SMB Nation 2008 fall conference, the 6th annual, will bring Small Business Server 2008 and Essential Business Server 2008 into the world with a monster launch party plus over 40 content sessions. Be there in Seattle!
Hurry - early bird rate expires next Monday - so you still have time to save a couple $$$
thanks...harrybbb
ceo at smb nation
www.smbnation.com
Showing posts with label Windows Essential Business Server. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Windows Essential Business Server. Show all posts
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Faxing in S BS 2003 [book excerpt]
Good morning - I am harry brelsford, author of the Windows Small Business Server 2003 Best Practices book and each day I am posting up a few pages for the community. I will do this until (1) SBS 2008 ships or (2) I run out of pages!
Today we look at Chapter 9 which is faxing with the shared fax service in SBS 2003.
enjoy...harrybbbb
Harry Brelsford, CEO at smb nation www.smbnation.com
Microsoft Small Business Specialist SBSC, MBA, MCSE, MCT, MCP, CNE, CLSE, CNP
PS - did u know I host an annual conference in Seattle each october for SBSers and SMB consultants? This year we help launch SBS 2008 and Essential Business Server (EBS) between October 4-6!
###
Chapter 9 Faxing
In working with SBS as both a user and consultant, I’ve noticed that the true value of some of its features can only be appreciated over time. SBS’s faxing capability is one such feature.
The faxing topic is appropriately placed here, later rather than sooner, because it is usually one of those features my clients suddenly discover well after the installation and deployment of the SBS solution. Whereas the main priorities out of the gate for most SBS sites are Internet connectivity, e-mail, and being secure, faxing is usually something I can demonstrate when things settle down and I have the client’s undivided attention. After other core SBS features, such as Outlook 2003, are accepted and widely used, the time is ripe to introduce faxing.
To balance my introduction of the faxing topic, full disclosure is necessary. I have some clients who view faxing as akin to religion. Implementing an electronic, network-based faxing solution, such as that found in SBS, acted as a key driver in their approval of the SBS network implementation project. And not only do I know this firsthand from selected clients, but I also know it from the e-mails you—the readers of my past SBS books—have sent me. Many of you commented at length how important faxing is in a small business environment networked with SBS. In fact, the dialog between reader and writer (that’s me) revealed a couple of interesting points:
• Faxing, when used, is considered very important.
• In general, SBSers were disappointed with the reliability and capability of the faxing application in the SBS 4.x era (late 1990s).
• SBSers in the past (specifically, the SBS 4.x era) have opted to deploy third-party faxing solutions, such as GFI Fax, instead of using the native faxing capabilities inside SBS.
• Readers also reported that they truly got what they paid for in fax modems. Those who went with the low-cost modems (often included with workstations) frequently experienced poor performance. Contrast that with the experience of those who invested in a superior fax modem such as the external V.Everything modem. For an investment of about $250 USD, the folks using the V.Everything modem found that they could achieve five 9’s or six sigma of reliability with the Shared Fax Service in SBS. It just flat out works!
The good news about the Shared Fax Service is that Microsoft listened over the years to the feedback on faxing within the SBS community. In the prior SBS 2000 release (the predecessor to SBS 2003), the fax application, is one area that received some of the greatest attention. And the results showed. Truth be told, it was actually a crack team of developers at Microsoft Israel who “rewrote” or reprogrammed the fax application from the ground up to take advantage of a more stable and robust Windows 2000 code base. This occurred in the summer of 2000. I share this historical insight with you because knowing how we got to where we’re at with faxing in SBS 2003 makes you wiser about the faxing function offered in SBS. That is, I’m providing historical context for ya! More important, if SBS previously lost your trust with respect to faxing, I think this release will restore that trust.
BEST PRACTICE: It’s the crime of the century. It’s the Shared Fax Service caper. It’s a big brother ripping off a little brother. What am I getting to? That the Shared Fax Service that was built for SBS 2000 just after the beginning of the new century was stolen by the Windows Server team for inclusion in the traditional Windows Server 2003 family. That’s right! The Shared Fax Service perfected for SBS was soooo good that it’s been, shall we say, borrowed for the other server products at Microsoft. In the world of intellectual property, there is certainly no greater compliment than theft, so the Fax Service
developed for SBS being co-opted for the other Microsoft Servers
operating systems is quite an affirmation of its value!
In the first part of the chapter, basic SBS faxing is defined as well as configured. You will also learn how to send and receive a fax. In the second half of the chapter, I discuss fax reporting and other advanced fax topics.
Today we look at Chapter 9 which is faxing with the shared fax service in SBS 2003.
enjoy...harrybbbb
Harry Brelsford, CEO at smb nation www.smbnation.com
Microsoft Small Business Specialist SBSC, MBA, MCSE, MCT, MCP, CNE, CLSE, CNP
PS - did u know I host an annual conference in Seattle each october for SBSers and SMB consultants? This year we help launch SBS 2008 and Essential Business Server (EBS) between October 4-6!
###
Chapter 9 Faxing
In working with SBS as both a user and consultant, I’ve noticed that the true value of some of its features can only be appreciated over time. SBS’s faxing capability is one such feature.
The faxing topic is appropriately placed here, later rather than sooner, because it is usually one of those features my clients suddenly discover well after the installation and deployment of the SBS solution. Whereas the main priorities out of the gate for most SBS sites are Internet connectivity, e-mail, and being secure, faxing is usually something I can demonstrate when things settle down and I have the client’s undivided attention. After other core SBS features, such as Outlook 2003, are accepted and widely used, the time is ripe to introduce faxing.
To balance my introduction of the faxing topic, full disclosure is necessary. I have some clients who view faxing as akin to religion. Implementing an electronic, network-based faxing solution, such as that found in SBS, acted as a key driver in their approval of the SBS network implementation project. And not only do I know this firsthand from selected clients, but I also know it from the e-mails you—the readers of my past SBS books—have sent me. Many of you commented at length how important faxing is in a small business environment networked with SBS. In fact, the dialog between reader and writer (that’s me) revealed a couple of interesting points:
• Faxing, when used, is considered very important.
• In general, SBSers were disappointed with the reliability and capability of the faxing application in the SBS 4.x era (late 1990s).
• SBSers in the past (specifically, the SBS 4.x era) have opted to deploy third-party faxing solutions, such as GFI Fax, instead of using the native faxing capabilities inside SBS.
• Readers also reported that they truly got what they paid for in fax modems. Those who went with the low-cost modems (often included with workstations) frequently experienced poor performance. Contrast that with the experience of those who invested in a superior fax modem such as the external V.Everything modem. For an investment of about $250 USD, the folks using the V.Everything modem found that they could achieve five 9’s or six sigma of reliability with the Shared Fax Service in SBS. It just flat out works!
The good news about the Shared Fax Service is that Microsoft listened over the years to the feedback on faxing within the SBS community. In the prior SBS 2000 release (the predecessor to SBS 2003), the fax application, is one area that received some of the greatest attention. And the results showed. Truth be told, it was actually a crack team of developers at Microsoft Israel who “rewrote” or reprogrammed the fax application from the ground up to take advantage of a more stable and robust Windows 2000 code base. This occurred in the summer of 2000. I share this historical insight with you because knowing how we got to where we’re at with faxing in SBS 2003 makes you wiser about the faxing function offered in SBS. That is, I’m providing historical context for ya! More important, if SBS previously lost your trust with respect to faxing, I think this release will restore that trust.
BEST PRACTICE: It’s the crime of the century. It’s the Shared Fax Service caper. It’s a big brother ripping off a little brother. What am I getting to? That the Shared Fax Service that was built for SBS 2000 just after the beginning of the new century was stolen by the Windows Server team for inclusion in the traditional Windows Server 2003 family. That’s right! The Shared Fax Service perfected for SBS was soooo good that it’s been, shall we say, borrowed for the other server products at Microsoft. In the world of intellectual property, there is certainly no greater compliment than theft, so the Fax Service
developed for SBS being co-opted for the other Microsoft Servers
operating systems is quite an affirmation of its value!
In the first part of the chapter, basic SBS faxing is defined as well as configured. You will also learn how to send and receive a fax. In the second half of the chapter, I discuss fax reporting and other advanced fax topics.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Extending Outlook in SBS 2003: IMAP, PDA [book excerpt]
Good Sunday to you! Today we continue the posting up of pages from Windows Small Business Server 2003 Best PRactices (book excerpt). The topic herein is extending Outlook in the Exchange application in SBS 2003. You will ready about PDA synchronization, IMAP and other nonsense :)
cheers...harrybbbb
Harry Brelsford - ceo of smb nation - www.smbnation.com and your fellow Microsoft Small Business Specialists (SBSC).
PS - smb nation fall confernce is merely 75+ days away and we are holding a gnarly SBS 2008\EBS 2008 LAUNCH PARTY!
###
Extending Outlook
In this section, you will learn a few ways to further extend your use of Outlook 2003 in an SBS 2003 environment. These approaches are taken directly from the real world and reflect the reality you’re likely to confront and embrace! Let’s start with Outlook PDA synchronization, followed by using Outlook Express with IMAP and ending with a totally cool add-on called Outlook Business Contact Manager.
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
Outlook PDA Synchronization
You might recall the Mobile Client and Offline Use page when you ran the Add User Wizard/Set Up Computer Wizard late in Chapter 4 (this page is shown below in Figure 6-27). It was here you elected to install ActiveSync 3.7 on the client computer. This is a required application to synchronize Outlook 2003 between a personal digital assistant (PDA) and the client computer machine.
