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:
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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.)
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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.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
More from Chapter 1 of the SBS 2003 book
Here is another batch of pages from chapter one:
You’ll learn much more about this e-mail messaging solution in Chapter 6.
START HERE BLOGGER
Table 1-1: SBS Components at a Glance
Component
Description
Server or Client Component
Windows
Microsoft’s 32-bit network operating system.
Server
Server 2003
An operating system controls the basicfunctions of a computer, including security,storage, printing, user management, remotecommunications, and so on. Supports ActiveDirectory, Terminal Services in remoteadministration mode (discussed below),Group Policy for homogeneous WindowsServer 2003 networks, disk quotas, advancedsecurity such as encrypted file system (EFS).Windows Server 2003 is necessarilydiscussed across many chapters in this book.Your greatest interaction with WindowsServer 2003 will be during the initial setupand configuration of the SBS network.
Microsoft
E-mail messaging application used for
Server
Exchange
communication and collaboration. Supports
Server 2003
Outlook Web Access (OWA) Discussed inChapter 6.
Windows SharepointServices
An intranet portal and basic documentmanagement program discussed in Chapter 7.
Server
Microsoft SQL Server 2000
Powerful database application offered inpremium edition of SBS 2003. Discussed inChapter 14.
Server
Microsoft Internet Security andAcceleration (ISA)Server2000
Firewall gateway application with thecapability to store or cache frequentlyaccessed Web pages and part of the premiumedition of SBS 2003. Discussed in Chapter13. Note the SBS 2003 standard edition security approach of Network AddressTranslation (NAT) and the Basic Firewall,provided by Routing and Remote AccessService (RRAS), is discussed in Chapter 5.
Server
Microsoft Internet Information Server 6.0
Internet server application that provides coreSBS support for Web-related management.Discussed in Chapter 10.
Server
Shared Fax Service
A powerful faxing application discussed inChapter 9.
Server
Microsoft Front Page2003
An application that creates Web pages andcan be used for desktop publishing. A single-license version can be installed on the server machine. FrontPage 2003 is discussed inChapter 11.
Server
Additional Goodies
VALUEADD and SUPPORT folders contain useful tools and sample software.
Server
SBS ManagementConsole
GUI-based management console, calledServer Management, using powerful yetfriendly administrative wizards. ServerManagement provides a central location toaccomplish tasks. The Server Managementconsole is discussed all across the book and specifically in Chapter 4. Note the ServerManagement console houses the infamousSBS To Do List.
Server
Microsoft ManagementConsole 2.0 (MMC)
Provides the framework for creatingmanagement consoles to perform taskmanagement. The SBS consoles are based onthe MMC. Discussed in Chapter 4.
Server
Server-based Wizards
Include the Add User and Computer Wizard,E-mail and Internet Connection Wizard, device and peripheral management. Alsoinclude numerous Windows 2000 Wizards. Wizards are discussed across the book.
Server
Health Monitor
Provides real-time network monitoring ofcritical performance variables. Has the abilityto generate alerts. Discussed in Chapter 12.
Server
Server Status Reports
A tool that can be configured to send reports onsystem operations and third-party applicationsvia e-mail or fax. Discussed in Chapter 12.
Server
Server Status View
Provides a view of critical event, performancecounters, and services. Discussed in Chapter 12.
Server
Microsoft Connector for POP3 Mailboxes
Created with great pride by the SBSdevelopment team to allow small businesses touse existing POP3 e-mail services withExchange Server 2003. POP3 accounts aremapped to internal e-mail accounts. Discussedin Chapter 6.
Server
Windows Terminal Services
Terminal Services is a multi-session solution in Windows Server 2003 that facilitates remote management of the SBS server by thetechnology consultant. Similar to remotecontrol applications such as PCAnywhere orVNC. Discussed in Chapter 4 and 11.
Server
Online Guide
Robust online help for SBS administrators.
Server
Internet Explorer 6.x(IE)
Internet browser for navigating both the Internetand intranets. Installed on both the SBS server machine and SBS client’s machine. Discussed across the book (for example, client computerson the SBS network are now added via IE) andin Chapter 10.
Client/Server
Default PageInternet
Connects IE to the CompanyWeb as the default.Discussed in Chapters 7 and 10.
