Migrating SMB File Shares

We have 3 Datacenters where we host file shares, these are Windows 2012R2 virtual servers running on ESX, we use SMB shares and deploy the drives to clients using GPP based on AD security groups.

One DC is in Europe, one in Asia and one in the US.

One of our requirement is that our security team wants us to use AD resource groups for each root folders:

There should be:

• one group that designate the owner
• one group that designate members with read-write access
• one group with read-only access.

Every 3 months I need to run a powershell script that will email each folders owners with a list of folders they are owners of, and a list of members that have access, they need to reply to these emails to agree on the membership or correct it.

With this in mind, I am looking at moving away from on-prem file shares because in some places this is almost the last service we offer on-prem, so we are almost at a point where we need a DC and ESX cluster just for the sake of providing file shares.

I am looking at 2 scenarios:

• Start using Azure File Sync and migrate progressively to Azure Storage
• Use a 3rd party tool and migrate everything to SharePoint online

I am not really sure about certain points:

• Could we continue to use our groups structure and email reporting in SharePoint or Azure Storage?

• With SharePoint online, in terms of user experience have you worked with Shared drive or everything will be based from web browsers?

• Are there any geolocation options that are available in both solutions to speed up access depending on location?