Figure 6-27
This is the critical path step to install ActiveSync 3.7 on the client computer.
This is a VERY POPULAR SOLUTION with business people who want to carry Outlook information with them such as e-mail, contacts, and appointments on their PDA. This is how people work in the real world and they demand that this type of information be at their finger tips at any time. The way in which Outlook 2003 on the client computer will synchronize with the PDA using ActiveSync 3.7 is as follows.
ActiveSync 3.7 is installed on the client computer and ready for use. Assuming you use the Compaq/HP iPAQ PDA, you attach the cradle to the USB port on
Visit www.smbnation.com for additional SMB and SBS book, newsletter and conference resources.
the client computer. You place the iPAQ in the cradle and launch ActiveSync
3.7 from Start, All Programs, Microsoft ActiveSync on the client computer. You complete the wizard to create a partnership and elect what Outlook 2003 objects/data you want to synchronize. You then proceed to actually synchronize the data and resolve any conflicts (e.g., double bookings on your calendar with the exact same appointment). The process is shown in Figure 6-28.
Figure 6-28
An early and assured win with business customers and SBS users is to deploy ActiveSync 3.7 to synchronize Outlook 2003 data with a PDA, such as the IPAQ shown here.
BEST PRACTICE: The whole Outlook 2003/PDA synchronization matter exposes a weakness in SBS 2003 that you’ll need to utilize a third-party tool to correct: public folder synchronization. The problem is this. The SBS 2003 team is rightfully proud about creating the company-related public folder object discussed earlier in this chapter. For example, the contact list can be used as a company-wide contact list that eliminates duplicate lists of customers circulating
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
about the firm. But how would you get this great contact list to your IPAQ PDA? Not natively, but with some of the third-party synchronization tools reviewed at SlipStick: www.slipstick.com/ addins/olpda.htm#wince. You’ll learn about products such as Pocket Lookout that performs this important function.
You can also use a Microsoft tool, the Outlook 2002 Add-in: Pocket Contact Synchronizer 1.2, which will take the contact information in the company contact folder and synchronize it to your mailbox-based Contacts, which would then synchronize to your PDA via ActiveSync 3.7. Granted - it’s an additional step, but this shoe may well fit.
BEST PRACTICE: I just love late breaking news. The wonderful Susan Bradley, an MVP in the SBS and security areas, recently shared that Infoware - Team Contacts for Outlook at http://www.infoware.ca/ content/tcon.asp and http://www.infoware.ca/content/ infoframe.htm?tcon.asp synchronizes user contact lists with a central contact list in an Exchange public folder. This automatically merges changes when two users update the same contact in their personal Contacts folder.
Ride the Outlook Express With IMAP
I have a client who travels extensively for business and pleasure. Back in the SBS 2000 era, she complained that using Outlook Web Access (OWA, which I discuss in Chapter 8) was too bulky, slow, and awkward. Now granted, in just a few chapters I’ll show you why OWA has improved and should be the remote e-mail access mechanism of choice. But for some, there will still be a chance to use Outlook Express with the IMAP protocol to access e-mail. As you know, Outlook Express is typically installed when Internet Explorer is installed, making it a near universally available e-mail client (in Internet cafés in Spain and so on).
When you launch Outlook Express, you’ll need to configure the client machine to connect back to the SBS 2003 server, be authenticated, and use the IMAP protocol. This is accomplished by running the Outlook Express Internet
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Connection wizard. This third page (E-mail Server Names) is the tricky one. You need to drop down the protocol list and select IMAP and then complete the server connection information (Incoming, Outgoing) with either an IP address or a fully qualified domain name. You provide logon authentication information on the Internet Mail Logon page (this would be your user account and password on the SBS 2003 network). And then all that is left would be to click Finish.
So why IMAP? Haven’t we been throwing around the word POP3 in this chapter? SBS 2003 configures Exchange Server 2003 to support the SMTP, POP3, IMAP, and HTTP mail protocols. But IMAP offers the opportunity to efficiently download just the e-mail headers (but not the full e-mail). That would allow my client to scan the e-mails she wants to read and delete less worthy e-mails. The point is that the full e-mail isn’t downloaded until the e-mail is opened. This is a nice touch when working from an Internet café! Note that POP3 is going to download the entire e-mail to the client.
BEST PRACTICE: While Exchange Server 2003 installs and supports IMAP and POP3 natively, you’ll need to start these protocols in Exchange. For example, to turn on the IMAP protocol, you would drill down into the Exchange System Manager under Advanced Management in the Server Management console. Expand Servers, Protocols and open the IMAP4 protocol folder. On the right pane, right click Default IMAP4 Virtual Server and select Start. You’re now ready to use the IMAP-based e-mail in Exchange Server 2003 (and ergo, SBS 2003).
Notes:
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
This is an IMAP security setting that you need to make. If the RRAS NAT/ Basic Firewall method is your Internet security method (as per SBS 2003 standard edition), you would select the Internet Mail Access Protocol 4 (IMAP4) as seen in Figure 6-29 on the Services and Ports tab in the Network Connection Properties dailog box. This will allow IMAP-related traffic to flow baby!
Figure 6-29
Selecting the IMAP4 port opening on your SBS 2003 server. When asked which private IP address to map to, enter 127.0.0.1 (a dialog box will ask this when you select this service).
If ISA Server is your Internet security method (as per SBS 2003 premium edition), you would create a packet filter. You will do exactly that in Chapter 13, so hang on to your hat!
Outlook Business Contact Manager
This is known in some circles as customer relationship management (CRM) for da’ little guy, whereas Microsoft’s full CRM product is positioned for the firms between 25 and 500 employees with at least of $5 million in sales. Outlook Business Contact Manager is an Outlook 2003 add-on to help small business
people improve sales management. A comparison between Business Contact Manager and CRM is shown in Figure 6-30.
BEST PRACTICE: Be well aware that Business Contact Manager is SINGLE USER ONLY. That’s some good old expectation management up front and in your face because you might conclude that restriction will limit the functionality of this cool tool. Whereas the business public folders created by SBS 2003 would seem to promote hugging and sharing, Business Contact Manager would tend to do just the opposite and create an island of information in the small business. These two strategies are at odds.
Figure 6-30
Comparing Business Contact Manager and Microsoft CRM at a glance.
BEST PRACTICE: As of this writing, Microsoft is launching a promotion that bundles SBS 2003 and CRM 1.2. The details are found in a CRN article at: http://crn.channelsupersearch.com/news/
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
crn/45066.asp. The good news is that Microsoft is looking for ways to extend SBS with tools such as CRM 1.2 (and I’ll cover this pairing in my future advanced SBS 2003 book).
You acquire Business Contact Manager from Office 2003 (enterprise, professional, and small business editions). I’m not going to delve much deeper into the definition of Business Contract Manager but rather encourage you to take a short pause here and read more at www.microsoft.com/outlook. When you return, we’ll start the step by step to install Business Contact Manager and make a couple of entries as part of the SPRINGERS methodology.
Note that I assume you’ve already installed Office 2003 on the PRESIDENT workstation. If not, do so now with the normal or most common components installed.
BEST PRACTICE: Late breaking news again! Please run an update that allows BCM to function properly with Exchange e-mail profiles on SBS 2003 by visiting the Microsoft download center at www.microsoft.com/downloads and searching under Office Outlook and the keyword Business. There is a quick fix you’ll run prior to performing the procedure below.
1 Log on as NormH with the password Purple3300 on PRESIDENT.
2 Put the Outlook Business Contact Manager Disc in the CD drive of the PRESIDENT and launch Setup.exe.
3 Click OK when the Business Contact Manager for Outlook 2003 Setup dialog box asks for permission to detect and install the .Net framework 1.1.
4 Agree to the Microsoft .Net license by selecting I agree on the Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Setup screen and click Install. This setup can take several minutes. Click OK when the .NET Framework 1.1 is complete.
5 Click Next on the welcome page for Business Contact Manager.
6 On the End-User License Agreement page, select I accept the terms in the licenses agreement and click Next.
7 Accept the default destination on C: drive on the Destination Folder page and click Next.
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1 On the Ready to Install the Program page, click Install. You will be advised of the installation progress on the status bar.
2 Click Finish on the Wizard Completed page. You’ve now com
pleted the installation of Business Contact Manager. In the following procedure, you’ll launch Outlook and use Business Contract Manager.
1 Launch Outlook from Start, E-mail.
2 Observe and read the Welcome to Microsoft Outlook with Business Contact Manager e-mail. I’m counting on you to read this to learn more about the product as I won’t repeat it here.
3 Select Business Contacts from the Business Tools menu. Complete the screen, similar to Figure 6-31, for a fictional customer (e.g., Mrs. Jones). Click Save and Close to close the record.
Figure 6-31
Adding a business contact.
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
4. Select Accounts from Business Tools and complete the screen similar to Figure 6-32 with fictitious information. Be sure to add a business note and link Sally Jones. Click Save and Close.
Figure 6-32
Creating an account in BCM. You’re putting the pieces in place for a CRM system.
5. Next up, explore the other Business Tools menu options and create an Opportunity, Product List and, if connected to the Internet to launch a Web browser, select the Business Tools link that will take you to the BCM page at Microsoft for the latest updates.
Notes:
6. Finally, play around with the Reports option under the Business Tools menu. One such report is shown in Figure 6-33.
Figure 6-33
The fictitious information is shown in the Account List with Business Contact report.