Client/Server
Microsoft Outlook 2003
Client-based e-mail, client scheduling, andcontact management application. Discussed inChapter 6.
Client
SBS Fax Sharing Client
Faxing functionality and capabilities. Discussedin Chapter 9.
Client
SBS Firewall Client
Client-side ISA Server functions (WinSockredirector). Discussed in Chapter 13 as part ofthe premium SBS discussion.
Client
SBS Zen Crowd
Meanwhile, continuing with my broad definition of SBS, there is another group of SBSers who view SBS as a state of mind. While SBS is a full member of the Windows Server 2003 computing family, these folks view SBS as special, unique, and their life calling. As you might say in Texas, these folks “GET IT” when it comes to SBS. For them, unique SBS tools, such as the Server Management console, are what life is all about.
The Big B Crowd: Small BUSINESS Server
Another view on defining SBS is looking at it from a business perspective: that is, how does SBS support the mission of the business to be efficient and successful? The SBS wheel in Figure 1-1 addresses this point of view.
Figure 1-1
The SBS wheel allows you to view SBS using a business analytical framework for gaining perspective on core SBS applications.
The left side of the wheel predominately speaks toward server-side components, such as Windows Server 2003, Exchange Server 2003, and the like. The lower portion of the wheel speaks to the management function via the SBS Server Management Console. The right side of the wheel speaks to the client-side applications, such as Microsoft Outlook 2003.
The “business”of SBS continues in a moment in the Finder, Minder, Grinder section on core business operations.
Converters
Finally, as part of the goal to define and segment the SBS customer population, consider the following. There are the conversion candidates for SBS:
• Linux Losers
• Peer-to-peer upgraders
• Windows NT and other Microsoft Servers
• Novell NetWare converters
• The soon-to-be newly networked: VIRGINS!
Linux Losers
So shareware’s not your bag, at least when it comes to running a bona fide business operation. And the Linux user experience is just a tad too much on the bit twiddler side, eh? No hard feelings. Welcome back to SBS. And by the way, ever since the Microsoft FUSION conference in Anaheim, California, in July 2001 and forward, the Microsoft SBS team has gone to great lengths to compare (and compete) SBS to Linux. Turns out, according to a Microsoft study, the argument that Linux is free is misleading. When considering the total cost of operations in a computer network (labor, hardware, training, and operating system), the operating system is only 3 % of the total costs.
Peer-To-Peer Upgraders
As you may or may not know, peer-to-peer networks are workstations that have been cabled together into a quick-and-dirty network. This is a significant SBS customer group, because two factors are driving the upgrade decision: pain and
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gain. Peer-to-peer networks traditionally suffer from poor performance (that’s the pain part) and many small businesses can easily see the gain a true client/ server network such as SBS can deliver (that’s, of course, the gain part).
Windows NT and Other Microsoft Servers
Considered the low hanging fruit in the small business space, those firms running Windows NT-based networks are more than overdue to upgrade to SBS. A big part of Microsoft message and efforts with SBS 2003 centers on moving folks on NT-based systems up to SBS 2003. The performance gains alone justify the conversion.
Soon-To-Be Newly Networked: VIRGINS!
These are the last frontiers in networking left today. Networking consultants, acting as explorers, seek out this type of SBS customer with a vengeance. Why? Because we can put our stamp on their successful network, and it’s likely this type of client hasn’t yet had a negative networking experience (or negative experience with their network consultant). Great SBS customers if you can find them.
Novell NetWare Converters
This is perhaps historically one of the touchiest and most-difficult SBS customer groups to work with for several reasons. I know, I know, you’re saying that NetWare is dead. Not so quick, my Missouri cousin! Why is it so many small businesses are running good old NetWare 3 even to this day? Granted, NetWare isn’t the dominant force it once was, but it’s a huge source of billable hours for me: converting NetWare to SBS. NetWare sites are prime to go to SBS 2003 in order to enjoy broad industry support for LOB applications.
Finder, Minder, Grinder
With respect to how SBS supports core business operations, let me take a moment to speak about the three major functions of nearly any small business: finder, minder, and grinder.
BEST PRACTICE: I have a book called SMB Consulting Best Practices (ISBN: 1-887542-11-6) that is totally dedicated to viewing the SMB space and SBS specifically from the finder, minder, grinder perspectives. So I’ll only touch on the business stuff here and encourage you to follow-up with my other text, which is more of a “pocket MBA” for SBSers!
