MS Small Business Server

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Originally posted by ewitte
We try to avoid it more and more now. Just because of running into problems as the business grows. Like needing Exchange Enterprise. AFAIK the limit is like 25 CAL too. Plus every 5CAL license pack is WAY more expensive than the regular one.

Eric

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If everything is on the up and up, and you follow MS's minimum deployment guidelines, then your talking at least a $6000 price swing. 3 additional servers, a second Server 03 licence, Exchange and Sql Server. Toss in IAS server and the needed cals for a 10 user setup and you just blew yourself out of the water. And it is not often that a 10 user office will grow above 75 in the expected life of the hardware.

Server came in today, but still waiting on drives. Tossed an IDE drive in and blew a copy of Server 03 on it. Seems to be real nice. One complaint is the noise. Sounds like I’m in the bay of a C130 at 15k feet. Just for grins I joined it to the SBS domain and ran dcpromo. 10 minutes later I had a second DC up and running :)

Ah…I put the cover back on and it’s a lot softer sounding. :)

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Originally posted by Thermo
If everything is on the up and up, and you follow MS's minimum deployment guidelines, then your talking at least a $6000 price swing. 3 additional servers, a second Server 03 licence, Exchange and Sql Server. Toss in IAS server and the needed cals for a 10 user setup and you just blew yourself out of the water. And it is not often that a 10 user office will grow above 75 in the expected life of the hardware.

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If you can get by with SBS on 1 server you can get by with just 2003 and exchange with just one server. We have a specific office with only 6-8 users that needed Exchange Advanced Server. They have a 30GB database. A better part of a year was spent trying to keep them below 16GB. They tend to get a good 1GB of email each week. It all depends on the situation. We still do get a lot of SBS installs, its just more common to go full blown than it used to be. I don't think I've ever seen SBS with over 20 users.

ERic

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Originally posted by ewitte
If you can get by with SBS on 1 server you can get by with just 2003 and exchange with just one server. We have a specific office with only 6-8 users that needed Exchange Advanced Server. They have a 30GB database. A better part of a year was spent trying to keep them below 16GB. They tend to get a good 1GB of email each week. It all depends on the situation. We still do get a lot of SBS installs, its just more common to go full blown than it used to be. I don't think I've ever seen SBS with over 20 users.

ERic

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Single 2K and 03 server installs are contrary to MS guidelines. If it goes down, you as the “expert” are libel for damages. My E&O policy has several pages of things considered negligence, and failure to follow manufactures and publishers guidelines is mentioned repeatedly.

But with the mumbo jumbo aside, you still can’t compete price wise even with one server.

Well, the server is up and running. Internal email and websites, a few user accounts and Norton AV server all working fine. The built in company web site is quite nice for a prebuilt site. Still have some things to do and try out, but the home network is using this server as of last night.

Here is the cpu bench

cpu_mark

The rest of them can be found here

SBS is good for up to 75 users. The only issue I have is that there is a 2GB maximum memory limit. Backup is as easy and reliable as with any other system.

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Originally posted by PDR60
Its interesting that SBS is still around. I guess its a good deal for the 10 and under office. But it also goes against allot of MS best practices. I try to stay away from it if I can. I have converted many Blown up SBS installs directly over to Linux. Most customers find it much more robust and easier to deal with. I script most of the day to day admin stuff and the boxes just sit there and run.

I'll probably get flamed for the Linux point but its the truth. Most offices of that size (10-20 users) don't have an admin to take care of things. Its also pretty expensive when you consider what you get. Any kind of backup is going to cost you some serious cash. Veritas options for SQL and exchange are pretty expensive. It usually takes me about 1 day to get everything set up and then they are good for some time.

Having worked on both systems and working in a wintel enviornment at present, I have to admit, the more you seperate funtions the better off you are. That would be reguardles of what os you are using. The minute you start double duty on a server you open yourself up to single points of failure. If its mission critical stuff ( like the one and only server in a small office) you may be in trouble.

Just my thoughts,

PDR60

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Well you might get flamed, but not by me. But you will get an argument, but not in this thread. I refer you to the first paragraph of the first post

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but this is not a discussion on the pros and cons of competing technologies

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Start a new thread and I will debate this at length with you, and do so gladly. But not here. Please edit or remove you post from this thread.

Your approach is great for someone who doesn't mind having lots of systems to maintain or pay to have maintained instead of just a system or two. When you sell a complex multi-system solution that doesn't have software vendor support to a business, you are establishing future maintenance business for yourself.

SBS has a solid place in the small business community or else MS would stop selling it. It is the best priced bargain around. There is no vendor supported software bundle available with all the features of SBS at an equivalent or lesser price.

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Originally posted by Thermo
Single 2K and 03 server installs are contrary to MS guidelines. If it goes down, you as the “expert” are libel for damages. My E&O policy has several pages of things considered negligence, and failure to follow manufactures and publishers guidelines is mentioned repeatedly.

But with the mumbo jumbo aside, you still can’t compete price wise even with one server.

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There should be no difference between stability of 1 machine running SBS versus 1 machine running 2k/03. In fact SBS has more installed to worry about. That plus running into problems upgrading the system. Adding a second domain controller, etc.

Eric

I cleaned the thread up. Please keep it on topic.

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Originally posted by CaTaLyST
I cleaned the thread up. Please keep it on topic.

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Thanks, much appreciated:D

Here is an update, Server is functioning flawlessly. Exchange is up and running with a pop3 connector. It works well for routing mail from the ISP mail boxes to SBS user mail boxes. Sending is a little problematic, Comcast and AT&T black hole the mail as spam. And I’m not going to pay Comcast $100+ a month to forward the mail.

SQL is installed, and Norton AV server is up and running. SUS is done and GP updated to control the clients. I set up a Terminal Server and it tried it out on an old PII-300 Win 98 system with good results. Installing licenses, both CAL’s and TS was so easy that pitas could do it. I’m going to try it with T1010 soon as I get time.

So far the only glitch has been the switch getting stupid right as I was joining the Terminal Server. As far as I can tell, the switch was last reset in April of 04, so I guess I can’t complain. It did have me chasing my own tail for about half an hour.

Still on the to-do list is IAS, and wireless access via VPN. Then I guess I’ll set up VPN access from the internet and perhaps dial up access just to see how it works.

Of note is the total lack of the need to write scripts. So far the OS has done all of the things I usually do with scripts. When I set up the T-server, there was a shared printer already on the system (Server 03 print server disjoined from existing 2K domain) after I joined it, the printer just appeared on the client systems by itself.

That's what SBS is all about. It has most of the stuff that is necessary for a 75 user office complete with system health management reports that can be easily set up using minimal skills. As you noted - no scripting is necessary.

Great!!!!