Note that my intent isn’t to teach mastery of BCM but rather turn you on to this cool tool. Perhaps a full chapter in a future book will be dedicated to this tool for your reading pleasure.
BEST PRACTICE: BCM is a great start at delivering CRM to the “rest of us.” I encourage you to learn it, use it and provide feedback on it to Microsoft (the Outlook newsgroups are sufficient to do this). However, it’s necessary to understand that there are a couple of limitations for this, including that the BCM data doesn’t really play well with native Exchange mailbox data. That is, a contact record format in BCM is different than the traditional Exchange contact record format. Also, BCM kinda has this “island of information” mentality and this isn’t shared information. Rather, you should picture it as each salesperson in a company keeping their own CRM system
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
that is separate from everyone else’s. That is bothersome to me and at odds with attempts to centralize business information for the benefit (and profitability) of all.
I personally look for this limitation to be satisfied in a future BCM release, which is why I highly recommend you play with it today in anticipation of a better tomorrow.
Next Steps!
There are some next steps you can take that go above and beyond this chapter on Exchange and Outlook.
• Visit Microsoft Web Sites: Exchange and Outlook. Your very next step is to visit the sites at Microsoft for Exchange (www.microsoft.com/ exchange) and Outlook (www.microsoft.com/office and select the Outlook link). Microsoft posts much of its technical resources to its sites
and has created this treasure chest of current information on their products that this book can’t hope to keep up with!
• Read Exchange and Outlook Books. While this book covers the full suite of products in SBS 2003, there are many excellent (and thick) books dedicated to Outlook and Exchange. I can recommend the Outlook and Exchange Administrator’s Smart Pak (TechRepublic) with more information at https://techrepublic-secure.com.com/5106-624226-12333.html?part=tr&subj=12333.
• Use Microsoft TechNet to learn Exchange command line utilities. The second disc of the SBS 2003 media contains Exchange command-line utilities that help manage and recover the database. You should visit www.microsoft.com/technet and search on “Exchange” to learn more about these.
• Sign up for Sue Mosher’s RSS feed for Exchange and Outlook issues: http://www.slipstick.com/rssnews/rssnews.aspx.
• Read current articles on Exchange and Outlook. There is an interesting InfoWorld article on the role of Outlook 2003 and SBS 2003 (Enterprise Windows: Oliver Rist, November 7, 2003, www.infoworld.com).
• Learn more cool Outlook features. This chapter is only the start, not the end of your time with Outlook. Please go forward and educate yourself on the vCard capability to mail your contact record to others, the mail merge capability, and the automatic meeting planning tool.
• Read Chapter 8 of this book. I’ve not forgotten OWA and other remote Outlook connectivity approaches (such as Outlook Mobile Access, Outlook over RDP, etc.). These are covered in the remote connectivity chapter.
Late Breaking News!EICW Support Matter
Just when you thought it was safe to go out in the neighborhood again, Karen Christian of the North County Technology Group (www.nctg.com) sent in this nugget for your consumption. This involves both the EICW (which Karen calls the CEICW below) and remote access. As such, it serves as a great transition to the remote connectivity chapter you’ll read soon (Chapter 8).
11/11/2003
Here are the results of a couple calls to MS support and a couple TS sessions to my server in the last 24 hours. We could not connect via HTTPS from the Internet for OWA or Remote Web
Workplace and wanted to get this resolved. This server was SBS2000 w/ISA upgraded to SBS 2003 Basic/Premium. (Still have to install SQL via the Premium CD......think I’ll take a breather first.)
MS tried rerunning CEICW and did not get the desired results. They manually configured DNS, ISA and IIS and got it working late last night. Today they wanted to get the wizard to do its job the way it was intended. It required some
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
manual cleanup first which was not expected on their part. Guess this is another ’feature’ we have to keep in the back of our minds. Steps Performed:
1 Removed the Web Server Cert.
2 Removed the ISA Incoming Web Listener Cert
3 Removed the Web Publishing Rules
4 Removed the Destination Sets
5 Reran CEICW, and waited for services to restart. Services take a few minutes to restart, so ISA does not immediately show the changes. We are now able to connect as expected.
The expectation is that CEICW would have done all the updates and repair work needed but it didn’t work as anticipated.
BEST PRACTICE: When you run the CEICW that comes with SBS2003 Standard edition (Premium edition is just another CD and we didn’t have to install ISA as it was there from SBS2K already), you are given an opportunity to create a certificate if desired. You enter the Internet name (ie: servername.domainname.com). I found out today that the wizard process creates two certificates in the process. On my server it created one for nctgdc1.nctg.com and one for publishing.nctg.local. One is for the SSL session to ISA from the Internet and the other is for the SSL session from ISA to IIS. This problem originated when I created a certificate called nctgdc1.nctg.local which is incorrect. Still one would expect that rerunning CEICW would take care of this when you enter the correct certificate name.
Karen Christian
Thanks Karen!
Notes:
Summary
I end how I started. You know more about Exchange Server 2003 and Outlook 2003 than you’ve likely given yourself credit for in the past. You probably know about 80 percent of the functionality of the programs and it’s the remaining 20 percent that’ll take much longer to master. And, hopefully, after reading this chapter that dug deep in Exchange and Outlook, you feel you know much more than prior to reading all this stuff (of course I’ve left out some other advanced Exchange and Outlook topics that I’ll address in a future book down the road - keep reading!).
cheers...harrybbbb
Harry Brelsford - ceo of smb nation - www.smbnation.com and your fellow Microsoft Small Business Specialists (SBSC).
PS - smb nation fall confernce is merely 75+ days away and we are holding a gnarly SBS 2008\EBS 2008 LAUNCH PARTY!
###
Extending Outlook
In this section, you will learn a few ways to further extend your use of Outlook 2003 in an SBS 2003 environment. These approaches are taken directly from the real world and reflect the reality you’re likely to confront and embrace! Let’s start with Outlook PDA synchronization, followed by using Outlook Express with IMAP and ending with a totally cool add-on called Outlook Business Contact Manager.
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
Outlook PDA Synchronization
You might recall the Mobile Client and Offline Use page when you ran the Add User Wizard/Set Up Computer Wizard late in Chapter 4 (this page is shown below in Figure 6-27). It was here you elected to install ActiveSync 3.7 on the client computer. This is a required application to synchronize Outlook 2003 between a personal digital assistant (PDA) and the client computer machine.
Figure 6-27
This is the critical path step to install ActiveSync 3.7 on the client computer.
This is a VERY POPULAR SOLUTION with business people who want to carry Outlook information with them such as e-mail, contacts, and appointments on their PDA. This is how people work in the real world and they demand that this type of information be at their finger tips at any time. The way in which Outlook 2003 on the client computer will synchronize with the PDA using ActiveSync 3.7 is as follows.
ActiveSync 3.7 is installed on the client computer and ready for use. Assuming you use the Compaq/HP iPAQ PDA, you attach the cradle to the USB port on
Visit www.smbnation.com for additional SMB and SBS book, newsletter and conference resources.
the client computer. You place the iPAQ in the cradle and launch ActiveSync
3.7 from Start, All Programs, Microsoft ActiveSync on the client computer. You complete the wizard to create a partnership and elect what Outlook 2003 objects/data you want to synchronize. You then proceed to actually synchronize the data and resolve any conflicts (e.g., double bookings on your calendar with the exact same appointment). The process is shown in Figure 6-28.
Figure 6-28
An early and assured win with business customers and SBS users is to deploy ActiveSync 3.7 to synchronize Outlook 2003 data with a PDA, such as the IPAQ shown here.
BEST PRACTICE: The whole Outlook 2003/PDA synchronization matter exposes a weakness in SBS 2003 that you’ll need to utilize a third-party tool to correct: public folder synchronization. The problem is this. The SBS 2003 team is rightfully proud about creating the company-related public folder object discussed earlier in this chapter. For example, the contact list can be used as a company-wide contact list that eliminates duplicate lists of customers circulating
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
about the firm. But how would you get this great contact list to your IPAQ PDA? Not natively, but with some of the third-party synchronization tools reviewed at SlipStick: www.slipstick.com/ addins/olpda.htm#wince. You’ll learn about products such as Pocket Lookout that performs this important function.
You can also use a Microsoft tool, the Outlook 2002 Add-in: Pocket Contact Synchronizer 1.2, which will take the contact information in the company contact folder and synchronize it to your mailbox-based Contacts, which would then synchronize to your PDA via ActiveSync 3.7. Granted - it’s an additional step, but this shoe may well fit.
BEST PRACTICE: I just love late breaking news. The wonderful Susan Bradley, an MVP in the SBS and security areas, recently shared that Infoware - Team Contacts for Outlook at http://www.infoware.ca/ content/tcon.asp and http://www.infoware.ca/content/ infoframe.htm?tcon.asp synchronizes user contact lists with a central contact list in an Exchange public folder. This automatically merges changes when two users update the same contact in their personal Contacts folder.
Ride the Outlook Express With IMAP
I have a client who travels extensively for business and pleasure. Back in the SBS 2000 era, she complained that using Outlook Web Access (OWA, which I discuss in Chapter 8) was too bulky, slow, and awkward. Now granted, in just a few chapters I’ll show you why OWA has improved and should be the remote e-mail access mechanism of choice. But for some, there will still be a chance to use Outlook Express with the IMAP protocol to access e-mail. As you know, Outlook Express is typically installed when Internet Explorer is installed, making it a near universally available e-mail client (in Internet cafés in Spain and so on).