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
Finder
A finder is a rainmaker: the person who markets and “gets” or develops business for the firm. In many firms, it is the owner, CEO, or president; in others, it is a salesperson. Whoever has this important responsibility can directly benefit from SBS in many ways.
There is electronic-based commerce. Electronic-based commerce includes everything from basic e-mail communications to elaborate Web pages that provide direct updates to your accounting system or electronic data interchange (EDI) with Microsoft BizTalk.
BEST PRACTICE: Late breaking news! BizTalk will actually run on SBS 2003! In fact, teams at Microsoft are looking at making BizTalk part of SBS 2003 in some fashion.
At a minimum, a salesman in the early 21st century can benefit from using Internet e-mail, a feature supported by SBS with the Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 and Outlook 2003. A finder can benefit from Outlook in other ways as well. Outlook provides contact management and scheduling capabilities in addition to serving as an e-mail client. Outlook is discussed in Chapter 6. You will learn basic Outlook functionality, such as e-mail and using Company contacts, under Public Folders in SBS 2003. You will even learn how to run Outlook over the Internet, via Outlook Web Access (OWA). This allows you to check your SBS-based e-mail from a late-model Web browser from any Internet-connected PC in the world! Saying you’re disconnected while vacationing in the Australian Outback is no longer an excuse with Outlook-based technologies.
So I end the finder section with a real world example. I know a CEO of the landscaping company in Issaquah, Washington, who uses SBS to increase his company’s sales. His idea is to fax “spring cleaning” notices to past landscaping clients. SBS does this very well with its fax server support. Broadcast faxing is a breeze, and as an added bonus, this CEO found that he could fax directly to the names listed in the company-wide Outlook contact list. I’ll talk more about faxing in Chapter 9.
What’s really been said in this finder section is that SBS can offer you a competitive advantage over your competition.
Minder
There’s one law of business that I’ve never seen broken: For every finder, there is at least one minder. Minders serve as office managers, administrators, COOs, and all-around nags. Bless ‘em, because we need ‘em. SBS was designed with minders in mind (please don’t mind the pun!). Typically, when I’ve deployed SBS from a minder’s perspective, it has been to implement a piece of industry-specific line of business (LOB) software. You will see in Figure 1-1 that I listed LOB applications. One such LOB application is BenchTop, a very powerful service management software application implemented on the SBS system at a client site I consult to. BenchTop, which uses premium SBS’s SQL Server application for its engine, is very much a minder tool. This application brings control to the workflow and allows the manager (aka the “minder”) to compile performance metrics specific to his industry. The minder at this site unknowingly benefits from SBS because SQL Server is included as part of the premium SBS bundle. All the minder knows is that BenchTop makes his job easier and he is more productive.
Also falling into the minder category with SBS is the whole business planning cycle plus cultural and organizational reengineering. Here’s what I mean. When SBS is introduced into an organization like a small business, it often upsets the apple cart in a good way. Managers start thinking “We’re gonna do things differently around here and we need a fresh business plan.” And the collaboration of Outlook and Windows Sharepoint Services will improve communication and improve organization outcomes, etc. It’s a management revolution inside each box of SBS! To some extent I make this point again in the grinder section that follows next.
Grinder
Grinders are the worker bees. These are the people who are typically task-oriented and look at the SBS infrastructure as a support system that makes them more productive. Grinders benefit from SBS in two distinct ways.
First, LOB applications such as BenchTop that run on top of premium SBS’s SQL Server allow the repair staff to enter important job and task information. This helps track the flow of goods in the system and effectively lowers cost by allowing better control. Another business application that uses SQL Server is
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
Great Plains from Microsoft, a robust accounting application. I’ve had tremendous success installing this on SBS machines, and I can attest that the worker bees—typically accounting clerks, bookkeepers (and yes, beekeepers)— have been able to complete their work in an efficient and reliable manner. Most important, in both cases with BenchTop and Great Plains, the grinders trust that SBS allows them to better do their work. Such has not always been the case with worker bees, known for coining such pithy phrases as “The #@%$!&* computer network is not working again!” in the early days of computer networking (and during the first two releases of SBS in the late 1990s—OUCH!).
