Return of Big BackOffice: Up or Out

Hey-hey

This is a case of the military's phrase for "up" with the introduction of Windows Essential Business Server (formerly code named Centro). What? In the military and other big companies - there is the phrase up or out when you reach mid-career. There is a natural incentive in any channel partner program to motivate partners to ascend upward. Frankly I have found this to be the way American firms naturally think with India and Asia close behind (growth is good). Countries in continental Europe may or may not embrace this up strategy.

For the purposes of this business speak conversation, assume you are a SBSer or Small Business Specialist and you seek to grow into a slightly larger space. That's called "all goodness" and then some in Redmond. It is a neo-classical return to BackOffice which was prominent from the mid-1990s to November of 2001 in the Microsoft SMB infrastructure portfolio. The idea back then and today is to have a multiple server solution for entities just above the small business space (e.g. start at 50 users up to 300 users). Windows Essential Business Server allows you to leverage your small business customer portfolio to grow into larger customers -or more importantly - grow with your successful small business customers who are flying further and faster than they imagined when they started their companies in the proverbial garage.

So let's get technical.

"Windows Essential Business Server is an integrated server infrastructure solution designed for the unique needs of mid-sized organizations, combining the technologies of Windows Server 2008, Exchange Server 2007, Forefront Security for Exchange, System Center Essentials, the next version of ISA Server and SQL Server 2008 into an “all-in-one” solution. It will include a Standard and Premium Edition. Windows Essential Business Server will provide a single Client Access License for all included products and offers new technologies which simplify license management. Within the administration console, IT professionals can easily ascertain how many licenses they have, who the licenses are assigned to and - when an employee leaves the company - easily re-assign licenses.

The difference between standard and premium edition is this: Premium includes SQL Server 2008. To me - that is the whole enchilada because I believe everything in the business world pivots off data; data is the reason we are here. Data is the reason we exist. Someday humans will be born with USB 2.0 ports!

Enough nonsense and back to GeekSpeak. Essentially Widows Essential Business Server (WEBS - kinda cute isn't it!) uses a partitioning strategy to put security on a server out front, the domain controller\management functions in the middle and the infrastructure back-end in the, while, background. How about a picture to better convey this concept:

In future issues - we will write more on WEBS and I will expand on the management paradigm stolen from SBS :)

BEST PRATICE: Windows Essential Business Server is really a growth strategy for Small Business Specialists. In pop therapy terms, you now have my permission to grow. It does not reflect disloyalty to the beloved SBS product our your SBSer roots.