When you launch Outlook Express, you’ll need to configure the client machine to connect back to the SBS 2003 server, be authenticated, and use the IMAP protocol. This is accomplished by running the Outlook Express Internet
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Connection wizard. This third page (E-mail Server Names) is the tricky one. You need to drop down the protocol list and select IMAP and then complete the server connection information (Incoming, Outgoing) with either an IP address or a fully qualified domain name. You provide logon authentication information on the Internet Mail Logon page (this would be your user account and password on the SBS 2003 network). And then all that is left would be to click Finish.
So why IMAP? Haven’t we been throwing around the word POP3 in this chapter? SBS 2003 configures Exchange Server 2003 to support the SMTP, POP3, IMAP, and HTTP mail protocols. But IMAP offers the opportunity to efficiently download just the e-mail headers (but not the full e-mail). That would allow my client to scan the e-mails she wants to read and delete less worthy e-mails. The point is that the full e-mail isn’t downloaded until the e-mail is opened. This is a nice touch when working from an Internet café! Note that POP3 is going to download the entire e-mail to the client.
BEST PRACTICE: While Exchange Server 2003 installs and supports IMAP and POP3 natively, you’ll need to start these protocols in Exchange. For example, to turn on the IMAP protocol, you would drill down into the Exchange System Manager under Advanced Management in the Server Management console. Expand Servers, Protocols and open the IMAP4 protocol folder. On the right pane, right click Default IMAP4 Virtual Server and select Start. You’re now ready to use the IMAP-based e-mail in Exchange Server 2003 (and ergo, SBS 2003).
Notes:
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
This is an IMAP security setting that you need to make. If the RRAS NAT/ Basic Firewall method is your Internet security method (as per SBS 2003 standard edition), you would select the Internet Mail Access Protocol 4 (IMAP4) as seen in Figure 6-29 on the Services and Ports tab in the Network Connection Properties dailog box. This will allow IMAP-related traffic to flow baby!
Figure 6-29
Selecting the IMAP4 port opening on your SBS 2003 server. When asked which private IP address to map to, enter 127.0.0.1 (a dialog box will ask this when you select this service).
If ISA Server is your Internet security method (as per SBS 2003 premium edition), you would create a packet filter. You will do exactly that in Chapter 13, so hang on to your hat!
Outlook Business Contact Manager
This is known in some circles as customer relationship management (CRM) for da’ little guy, whereas Microsoft’s full CRM product is positioned for the firms between 25 and 500 employees with at least of $5 million in sales. Outlook Business Contact Manager is an Outlook 2003 add-on to help small business
people improve sales management. A comparison between Business Contact Manager and CRM is shown in Figure 6-30.
BEST PRACTICE: Be well aware that Business Contact Manager is SINGLE USER ONLY. That’s some good old expectation management up front and in your face because you might conclude that restriction will limit the functionality of this cool tool. Whereas the business public folders created by SBS 2003 would seem to promote hugging and sharing, Business Contact Manager would tend to do just the opposite and create an island of information in the small business. These two strategies are at odds.
Figure 6-30
Comparing Business Contact Manager and Microsoft CRM at a glance.
BEST PRACTICE: As of this writing, Microsoft is launching a promotion that bundles SBS 2003 and CRM 1.2. The details are found in a CRN article at: http://crn.channelsupersearch.com/news/
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
crn/45066.asp. The good news is that Microsoft is looking for ways to extend SBS with tools such as CRM 1.2 (and I’ll cover this pairing in my future advanced SBS 2003 book).
You acquire Business Contact Manager from Office 2003 (enterprise, professional, and small business editions). I’m not going to delve much deeper into the definition of Business Contract Manager but rather encourage you to take a short pause here and read more at www.microsoft.com/outlook. When you return, we’ll start the step by step to install Business Contact Manager and make a couple of entries as part of the SPRINGERS methodology.
Note that I assume you’ve already installed Office 2003 on the PRESIDENT workstation. If not, do so now with the normal or most common components installed.
BEST PRACTICE: Late breaking news again! Please run an update that allows BCM to function properly with Exchange e-mail profiles on SBS 2003 by visiting the Microsoft download center at www.microsoft.com/downloads and searching under Office Outlook and the keyword Business. There is a quick fix you’ll run prior to performing the procedure below.
1 Log on as NormH with the password Purple3300 on PRESIDENT.
2 Put the Outlook Business Contact Manager Disc in the CD drive of the PRESIDENT and launch Setup.exe.
3 Click OK when the Business Contact Manager for Outlook 2003 Setup dialog box asks for permission to detect and install the .Net framework 1.1.
4 Agree to the Microsoft .Net license by selecting I agree on the Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Setup screen and click Install. This setup can take several minutes. Click OK when the .NET Framework 1.1 is complete.
5 Click Next on the welcome page for Business Contact Manager.
6 On the End-User License Agreement page, select I accept the terms in the licenses agreement and click Next.
7 Accept the default destination on C: drive on the Destination Folder page and click Next.
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1 On the Ready to Install the Program page, click Install. You will be advised of the installation progress on the status bar.
2 Click Finish on the Wizard Completed page. You’ve now com
pleted the installation of Business Contact Manager. In the following procedure, you’ll launch Outlook and use Business Contract Manager.
1 Launch Outlook from Start, E-mail.
2 Observe and read the Welcome to Microsoft Outlook with Business Contact Manager e-mail. I’m counting on you to read this to learn more about the product as I won’t repeat it here.
3 Select Business Contacts from the Business Tools menu. Complete the screen, similar to Figure 6-31, for a fictional customer (e.g., Mrs. Jones). Click Save and Close to close the record.
Figure 6-31
Adding a business contact.
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
4. Select Accounts from Business Tools and complete the screen similar to Figure 6-32 with fictitious information. Be sure to add a business note and link Sally Jones. Click Save and Close.
Figure 6-32
Creating an account in BCM. You’re putting the pieces in place for a CRM system.
5. Next up, explore the other Business Tools menu options and create an Opportunity, Product List and, if connected to the Internet to launch a Web browser, select the Business Tools link that will take you to the BCM page at Microsoft for the latest updates.
Notes:
6. Finally, play around with the Reports option under the Business Tools menu. One such report is shown in Figure 6-33.
Figure 6-33
The fictitious information is shown in the Account List with Business Contact report.
Note that my intent isn’t to teach mastery of BCM but rather turn you on to this cool tool. Perhaps a full chapter in a future book will be dedicated to this tool for your reading pleasure.
BEST PRACTICE: BCM is a great start at delivering CRM to the “rest of us.” I encourage you to learn it, use it and provide feedback on it to Microsoft (the Outlook newsgroups are sufficient to do this). However, it’s necessary to understand that there are a couple of limitations for this, including that the BCM data doesn’t really play well with native Exchange mailbox data. That is, a contact record format in BCM is different than the traditional Exchange contact record format. Also, BCM kinda has this “island of information” mentality and this isn’t shared information. Rather, you should picture it as each salesperson in a company keeping their own CRM system
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
that is separate from everyone else’s. That is bothersome to me and at odds with attempts to centralize business information for the benefit (and profitability) of all.
I personally look for this limitation to be satisfied in a future BCM release, which is why I highly recommend you play with it today in anticipation of a better tomorrow.
Next Steps!
There are some next steps you can take that go above and beyond this chapter on Exchange and Outlook.
• Visit Microsoft Web Sites: Exchange and Outlook. Your very next step is to visit the sites at Microsoft for Exchange (www.microsoft.com/ exchange) and Outlook (www.microsoft.com/office and select the Outlook link). Microsoft posts much of its technical resources to its sites
and has created this treasure chest of current information on their products that this book can’t hope to keep up with!
• Read Exchange and Outlook Books. While this book covers the full suite of products in SBS 2003, there are many excellent (and thick) books dedicated to Outlook and Exchange. I can recommend the Outlook and Exchange Administrator’s Smart Pak (TechRepublic) with more information at https://techrepublic-secure.com.com/5106-624226-12333.html?part=tr&subj=12333.
• Use Microsoft TechNet to learn Exchange command line utilities. The second disc of the SBS 2003 media contains Exchange command-line utilities that help manage and recover the database. You should visit www.microsoft.com/technet and search on “Exchange” to learn more about these.
• Sign up for Sue Mosher’s RSS feed for Exchange and Outlook issues: http://www.slipstick.com/rssnews/rssnews.aspx.
• Read current articles on Exchange and Outlook. There is an interesting InfoWorld article on the role of Outlook 2003 and SBS 2003 (Enterprise Windows: Oliver Rist, November 7, 2003, www.infoworld.com).
• Learn more cool Outlook features. This chapter is only the start, not the end of your time with Outlook. Please go forward and educate yourself on the vCard capability to mail your contact record to others, the mail merge capability, and the automatic meeting planning tool.
• Read Chapter 8 of this book. I’ve not forgotten OWA and other remote Outlook connectivity approaches (such as Outlook Mobile Access, Outlook over RDP, etc.). These are covered in the remote connectivity chapter.
Late Breaking News!EICW Support Matter
Just when you thought it was safe to go out in the neighborhood again, Karen Christian of the North County Technology Group (www.nctg.com) sent in this nugget for your consumption. This involves both the EICW (which Karen calls the CEICW below) and remote access. As such, it serves as a great transition to the remote connectivity chapter you’ll read soon (Chapter 8).