Second, basic communication applications, such as Outlook e-mail, contacts, and scheduling, have allowed grinders to improve the quality of their work, which translated into greater productivity for the firm. Many times SBS is introduced into business environments that have no prior network or e-mail service, often fundamentally changing how people do their work and, in its own way, reengineering workflow. The improvement in e-mail communications is but one example. Throughout this book many more business workflow improvements are presented hither and yon.
SBS Philosophy 101
It is difficult to overlook the sheer numbers of small businesses that could benefit from an SBS-type networking solution. Such was the idea behind SBS. Microsoft recently found SMB religion and has made SBS a cornerstone of its push into this relatively virgin small business space. The numbers speak for themselves when it comes to measuring the number of small businesses. Although you can easily say that there are only 1,000 companies in the Fortune 1000 list, conversely you might be surprised to know that there are over 22 million small businesses in the United States, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration. Can’t you just see the marketing wheels at Microsoft turning and the marketing staff dreaming of an SBS installation at every small business? You betcha.
In this section, I’ll present SBS philosophy from three views: that of the small business, the SBS consultant, and Microsoft.
The Small Business
Understanding that small businesses are fundamentally different from larger enterprises, the SBS product literally sells itself when positioned by SBS consultants as a tool to help small business run better, with less effort, and, ultimately, more easily. You could say that SBS is nothing more than a return to the original LAN paradigm that both Apple Computer and Novell rode in the 1980s. This LAN paradigm, with a few modifications to accommodate SBS, is anchored by these key tenets:
• Sharing: The major justification for implementing SBS in the small business is the ability to share information. Sharing information, such as cost accounting data at the construction company, allows staff to work together with less redundancy (multiple entries are eliminated). Owners get better information about their operations. Staff works together as a team.
• Security: Like the enterprise, small businesses demand that reasonable levels of security be provided to protect sensitive information from competition and from loss or casualty. SBS provides regular Windows Server 2003-based security (and there’s a lot of security features there, let me tell ya) in the standard SBS edition, plus the security afforded by Microsoft ISA Server in the premium SBS edition.
• Cost Effectiveness: Relatively speaking, SBS is cheap. The standard version of SBS, a very popular option, can be purchased on the street starting for under $600 USD. In fact, there are some major hardware manufacturers that have seen fit to send you out the door with the standard SBS edition and a capable server for $1,000 USD! Man is that a change from the not-too-distant days past of $5,000 server machines for the small business. So tack on a few $500 USD capable workstations and another $1,000 USD for necessities (virus protection suite, hubs, wireless cards, etc.) and you’re up and running on a pauper’s payroll, not that of the prince! Note you might find you will need a mid-range server when you look closely at your needs. Such a server runs $1,500 USD standalone as of this writing.
BEST PRACTICE: When amortized, for accounting purposes, over the typical five-year holding period seen in many small businesses (versus the more aggressive three-year holding period typically seen at the enterprise-level), SBS is really cost-effective. After the basic installation, allowance for training (say, a one-time $500 USD per user outlay) and technology consulting fees, an SBS network easily costs less than $500 USD per user per year. THIS IS $1.38 USD PER USER PER DAY, FRIEND! (Yes, I’m shouting for emphasis.) That’s less than my subscriptions to the USA Today and Wall Street Journal newspapers! That’s less than my first cappuccino!
If you’ve ever worked at the enterprise level, you’d be viewed as kooky if you told someone you had lowered your annual IT costs per user to less than $500 (more likely at the enterprise-level it would be over $5,000 USD per user per year).
• Efficiency: After an initial period of negative productivity (measured in hours) while everyone is learning the new SBS network and its powers, company-wide productivity for the firm quickly soars to a level exceeding pre-SBS days. One example of this is the use of broadcast e-mails and faxes instead of making lots of telephone calls.
• Better Work, New Work: This includes fewer mistakes because of better communications, such as e-mail with staff, vendors, and customers; better scheduling with Outlook’s calendar, etc.; and new work, such as winning new contracts because your work is of higher quality (proposals with accurate financial information derived from staff, and so on). In fact, as an SBS site starts using more and more SBS features, I’ve seen these small businesses dramatically increase their business. Back at the ranch, oops, I mean the previously mentioned landscaping company client, you will recall that SBS's faxing capabilities are used to fax “Spring planting announcements” to its clients resulting in increased sales. Small businesses, enlightened by the powers of SBS, have also been known to enter into new business areas, knowing they have the network infrastructure to back up promises. Need more
convincing? A small construction company I worked with, confident that SBS-based e-mail and remote communications solutions wouldn’t fail them, took on work in other cities.
