffic control, and firewall rules. We then set up a self-hosted Headscale coordination server (the private, self-controlled equivalent of Tailscale) as the network's central brain. Every OPNsense firewall registered with Headscale, and WireGuard encrypted tunnels were automatically established between all sites. The result: a fully meshed private network where every office reaches every other office directly — servers, printers, internal apps — as if on one LAN. Remote employees connect to the same mesh. New offices are added in minutes. Every rupee previously spent on MPLS and VPN hardware is now permanently saved.
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