11/11/2003
Here are the results of a couple calls to MS support and a couple TS sessions to my server in the last 24 hours. We could not connect via HTTPS from the Internet for OWA or Remote Web
Workplace and wanted to get this resolved. This server was SBS2000 w/ISA upgraded to SBS 2003 Basic/Premium. (Still have to install SQL via the Premium CD......think I’ll take a breather first.)
MS tried rerunning CEICW and did not get the desired results. They manually configured DNS, ISA and IIS and got it working late last night. Today they wanted to get the wizard to do its job the way it was intended. It required some
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
manual cleanup first which was not expected on their part. Guess this is another ’feature’ we have to keep in the back of our minds. Steps Performed:
1 Removed the Web Server Cert.
2 Removed the ISA Incoming Web Listener Cert
3 Removed the Web Publishing Rules
4 Removed the Destination Sets
5 Reran CEICW, and waited for services to restart. Services take a few minutes to restart, so ISA does not immediately show the changes. We are now able to connect as expected.
The expectation is that CEICW would have done all the updates and repair work needed but it didn’t work as anticipated.
BEST PRACTICE: When you run the CEICW that comes with SBS2003 Standard edition (Premium edition is just another CD and we didn’t have to install ISA as it was there from SBS2K already), you are given an opportunity to create a certificate if desired. You enter the Internet name (ie: servername.domainname.com). I found out today that the wizard process creates two certificates in the process. On my server it created one for nctgdc1.nctg.com and one for publishing.nctg.local. One is for the SSL session to ISA from the Internet and the other is for the SSL session from ISA to IIS. This problem originated when I created a certificate called nctgdc1.nctg.local which is incorrect. Still one would expect that rerunning CEICW would take care of this when you enter the correct certificate name.
Karen Christian
Thanks Karen!
Notes:
Summary
I end how I started. You know more about Exchange Server 2003 and Outlook 2003 than you’ve likely given yourself credit for in the past. You probably know about 80 percent of the functionality of the programs and it’s the remaining 20 percent that’ll take much longer to master. And, hopefully, after reading this chapter that dug deep in Exchange and Outlook, you feel you know much more than prior to reading all this stuff (of course I’ve left out some other advanced Exchange and Outlook topics that I’ll address in a future book down the road - keep reading!).
Saturday, July 26, 2008
More Outlook stuff inSBS 2003 [book excerpt]
Thanks for reading this weekend! Just posting up heaps of Outlook in SBS 2003 from my Windows Small Business Server 2003 Best PRactices book. Lots of stuff today:
Public folder procedures, sending Outlok e-mails to yourmobile telephone, using theJunk Mail and attachment blocking features inside Outlook, deleted item recovery - whew!
Enjoy the read...I am posting up a few pages per day until SBS 2008 ships (SBS 2008 is part of the new Essential Business Solutions family from Microsoft)
cheers...harrybbb
Harry Brelsford, CEO at SMB NAtion www.smbnation.com and your fellow Microsoft Small Business Specialist (SBSC),MBA, MCSE, MCT, CNE and smb consultant!
PS - our SMB Nation fall confernece is right around the corner - we are looking to host a community-basedSBS 2008 and EBS launch party on the Saturday night!
###
Public Folder Procedure
Before we go too much further, I need you to create a public folder called “fax” so that we can direct the faxes to this public folder a few chapters down the road. Because your screen should show the public folders at this point (from the completion of the procedure above), please right-click All Public Folders and select New Folder. Make the folder configured for Mail and Post Items. Click OK to complete the setup. You’ve just created something we both need in the faxing chapter to complete an example.
By the way, that “fax” public folder object you just created is SMTP mail enabled as fax@springersltd.com automatically. Very cool.
Attachment Blocking
Something folks love and curse is the native attachment blocking in Outlook 2003. They love it because it protects them from harmful e-mail attachments. They curse it because, in the heat of business battle, you can’t get to your darn tootin’ attachment that is mission-critical. But let’s fight fire with facts here.
There are two levels of attachment blocking in Outlook 2003. Level 1 is fixed, can’t be changed, and includes the following attachments (these are the file extensions): ade, adp, app, bas, bat, chm, cmd, com, cpl, crt, csh, exe, fxp, hlp, hta, inf, ins, isp, js, jse, ksh, lnk, mda, mdb, mde, mdt, mdw, mdz, msc, msi, msp, mst, ops, pcd, pif, prf, prg, reg, scf, scr, sct, shb, shs, url, vb, vbe, vbs, wsc, wsf, wsh, xsl.
BEST PRACTICE: These file types are defined when you type
“attachment blocking” in the Outlook 2003 help system and select
the Attachment file types blocked by Outlook link.
Level 2 is more liberal and prompts the user to save the file type to a hard disk. An Exchange administrator can allow a file type to be moved from Level 1 to Level 2 to allow this saving (the Exchange administrator can also modify the above list of Level 1 files). Note that the native SBS 2003 attachment blocking capability discussed earlier in this chapter will come into play interacting with Outlook on the network and the most conservative attachment blocking list will win between Outlook and SBS 2003.
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
BEST PRACTICE: You can get an offending attachment around the blockade by simply renaming it to an acceptable file format, such as *.doc (for a Word document). Then rename the file type back to its original name once you’ve saved it to your C: drive. This is commonly done with file attachments ending in *.exe because this attachment type might be a legitimate business program that need to be received.
Junk E-mail
Microsoft has one of the largest research and development (R&D) budgets in the corporate world. Sometimes, shareholders get a little fussy with billions being spent on R&D because they want to see things that immediately contribute to current earnings. One positive R&D payoff is the sophisticated junk e-mail management approach built in to Outlook 2003 (this was actually spelled out as one of the points in the Outlook 2003 welcome e-mail you were asked to read earlier). Since I won’t sit here and retype the online help system in Outlook 2003, if you’d like to learn more about the Junk E-mail capability at a deep level, simply search on the term “Junk e-mail” in Outlook 2003 Help and select the About the Junk E-mail Filer link.
Back to the real world. You’re probably interested in knowing how to configure the Junk E-mail capabilities in Outlook 2003. It’s simple. Just select Tools, Options, Junk E-mail in Outlook 2003. The Junk E-mail Options dialog box will appear, as seen in Figure 6-23. You can then change the default setting (Low) to a different level.
Notes:
Figure 6-23
This figure shows all of the settings on Junk E-mail Options. But, equally important, look over to the left and observe the Junk E-mail folder under the Folder List. This is where e-mails are moved.
So if you’re a Microsoft shareholder, now you know how your R&D dollars are being spent!
BEST PRACTICE: You simply must read this white paper/analysis on the internals of Outlook spam blocking. I first learned of this from the W2KNews newsletter (www.w2knews.com) that goes out to about a half-million readers (as an author, I can tell you that is a very large number of readers!). So click over to http://www.mapilab.com/articles/ outlook_spam_filter.html and see the report from MAPI Lab. Excellent!
Junk Users
Maybe you can relate to the following situation. I’m on an e-mail list that has some annoying and verbose members. For business purposes, I can’t leave the list, but I often become frustrated with the quantity of e-mails (often of a soap
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
opera nature) that clog my Inbox. Because I’m committed to staying focused on core business operations, and I’d rather review these distracting e-mails at a future decade (I mean date), I use a rule to move them to a folder titled “Much Later, Dude.”
If you’d like to implement a similar approach in the management of your e-mails (or perhaps your SBS users would like to do this), then select Rules and Actions from the Tools menu in Outlook 2003. Then select New Rule and click Move messages from someone to a folder under Stay Organized (Figure 6-24).
Figure 6-24
This is the first step to bringing better management to many of the e-mails you receive from known babblers!
You would then click Next and complete the Rules Wizard where you’ll configure e-mails from certain people to be moved to a folder and out of your Inbox (for example, you’ll enter the e-mail address of folks whose e-mail you want moved).
BEST PRACTICE: Perhaps you’re just discovering this cool capability later in life and you’ve got an Inbox full of distracting e-mails you want to move. On the final page of the Rules Wizard, you have an option called Run this rule now on messages already in “Inbox” so that, post-hoc, you can improve the quality of your Inbox life.
Recovery Movement
No, this isn’t about a battle with the bottle. Rather, this is how to recover deleted e-mail and move it back into the Inbox or the folder of your choice. To learn this capability using Exchange’s delete item recovery capability (set to retain e-mails for 30-days by default in SBS 2003), complete the following procedure:
1 If necessary, have NormH log on to PRESIDENT with the password Purple3300.
2 In Outlook 2003, delete the e-mail from Norm Hasborn by dragging it to the Deleted Items folder.
3 Right-click the Deleted Items folder and select Empty “Deleted Items” Folder. Select Yes when asked in the Microsoft Office Outlook dialog box if you really want to delete the item. Observe the Deleted Items folder is now empty and would appear you’ve lost this e-mail forever.
4 Now you will recover the deleted e-mail by selecting the Deleted Items folder and then selecting the Recover Deleted Items menu option under the Tools menu.
5 NormH’s e-mail appears in the Recover Deleted Items from Deleted Items dialog box that appears (Figure 6-25). Make sure this e-mail is highlighted and click the Recover Selected Items button. The e-mail will be returned to the Deleted Items folder.
6 Move the e-mail from Deleted Items back to Inbox.
Notes:
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
Figure 6-25
E-mails that have been deleted within the retention period (30-days by default in SBS 2003) will appear here.