• Bottom Line: How does SBS sum up? Properly implemented, SBS can help small businesses enjoy higher-quality work and get more work finished with the fewer resources:
Land — Office space is used more efficiently, as older office machines, file cabinets, and the like are eliminated. Hell, with the Remote Web Workplace feature I’ll explain in Chapter 8, the whole darn office space can nearly be eliminated and everyone sent to Starbucks coffee shops to use Wi-Fi to do their business!
Labor — Existing staff works more efficiently, allowing owners to squeeze out more productivity. But fear not that SBS will result in staff
downsizing. I’ve worked with a variety of SBS sites and have never seen a layoff or firing related to SBS. In fact, the opposite tends to occur. Small businesses get excited very quickly with SBS when they understand it and see it working. In short order, additional (and unplanned) work requests roll in. For example, several of my small business clients who barely knew what the Internet was prior to the SBS installation call back and ask for Web home page development assistance. I typically refer an intern from the local college to these clients, allowing them to save on Web page development costs and giving a starving college kid the chance to earn some money. And guess what! More often than not the college intern becomes a full-time employee, actually increasing headcount at the client site as a result of the SBS implementation.
Capital — Not to understate the initial capital investment in getting an SBS network up and running, but, after that outlay is made, the general consensus is that SBS delivers a positive return on investment (ROI) by increasing the firm’s productivity and mitigating additional large capital outlays for the foreseeable future. One example of this is the reduced wear and tear on photocopiers. A client of mine who has
aggressively exploited SBS features now stores documents electronically and faxes directly to vendors. By doing so, this customer found it could forego the purchase of a new, expensive photocopier.
SBS Consultant
To paraphrase from my SMB Consulting Best Practices book, SBS is a “consulting practice in a box.” It’s a structured setup with an assured positive outcome; it’s a To Do List and a Server Management console that is used at each site; and it’s about making every customer implementation exactly the same to contribute to consulting success. SBS is a consultant’s dream, and I’ll leave it there as my other tome uses over 600 pages to express these sentiments.
Microsoft
So what does Microsoft think? Well, Microsoft extends this SBS paradigm specifically by adding these design goals:
• Ease of Use/Simplicity: The idea was to make everything easy, easy, easy. And when compared to the old command-line interface of NetWare
3.x (which a surprisingly high number of small businesses are still running, having foregone the opportunity to upgrade to NetWare 4.x, 5.x), you could say that SBS is easier to manage and use. For example, Dawn, who works at an athletic club I’ve assisted, took many years (appropriately so) to master NetWare. When Dawn was confronted with the decision to upgrade to the newly released NetWare 5.0, I loaned her a training machine that had SBS installed. One week later, Dawn was confident and had even confirmed that her narrow market vertical applications would run on SBS. Not surprisingly, Dawn and her firm became another SBS success story.
But easy is in the eye of the beholder. Whereas Dawn was coming from a more complex networking environment, allowing her to enjoy the ease of SBS when compared to NetWare, SBS has sometimes fallen short for small businesses that have never been networked. These firms, accustomed to working manually with file cabinets, fax machines, and basic word processing, are often disappointed with SBS initially when
they (a) can’t believe installing a network is so difficult and (b) don’t understand why servers don’t work perfectly all the time (for example, blue-screen crashes or applications stop responding). So take Microsoft’s SBS ease of use argument with a grain of salt.
However, if it is usability that you are measuring, clearly SBS wins when compared to other NOSs such as NetWare and Linux. With its superior graphical user interface (GUI), SBS encourages even those on-site power users unaccustomed to managing a network server to feel comfortable using the Start button, menus, mouse, and so on. Score one for SBS for high usability. Of course, I’m assuming the SBS consultant has asked for and approved the power user’s help.
• Making Decisions for the Customer: In the context of having an automated setup and implementation process (“just add water”), SBS (in Microsoft’s view) reduces the research, engineering, and guesswork that goes into making the networking decision. Microsoft correctly asserts that users do not have to decide whether the SBS machine should be a domain controller (it should, because it controls the operations of the network) and whether to install Active Directory. Active Directory is the directory services database used to store user and computer account information.
