Your Computer Network Solution
A New Small Business Server
As many of you know, we have worked with Microsoft’s Small Business Server since its inception in 2000. At that time, Small Business Server, or SBS, was an attempt by Microsoft to combine or bundle their Windows 2000 server operating system with their Exchange e-mail server and database server (SQL Server). This was a monumental task, as each of these platforms was designed to run separately and did not play well together. Early versions were a mess. Make certain changes to the server and you might end up with an unusable system requiring a complete reload. As you can imagine, our techs soon became very wary of SBS.
As new releases of the product came out, Microsoft addressed more and more of the issues. Stability was greatly improved and the underlying value proposition that SBS brings to the table started to surface. Specifically, for less than a thousand dollars, you could license 5 users of Windows Server and Microsoft Exchange, not to mention several other ancillary products bundled in. Normally, a 5 user Exchange server environment would cost nearly $2,100.00 for licenses alone. That’s a significant and compelling argument. Candidly however, with our history and experience with earlier releases, we were slow to jump on board. We have done numerous implementations over the years, but generally when specifically asked by the customer.
With the release of Windows Small Business Server 2008, I think Microsoft has really got a winner. The product is a breeze to deploy, and is even easier to maintain. The 2008 SBS server includes Windows server 2008, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Windows Server Software Update Server (WSUS) and SharePoint services 3.0 - all the key features and capabilities that a small business network needs. A premium version that also includes SQL Server 2008 is also available.
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SBS has always had an integrated command and management console designed to simplify user and device management. 2008 SBS is no different, but the Windows 2008/Vista/Win7 interface has been used to make operations easier and more intuitive. Adding and maintaining user accounts is simple.
One of the challenges of integrated technology such as SBS is backup. With Exchange, WSUS and file storage, backing up all of that information can be complicated and expensive. There are 3rd party products that are available to do exactly that, but they frequently cost nearly as much as the SBS product itself. This is where Microsoft has done a great job with SBS 2008. They have designed a new integrated backup solution within the core product. This backup manager is accessed directly from the core management console and is designed to backup to disk. This can be an elegant network attached storage device (NAS), or even a simple USB hard drive. The backup utility completely manages the backup device(s) and schedules backups as frequently as desired. Recovery of a system is a simple matter of loading the install DVD and restoring from media. In the matter of a few minutes, a complete restoration can be performed.
I am encouraged by this product and think that it will be successful with those businesses needing a small, yet comprehensive solution that is very cost effective.
Please contact Chris Faist at chrisf@ics-support.com or 425-284-5410 for further details.