Forwarding E-mail to Your Mobile Telephone
Something that is increasingly popular is the ability to forward e-mails to your telephone. That’s because numerous technologies are converging and breaking down functional and feature barriers. Heck - many brands of mobile telephone now include cameras, so why not e-mail too?
The key would be to forward the e-mails to your telephone. Of course, you’d want to keep a copy of it in your server-based mailbox, because telephones aren’t a good permanent repository and reading a large attachment on a telephone is darn near impossible! So here are the steps you’d take to forward e-mails to your mobile telephone (using the SPRINGERS methodology of course).
1. If necessary, have NormH log on to PRESIDENT with the pass
word Purple3300.
2. In Outlook 2003, select Rules and Alerts from the Tools menu.
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1 Select Send an alert to my mobile device when I get a message from someone and click Next.
2 Under the Step 1: Select conditions list, deselect the default selection of “from people or distribution list” and select “where my name is in the To or Cc box” and then click Next. This will effectively forward all e-mail sent to you.
3 On the following Select actions page, keep the default selection of “forward it to people or distribution list” and click Next. On the lower part of this page, click the people or distribution list hyperlink
4 The Rule Address dialog box appears. Type the e-mail address of your mobile telephone in the To -> field. For example, you might type something like 2065551212@tmobile.com. Click OK.
5 Click Finish followed by OK to close Rules and Alerts.
BEST PRACTICE: Related to the forwarding concept, note that I’ve used the Active Directory contact object forwarding capability when a customer has a remote office that uses (and will continue to use) POP3 e-mail. The good folks at the home office, seeking to create a uniform e-mail organization/image, will create an Active Directory user for the employee at the remote site. That allows the internal employees to e-mail the remote employee directly from the GAL in Exchange and so on. But this remote employee also has an associated Active Directory contact object that is really the e-mail address for their POP3 account. And voila, the forwarding occurs from the Active Directory user to the Active Directory contact object. How? On the property sheet for an Active Directory user (let’s say Norm), click the Exchange General tab, click the Delivery Options button, and complete the Forwarding address box. Be sure to leave a copy on the server!
Cached Exchange Mode
Something you’ll readily appreciate in Outlook 2003 will be Cached Exchange Mode that is set by default for all SBS 2003 users. This allows you to work offline with Outlook 2003 when Exchange is down for maintenance, you are traveling, or you have a slow link (56K modem) connection back to the server. What’s cool is that this is implemented by default and removes a task that you
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
and I performed manually at each user machine in the past: configuring offline storage (OST files). Bottom line: You can work with Outlook 2003 very effectively while on a plane, train, automobile, or “no-tell” motel room full of swimsuit models!
Microsoft does a dandy job of explaining Cached Exchange Mode at http:// office.microsoft.com/assistance/preview.aspx?AssetID=HP052516521033 &CTT=98 (this can also be found by drilling down into Outlook from www.microsoft.com/office and then clicking the Assistance link). I encourage you to read more about this.
It’s Client, Not Server!
If you completed the initial online SBS 2003 hands-on lab offered at www.microsoft.granitepillar.com/partners in the early fall of 2003, you would recall that the Part #3 of that courseware had you run Outlook 2003 on the SBS 2003 server machine and click past an important warning message. The point I want to make is that you should not run Outlook 2003 on the SBS 2003 server machine, and that warning message you receive, seen in Figure 6-26, is to be honored. Bottom line: Run Outlook 2003 on the client computer, not the SBS 2003 server machine.
Notes:
Figure 6-26
This message discusses why Outlook 2003 should not be run on the SBS 2003 server machine. There are TechNet KBase articles that also discuss this issue you might want to read.
BEST PRACTICE: Some of you will recall that, in my Small Business Server 2000 Best Practices book, I had you run Outlook 2000 on the SBS 2000 server machine to save time. I was wrong, and I didn’t do it again!
Public folder procedures, sending Outlok e-mails to yourmobile telephone, using theJunk Mail and attachment blocking features inside Outlook, deleted item recovery - whew!
Enjoy the read...I am posting up a few pages per day until SBS 2008 ships (SBS 2008 is part of the new Essential Business Solutions family from Microsoft)
cheers...harrybbb
Harry Brelsford, CEO at SMB NAtion www.smbnation.com and your fellow Microsoft Small Business Specialist (SBSC),MBA, MCSE, MCT, CNE and smb consultant!
PS - our SMB Nation fall confernece is right around the corner - we are looking to host a community-basedSBS 2008 and EBS launch party on the Saturday night!
###
Public Folder Procedure
Before we go too much further, I need you to create a public folder called “fax” so that we can direct the faxes to this public folder a few chapters down the road. Because your screen should show the public folders at this point (from the completion of the procedure above), please right-click All Public Folders and select New Folder. Make the folder configured for Mail and Post Items. Click OK to complete the setup. You’ve just created something we both need in the faxing chapter to complete an example.
By the way, that “fax” public folder object you just created is SMTP mail enabled as fax@springersltd.com automatically. Very cool.
Attachment Blocking
Something folks love and curse is the native attachment blocking in Outlook 2003. They love it because it protects them from harmful e-mail attachments. They curse it because, in the heat of business battle, you can’t get to your darn tootin’ attachment that is mission-critical. But let’s fight fire with facts here.
There are two levels of attachment blocking in Outlook 2003. Level 1 is fixed, can’t be changed, and includes the following attachments (these are the file extensions): ade, adp, app, bas, bat, chm, cmd, com, cpl, crt, csh, exe, fxp, hlp, hta, inf, ins, isp, js, jse, ksh, lnk, mda, mdb, mde, mdt, mdw, mdz, msc, msi, msp, mst, ops, pcd, pif, prf, prg, reg, scf, scr, sct, shb, shs, url, vb, vbe, vbs, wsc, wsf, wsh, xsl.
BEST PRACTICE: These file types are defined when you type
“attachment blocking” in the Outlook 2003 help system and select
the Attachment file types blocked by Outlook link.
Level 2 is more liberal and prompts the user to save the file type to a hard disk. An Exchange administrator can allow a file type to be moved from Level 1 to Level 2 to allow this saving (the Exchange administrator can also modify the above list of Level 1 files). Note that the native SBS 2003 attachment blocking capability discussed earlier in this chapter will come into play interacting with Outlook on the network and the most conservative attachment blocking list will win between Outlook and SBS 2003.
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
BEST PRACTICE: You can get an offending attachment around the blockade by simply renaming it to an acceptable file format, such as *.doc (for a Word document). Then rename the file type back to its original name once you’ve saved it to your C: drive. This is commonly done with file attachments ending in *.exe because this attachment type might be a legitimate business program that need to be received.
Junk E-mail
Microsoft has one of the largest research and development (R&D) budgets in the corporate world. Sometimes, shareholders get a little fussy with billions being spent on R&D because they want to see things that immediately contribute to current earnings. One positive R&D payoff is the sophisticated junk e-mail management approach built in to Outlook 2003 (this was actually spelled out as one of the points in the Outlook 2003 welcome e-mail you were asked to read earlier). Since I won’t sit here and retype the online help system in Outlook 2003, if you’d like to learn more about the Junk E-mail capability at a deep level, simply search on the term “Junk e-mail” in Outlook 2003 Help and select the About the Junk E-mail Filer link.
Back to the real world. You’re probably interested in knowing how to configure the Junk E-mail capabilities in Outlook 2003. It’s simple. Just select Tools, Options, Junk E-mail in Outlook 2003. The Junk E-mail Options dialog box will appear, as seen in Figure 6-23. You can then change the default setting (Low) to a different level.
Notes:
Figure 6-23
This figure shows all of the settings on Junk E-mail Options. But, equally important, look over to the left and observe the Junk E-mail folder under the Folder List. This is where e-mails are moved.
So if you’re a Microsoft shareholder, now you know how your R&D dollars are being spent!
BEST PRACTICE: You simply must read this white paper/analysis on the internals of Outlook spam blocking. I first learned of this from the W2KNews newsletter (www.w2knews.com) that goes out to about a half-million readers (as an author, I can tell you that is a very large number of readers!). So click over to http://www.mapilab.com/articles/ outlook_spam_filter.html and see the report from MAPI Lab. Excellent!
Junk Users
Maybe you can relate to the following situation. I’m on an e-mail list that has some annoying and verbose members. For business purposes, I can’t leave the list, but I often become frustrated with the quantity of e-mails (often of a soap
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
opera nature) that clog my Inbox. Because I’m committed to staying focused on core business operations, and I’d rather review these distracting e-mails at a future decade (I mean date), I use a rule to move them to a folder titled “Much Later, Dude.”
If you’d like to implement a similar approach in the management of your e-mails (or perhaps your SBS users would like to do this), then select Rules and Actions from the Tools menu in Outlook 2003. Then select New Rule and click Move messages from someone to a folder under Stay Organized (Figure 6-24).
Figure 6-24
This is the first step to bringing better management to many of the e-mails you receive from known babblers!
You would then click Next and complete the Rules Wizard where you’ll configure e-mails from certain people to be moved to a folder and out of your Inbox (for example, you’ll enter the e-mail address of folks whose e-mail you want moved).
BEST PRACTICE: Perhaps you’re just discovering this cool capability later in life and you’ve got an Inbox full of distracting e-mails you want to move. On the final page of the Rules Wizard, you have an option called Run this rule now on messages already in “Inbox” so that, post-hoc, you can improve the quality of your Inbox life.