• Designed for Success: This point speaks to the SBS consoles I’ve previously discussed. The idea is that SBS administrators should enjoy a “simple, stupid” networking management experience and not really have to perfectly plan what they intend to do. Adding a user is a click away in the Server Management console. Simple.
BEST PRACTICE: Here again, I must interject a few clarifying comments regarding the pro-Microsoft comments. For new users and NetWare administrators coming over to SBS (such as Dawn), I’ve found the SBS cool tools—such as the management console and wizards—are great and really aid the SBS learning process. So on that count, Microsoft is correct with its ease of use, automatic
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
decision making, and successful design assertions. But for old-school Windows Server gurus with headstrong ways of doing things, the SBS consoles are sometimes more of an enemy. These Windows Server gurus begrudgingly use the SBS Server Management console (interestingly, the native tools are exposed in the Server Management console, removing the need to drop down and use the Administrative Tools folder). I’ll say it now and most assuredly say it again: Do everything from the SBS Server Management console (and its wizards).
Microsoft has another view of SBS with its Go To Market (GTM) methodology (visit www.microsoft.com/partner and select Windows Server under the Server family product on the left). GTM is a four-step methodology:
Learn About It. Microsoft views its partners’ success with SBS as a function of how much knowledge they have about the product. Microsoft offers SBS hands-on labs (online
and in-person), Microsoft Official Curriculum (MOC)
courses specific to SBS and other training tools. Sell It! There is no shortage of resources when it comes to supporting your SBS sales efforts. Logos, canned PowerPoint presentations, and the like are all accessible from the Microsoft Partner site referenced above.
Build On It! Here the idea is to add value by bundling SBS with additional services and products. For example, you might implement the Microsoft Great Plains solution on top of SBS as your package. You might also sell and deploy a LOB application such as those discussed earlier in the chapter.
Deploy It! Ah, the good stuff—installing and configuring SBS. This is considered the most fun part of the entire SBS equation by many.
You’ll learn much more about this e-mail messaging solution in Chapter 6.
START HERE BLOGGER
Table 1-1: SBS Components at a Glance
Component
Description
Server or Client Component
Windows
Microsoft’s 32-bit network operating system.
Server
Server 2003
An operating system controls the basicfunctions of a computer, including security,storage, printing, user management, remotecommunications, and so on. Supports ActiveDirectory, Terminal Services in remoteadministration mode (discussed below),Group Policy for homogeneous WindowsServer 2003 networks, disk quotas, advancedsecurity such as encrypted file system (EFS).Windows Server 2003 is necessarilydiscussed across many chapters in this book.Your greatest interaction with WindowsServer 2003 will be during the initial setupand configuration of the SBS network.
Microsoft
E-mail messaging application used for
Server
Exchange
communication and collaboration. Supports
Server 2003
Outlook Web Access (OWA) Discussed inChapter 6.
Windows SharepointServices
An intranet portal and basic documentmanagement program discussed in Chapter 7.
Server
Microsoft SQL Server 2000
Powerful database application offered inpremium edition of SBS 2003. Discussed inChapter 14.
Server
Microsoft Internet Security andAcceleration (ISA)Server2000
Firewall gateway application with thecapability to store or cache frequentlyaccessed Web pages and part of the premiumedition of SBS 2003. Discussed in Chapter13. Note the SBS 2003 standard edition security approach of Network AddressTranslation (NAT) and the Basic Firewall,provided by Routing and Remote AccessService (RRAS), is discussed in Chapter 5.
Server
Microsoft Internet Information Server 6.0
Internet server application that provides coreSBS support for Web-related management.Discussed in Chapter 10.
Server
Shared Fax Service
A powerful faxing application discussed inChapter 9.
Server
Microsoft Front Page2003
An application that creates Web pages andcan be used for desktop publishing. A single-license version can be installed on the server machine. FrontPage 2003 is discussed inChapter 11.
Server
Additional Goodies
VALUEADD and SUPPORT folders contain useful tools and sample software.
Server
SBS ManagementConsole
GUI-based management console, calledServer Management, using powerful yetfriendly administrative wizards. ServerManagement provides a central location toaccomplish tasks. The Server Managementconsole is discussed all across the book and specifically in Chapter 4. Note the ServerManagement console houses the infamousSBS To Do List.
