The vendor supports it on Windows Server and nothing else. It has outgrown the tower under somebody's desk, and when that tower stops, the office stops. That is the whole brief: one application that must run on Windows and needs proper hosting instead of nursing in a corner.
CloudSpinx hosts Windows-only business apps for companies across Kenya, so we have a routine for it. Whether it is Sage, a QuickBooks Enterprise build, Microsoft SQL Server, or a .NET line-of-business app tied to Windows, hosting a Windows app in Kenya comes down to four decisions, made in this order.
First, confirm the app truly needs Windows
Before quoting a Windows build, we ask what the app genuinely depends on. "Windows-only" is sometimes a habit rather than a requirement, and an app that turns out to run on Linux needs no license at all. If it truly is Windows-only, we say so and move on. If it is not, we say that too. We cover that call in full in Windows vs Linux for a Kenyan business, so here we assume the app has earned its Windows license.
Size the box for the app, not the brochure
The app decides the spec, and database-backed apps are hungrier than people expect. Start from the vendor's own sizing guide for your user count, measure the real load in the first weeks, and resize rather than buying for a peak you have never seen. The four things that actually move the number:
- CPU cores, driven by concurrent users and report generation
- RAM, because SQL Server will use everything you give it for caching
- Storage on NVMe, since accounting and ERP work is IOPS-bound, not capacity-bound
- Headroom for the nightly backup window so it does not fight production
The licenses the app drags along
Windows Server is only the first license.
If the app runs on Microsoft SQL Server, that is licensed separately, either per core or as Server plus CALs, and for a busy database the SQL Server edition you pick changes the bill more than the hardware does.
SQL Server 2022 Standard caps a single instance at the lesser of 4 sockets or 24 cores and 128 GB of buffer pool memory. Until your database needs more than that, Enterprise buys you features, not headroom, so check the feature list against what the app actually uses before paying for it.
We fold the Windows license, the SQL license and the access licenses into one monthly figure, so there is no capital outlay and the cost tracks what you run. The full licensing breakdown sits in its own post if you want to see every meter.
Where a Windows-only app should live
A line-of-business app your staff use all day belongs close to them. We place it in a Nairobi datacenter for the shortest hop to the office, on a managed Windows build we patch and monitor. Nightly backups with a tested restore are not optional here, because this is the box that holds your ledgers. Where the data carries compliance weight, we keep placement on the right side of the data-residency question rather than defaulting it offshore.
Moving it is the part people dread. It should be boring.
Stage the app and its database on the new server, run both side by side long enough for the finance team to compare a few days of real postings, then cut over when nobody is posting. The old tower stays switched off but intact until the first month-end closes cleanly on the new box, because the one thing worse than a slow ledger is a ledger with two copies that disagree and nobody sure which was posted to last. Keep a written list of who logs in, from where, and which printers and scanners the app talks to, since those are what break on cutover day, not the database.
Tell us the app, the number of people who use it, and whether it is backed by SQL Server, and we will come back with the spec and one monthly figure. Send it through the quote form or on WhatsApp at +254 713 403 044. The quote costs nothing.