Recovery Movement
No, this isn’t about a battle with the bottle. Rather, this is how to recover deleted e-mail and move it back into the Inbox or the folder of your choice. To learn this capability using Exchange’s delete item recovery capability (set to retain e-mails for 30-days by default in SBS 2003), complete the following procedure:
1 If necessary, have NormH log on to PRESIDENT with the password Purple3300.
2 In Outlook 2003, delete the e-mail from Norm Hasborn by dragging it to the Deleted Items folder.
3 Right-click the Deleted Items folder and select Empty “Deleted Items” Folder. Select Yes when asked in the Microsoft Office Outlook dialog box if you really want to delete the item. Observe the Deleted Items folder is now empty and would appear you’ve lost this e-mail forever.
4 Now you will recover the deleted e-mail by selecting the Deleted Items folder and then selecting the Recover Deleted Items menu option under the Tools menu.
5 NormH’s e-mail appears in the Recover Deleted Items from Deleted Items dialog box that appears (Figure 6-25). Make sure this e-mail is highlighted and click the Recover Selected Items button. The e-mail will be returned to the Deleted Items folder.
6 Move the e-mail from Deleted Items back to Inbox.
Notes:
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
Figure 6-25
E-mails that have been deleted within the retention period (30-days by default in SBS 2003) will appear here.
Forwarding E-mail to Your Mobile Telephone
Something that is increasingly popular is the ability to forward e-mails to your telephone. That’s because numerous technologies are converging and breaking down functional and feature barriers. Heck - many brands of mobile telephone now include cameras, so why not e-mail too?
The key would be to forward the e-mails to your telephone. Of course, you’d want to keep a copy of it in your server-based mailbox, because telephones aren’t a good permanent repository and reading a large attachment on a telephone is darn near impossible! So here are the steps you’d take to forward e-mails to your mobile telephone (using the SPRINGERS methodology of course).
1. If necessary, have NormH log on to PRESIDENT with the pass
word Purple3300.
2. In Outlook 2003, select Rules and Alerts from the Tools menu.
Visit www.smbnation.com for additional SMB and SBS book, newsletter and conference resources.
1 Select Send an alert to my mobile device when I get a message from someone and click Next.
2 Under the Step 1: Select conditions list, deselect the default selection of “from people or distribution list” and select “where my name is in the To or Cc box” and then click Next. This will effectively forward all e-mail sent to you.
3 On the following Select actions page, keep the default selection of “forward it to people or distribution list” and click Next. On the lower part of this page, click the people or distribution list hyperlink
4 The Rule Address dialog box appears. Type the e-mail address of your mobile telephone in the To -> field. For example, you might type something like 2065551212@tmobile.com. Click OK.
5 Click Finish followed by OK to close Rules and Alerts.
BEST PRACTICE: Related to the forwarding concept, note that I’ve used the Active Directory contact object forwarding capability when a customer has a remote office that uses (and will continue to use) POP3 e-mail. The good folks at the home office, seeking to create a uniform e-mail organization/image, will create an Active Directory user for the employee at the remote site. That allows the internal employees to e-mail the remote employee directly from the GAL in Exchange and so on. But this remote employee also has an associated Active Directory contact object that is really the e-mail address for their POP3 account. And voila, the forwarding occurs from the Active Directory user to the Active Directory contact object. How? On the property sheet for an Active Directory user (let’s say Norm), click the Exchange General tab, click the Delivery Options button, and complete the Forwarding address box. Be sure to leave a copy on the server!
Cached Exchange Mode
Something you’ll readily appreciate in Outlook 2003 will be Cached Exchange Mode that is set by default for all SBS 2003 users. This allows you to work offline with Outlook 2003 when Exchange is down for maintenance, you are traveling, or you have a slow link (56K modem) connection back to the server. What’s cool is that this is implemented by default and removes a task that you
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
and I performed manually at each user machine in the past: configuring offline storage (OST files). Bottom line: You can work with Outlook 2003 very effectively while on a plane, train, automobile, or “no-tell” motel room full of swimsuit models!
Microsoft does a dandy job of explaining Cached Exchange Mode at http:// office.microsoft.com/assistance/preview.aspx?AssetID=HP052516521033 &CTT=98 (this can also be found by drilling down into Outlook from www.microsoft.com/office and then clicking the Assistance link). I encourage you to read more about this.
It’s Client, Not Server!
If you completed the initial online SBS 2003 hands-on lab offered at www.microsoft.granitepillar.com/partners in the early fall of 2003, you would recall that the Part #3 of that courseware had you run Outlook 2003 on the SBS 2003 server machine and click past an important warning message. The point I want to make is that you should not run Outlook 2003 on the SBS 2003 server machine, and that warning message you receive, seen in Figure 6-26, is to be honored. Bottom line: Run Outlook 2003 on the client computer, not the SBS 2003 server machine.
Notes:
Figure 6-26
This message discusses why Outlook 2003 should not be run on the SBS 2003 server machine. There are TechNet KBase articles that also discuss this issue you might want to read.
BEST PRACTICE: Some of you will recall that, in my Small Business Server 2000 Best Practices book, I had you run Outlook 2000 on the SBS 2000 server machine to save time. I was wrong, and I didn’t do it again!
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Microsoft announces SBS 2008 details, pricing
Just released gang
Microsoft Announces Public Preview and Pricing for Windows Essential Server Solutions
Customers and partners begin evaluating pre-release versions of Windows Small Business Server 2008 and Windows Essential Business Server 2008.
Related Links
Microsoft Resources:
•
Multiply Your Power Web site
•
Small Business Server 2003 Rebate Offer Web site
•
Microsoft Windows Essential Server Solutions Web site
•
Windows Essential Server Solutions Virtual Pressroom
REDMOND, Wash. — May 13, 2008 — Customers and Microsoft Corp. partners can now visit http://www.MultiplyYourPower.com to find out how to evaluate pre-release versions of Windows Essential Server Solutions for small and midsize companies: Windows Small Business Server 2008 and Windows Essential Business Server 2008. Microsoft also today announced pricing for both solutions.
By combining Microsoft technologies such as Windows Server 2008, Exchange Server 2007, SQL Server 2008 and other Microsoft products and services into all-in-one IT solutions, Windows Essential Server Solutions help businesses improve efficiency, increase productivity and drive growth. The solutions also are ideal for technology advisors serving the increasingly sophisticated IT needs of small and midsize customers.
“Small and midsize companies are looking for many of the same IT capabilities and benefits as those sought by large enterprises,” said Ray Boggs, vice president Small/Medium Business Research at IDC. “But the technology has to be delivered as part of simpler, integrated and more affordable solutions for organizations with minimal IT staffs and resources. And of course it helps if solutions are also tailored to meet the needs of technology consultants that often work with those small and midsize firms.”
Beta Program Participants Already Seeing Value
A number of customers and partners already have been privately testing Windows Essential Server Solutions, providing valuable feedback to Microsoft. They already are reporting great benefits, too.
Sumeeth Evans is director of IT for Collegiate Housing Services, a company that coordinates student housing for colleges. He said, “With Essential Business Server 2008, our administrative workload is one-tenth of what it was before. This is the largest step forward we have ever seen in terms of our ability to focus technology on real business needs.”
Dave Benson is founder and chief financial officer of Epicurean Cutting Surfaces, which creates popular kitchen cutting boards and utensils using sustainable materials. He said, “Small Business Server 2008 is advanced software that eliminates a lot of wasted time and allows us to focus on our business goals and to sell globally.”
Erik Thorsell, president of Success Computer Consulting in Minneapolis, said, “Small Business Server 2008 and Essential Business Server 2008 are both designed with me and my clients in mind. They make it easy for me to give my customers the freedom to work effectively from home or on the road.”
Solutions Designed and Priced for Small and Midsize Businesses
Slated for general availability later this year, Windows Essential Server Solutions are much easier for small and midsize companies to implement and manage than separate products. In response to customer and partner feedback, Windows Essential Server Solutions provide flexible pricing and licensing that offer substantial cost savings over purchasing individual products like those included in the solutions. Examples of licensing improvements over the current Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 product include these:
•
Customers will be able to purchase single client access licenses (CALs), so they will pay only for the exact number of employees using the product.
•
Customers can cost-effectively purchase a mix of Standard or Premium CALs, as appropriate to the technologies that individual employees are using.
•
CALs now apply to other copies of Windows Server, SQL Server or Exchange Server on the network, eliminating the need to purchase additional CALs.
Also, Small Business Server 2008 Premium Edition includes additional Windows Server 2008 Standard technologies with SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition for Small Business, making it an ideal platform for critical business applications.
Windows Essential Server Solutions pricing* is as follows:
•
Windows Small Business Server 2008 Standard Edition software, including five CALs, $1,089 (U.S.); additional CALs $77 each (U.S.)
•
Windows Small Business Server 2008 Premium Edition software, including five CALs, $1,899 (U.S.); additional CALs $189 each (U.S.)
•
Windows Essential Business Server 2008 Standard Edition software, including five CALs, $5,472 (U.S.); additional CALs $81 each (U.S.)
•
Windows Essential Business Server 2008 Premium Edition software, including five CALs, $7,163 (U.S.); additional CALs $195 each (U.S.)
Microsoft also today announced rebates of up to $200 (U.S.) for solution provider partners configuring Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 for their clients who acquire the software and purchase Software Assurance within a certain time period. With Software Assurance, customers will receive the upgrade to Small Business Server 2008 at no additional cost when it is available, as well as access to support, tools and training. Terms and conditions of the rebates are available at http://www.SBSrebate.com.
More information about the products, pricing and beta customer feedback is available at http://www.microsoft.com/ess. More information for journalists is available at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/serversolutions.
Microsoft Announces Public Preview and Pricing for Windows Essential Server Solutions
Customers and partners begin evaluating pre-release versions of Windows Small Business Server 2008 and Windows Essential Business Server 2008.
Related Links
Microsoft Resources:
•
Multiply Your Power Web site
•
Small Business Server 2003 Rebate Offer Web site
•
Microsoft Windows Essential Server Solutions Web site
•
Windows Essential Server Solutions Virtual Pressroom
REDMOND, Wash. — May 13, 2008 — Customers and Microsoft Corp. partners can now visit http://www.MultiplyYourPower.com to find out how to evaluate pre-release versions of Windows Essential Server Solutions for small and midsize companies: Windows Small Business Server 2008 and Windows Essential Business Server 2008. Microsoft also today announced pricing for both solutions.
By combining Microsoft technologies such as Windows Server 2008, Exchange Server 2007, SQL Server 2008 and other Microsoft products and services into all-in-one IT solutions, Windows Essential Server Solutions help businesses improve efficiency, increase productivity and drive growth. The solutions also are ideal for technology advisors serving the increasingly sophisticated IT needs of small and midsize customers.
“Small and midsize companies are looking for many of the same IT capabilities and benefits as those sought by large enterprises,” said Ray Boggs, vice president Small/Medium Business Research at IDC. “But the technology has to be delivered as part of simpler, integrated and more affordable solutions for organizations with minimal IT staffs and resources. And of course it helps if solutions are also tailored to meet the needs of technology consultants that often work with those small and midsize firms.”
Beta Program Participants Already Seeing Value
A number of customers and partners already have been privately testing Windows Essential Server Solutions, providing valuable feedback to Microsoft. They already are reporting great benefits, too.
Sumeeth Evans is director of IT for Collegiate Housing Services, a company that coordinates student housing for colleges. He said, “With Essential Business Server 2008, our administrative workload is one-tenth of what it was before. This is the largest step forward we have ever seen in terms of our ability to focus technology on real business needs.”
Dave Benson is founder and chief financial officer of Epicurean Cutting Surfaces, which creates popular kitchen cutting boards and utensils using sustainable materials. He said, “Small Business Server 2008 is advanced software that eliminates a lot of wasted time and allows us to focus on our business goals and to sell globally.”
Erik Thorsell, president of Success Computer Consulting in Minneapolis, said, “Small Business Server 2008 and Essential Business Server 2008 are both designed with me and my clients in mind. They make it easy for me to give my customers the freedom to work effectively from home or on the road.”
Solutions Designed and Priced for Small and Midsize Businesses
Slated for general availability later this year, Windows Essential Server Solutions are much easier for small and midsize companies to implement and manage than separate products. In response to customer and partner feedback, Windows Essential Server Solutions provide flexible pricing and licensing that offer substantial cost savings over purchasing individual products like those included in the solutions. Examples of licensing improvements over the current Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 product include these:
•
Customers will be able to purchase single client access licenses (CALs), so they will pay only for the exact number of employees using the product.
•
Customers can cost-effectively purchase a mix of Standard or Premium CALs, as appropriate to the technologies that individual employees are using.
•
CALs now apply to other copies of Windows Server, SQL Server or Exchange Server on the network, eliminating the need to purchase additional CALs.
Also, Small Business Server 2008 Premium Edition includes additional Windows Server 2008 Standard technologies with SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition for Small Business, making it an ideal platform for critical business applications.
Windows Essential Server Solutions pricing* is as follows:
•
Windows Small Business Server 2008 Standard Edition software, including five CALs, $1,089 (U.S.); additional CALs $77 each (U.S.)
•
Windows Small Business Server 2008 Premium Edition software, including five CALs, $1,899 (U.S.); additional CALs $189 each (U.S.)
•
Windows Essential Business Server 2008 Standard Edition software, including five CALs, $5,472 (U.S.); additional CALs $81 each (U.S.)
•
Windows Essential Business Server 2008 Premium Edition software, including five CALs, $7,163 (U.S.); additional CALs $195 each (U.S.)
Microsoft also today announced rebates of up to $200 (U.S.) for solution provider partners configuring Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 for their clients who acquire the software and purchase Software Assurance within a certain time period. With Software Assurance, customers will receive the upgrade to Small Business Server 2008 at no additional cost when it is available, as well as access to support, tools and training. Terms and conditions of the rebates are available at http://www.SBSrebate.com.
More information about the products, pricing and beta customer feedback is available at http://www.microsoft.com/ess. More information for journalists is available at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/serversolutions.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Are you at the IT Pro Conference in NOLA?
Hope you are enjoying a great few days at Jeff Middleton's conference in New Orleans! If you are - please intorduce yourself to Chris Bangs at our booth. He is from NOLA and enjoying a weekend back home while working the show. He is a geek so he will fit right in!
Anyways - enjoy the ride - looks like a great conference. And as for me? I am home for Mothers Day weekend...time to be a Dad!
harrybbbbb
Anyways - enjoy the ride - looks like a great conference. And as for me? I am home for Mothers Day weekend...time to be a Dad!
harrybbbbb
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
HandyAndy's Monthly Chat - this WEDNESDAY - Pre-Turkey Day
From Handy Andy:
Hi Gang,
Don’t forget our pre-turkey chat tomorrow at 7:00pm eastern (gmt -5)
Yes while you are dreaming about stuffing yourselves the next day with turkey and all the trimmings, stop by and stuff your brain with useful tidbits about SMB.
I am heading for Maryland tomorrow but should be there in time to join y’all for the chat
www.sbsmigration.com/chat
See you then,
Gobble Gobble
Ps Thanksgiving is a US holiday usually celebrated by stuffing oneself in the bounties of the harvest, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving
Hi Gang,
Don’t forget our pre-turkey chat tomorrow at 7:00pm eastern (gmt -5)
Yes while you are dreaming about stuffing yourselves the next day with turkey and all the trimmings, stop by and stuff your brain with useful tidbits about SMB.
I am heading for Maryland tomorrow but should be there in time to join y’all for the chat
www.sbsmigration.com/chat
See you then,
Gobble Gobble
Ps Thanksgiving is a US holiday usually celebrated by stuffing oneself in the bounties of the harvest, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
New 70-282 book with 70-631 exam content and more SBSC stuff
Hey - I am just about to sign off on the blue lines for the new Small Business Specialist Primer that Beatrice wrote this summer\fall...it is a 760-page whopper! All new 70-282 questions to pass that @#$%$%^ exam and a three chapter section on 70-631 Configuring Windows SharePoint Services (WSS).
Details at our Web site: http://www.smbnation.com/
Thanks!
Harry
Details at our Web site: http://www.smbnation.com/
Thanks!
Harry
Monday, November 12, 2007
MS Pricing Announced on Response Point (lower), Windows Server 2008
Good morning everyone - MS has updated it pricing for its small business telephone system and announced prcing for its upcoming server launch.
First - check out the new Web site at www.microsoft.com/responsepoint
The Response Point pricing amounts to a price reduction:
· The D-Link VoiceCenter package includes a base unit, a four phone-line analog telephone adapter and five desktop phones for approximately $2,500 $2,999.
· Additional Quanta phones are $159; D-Link will sell additional phones for approximately $139 $149.
· A complete Quanta Syspine package that includes a base unit with built-in analog telephone adapter (ATA) and secure gateway, plus four phones, for approximately $2,500.
· A complete 20-phone system from D-Link or Quanta for less than $5,500.
OK - now the Windows ERver 2008 pricing:
•
Windows Server 2008 Standard: $999 (with five Client Access Licenses, or CALs)
•
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise: $3,999 (with 25 CALs)
•
Windows Server 2008 Datacenter: $2,999 (per processor)
•
Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-based Systems: $2,999 (per processor)
•
Windows Web Server 2008: $469
•
Windows Server 2008 Standard without Hyper-V: $971 (with five CALs)
•
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise without Hyper-V: $3,971 (with 25 CALs)
•
Windows Server 2008 Datacenter without Hyper-V: $2,971 (per processor)
First - check out the new Web site at www.microsoft.com/responsepoint
The Response Point pricing amounts to a price reduction:
· The D-Link VoiceCenter package includes a base unit, a four phone-line analog telephone adapter and five desktop phones for approximately $2,500 $2,999.
· Additional Quanta phones are $159; D-Link will sell additional phones for approximately $139 $149.
· A complete Quanta Syspine package that includes a base unit with built-in analog telephone adapter (ATA) and secure gateway, plus four phones, for approximately $2,500.
· A complete 20-phone system from D-Link or Quanta for less than $5,500.
OK - now the Windows ERver 2008 pricing:
•
Windows Server 2008 Standard: $999 (with five Client Access Licenses, or CALs)
•
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise: $3,999 (with 25 CALs)
•
Windows Server 2008 Datacenter: $2,999 (per processor)
•
Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-based Systems: $2,999 (per processor)
•
Windows Web Server 2008: $469
•
Windows Server 2008 Standard without Hyper-V: $971 (with five CALs)
•
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise without Hyper-V: $3,971 (with 25 CALs)
•
Windows Server 2008 Datacenter without Hyper-V: $2,971 (per processor)
Thursday, November 8, 2007
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.
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