Server
Microsoft ManagementConsole 2.0 (MMC)
Provides the framework for creatingmanagement consoles to perform taskmanagement. The SBS consoles are based onthe MMC. Discussed in Chapter 4.
Server
Server-based Wizards
Include the Add User and Computer Wizard,E-mail and Internet Connection Wizard, device and peripheral management. Alsoinclude numerous Windows 2000 Wizards. Wizards are discussed across the book.
Server
Health Monitor
Provides real-time network monitoring ofcritical performance variables. Has the abilityto generate alerts. Discussed in Chapter 12.
Server
Server Status Reports
A tool that can be configured to send reports onsystem operations and third-party applicationsvia e-mail or fax. Discussed in Chapter 12.
Server
Server Status View
Provides a view of critical event, performancecounters, and services. Discussed in Chapter 12.
Server
Microsoft Connector for POP3 Mailboxes
Created with great pride by the SBSdevelopment team to allow small businesses touse existing POP3 e-mail services withExchange Server 2003. POP3 accounts aremapped to internal e-mail accounts. Discussedin Chapter 6.
Server
Windows Terminal Services
Terminal Services is a multi-session solution in Windows Server 2003 that facilitates remote management of the SBS server by thetechnology consultant. Similar to remotecontrol applications such as PCAnywhere orVNC. Discussed in Chapter 4 and 11.
Server
Online Guide
Robust online help for SBS administrators.
Server
Internet Explorer 6.x(IE)
Internet browser for navigating both the Internetand intranets. Installed on both the SBS server machine and SBS client’s machine. Discussed across the book (for example, client computerson the SBS network are now added via IE) andin Chapter 10.
Client/Server
Default PageInternet
Connects IE to the CompanyWeb as the default.Discussed in Chapters 7 and 10.
Client/Server
Microsoft Outlook 2003
Client-based e-mail, client scheduling, andcontact management application. Discussed inChapter 6.
Client
SBS Fax Sharing Client
Faxing functionality and capabilities. Discussedin Chapter 9.
Client
SBS Firewall Client
Client-side ISA Server functions (WinSockredirector). Discussed in Chapter 13 as part ofthe premium SBS discussion.
Client
SBS Zen Crowd
Meanwhile, continuing with my broad definition of SBS, there is another group of SBSers who view SBS as a state of mind. While SBS is a full member of the Windows Server 2003 computing family, these folks view SBS as special, unique, and their life calling. As you might say in Texas, these folks “GET IT” when it comes to SBS. For them, unique SBS tools, such as the Server Management console, are what life is all about.
The Big B Crowd: Small BUSINESS Server
Another view on defining SBS is looking at it from a business perspective: that is, how does SBS support the mission of the business to be efficient and successful? The SBS wheel in Figure 1-1 addresses this point of view.
Figure 1-1
The SBS wheel allows you to view SBS using a business analytical framework for gaining perspective on core SBS applications.
The left side of the wheel predominately speaks toward server-side components, such as Windows Server 2003, Exchange Server 2003, and the like. The lower portion of the wheel speaks to the management function via the SBS Server Management Console. The right side of the wheel speaks to the client-side applications, such as Microsoft Outlook 2003.
The “business”of SBS continues in a moment in the Finder, Minder, Grinder section on core business operations.
Converters
Finally, as part of the goal to define and segment the SBS customer population, consider the following. There are the conversion candidates for SBS:
• Linux Losers
• Peer-to-peer upgraders
• Windows NT and other Microsoft Servers
• Novell NetWare converters
• The soon-to-be newly networked: VIRGINS!
Linux Losers
So shareware’s not your bag, at least when it comes to running a bona fide business operation. And the Linux user experience is just a tad too much on the bit twiddler side, eh? No hard feelings. Welcome back to SBS. And by the way, ever since the Microsoft FUSION conference in Anaheim, California, in July 2001 and forward, the Microsoft SBS team has gone to great lengths to compare (and compete) SBS to Linux. Turns out, according to a Microsoft study, the argument that Linux is free is misleading. When considering the total cost of operations in a computer network (labor, hardware, training, and operating system), the operating system is only 3 % of the total costs.
Peer-To-Peer Upgraders
As you may or may not know, peer-to-peer networks are workstations that have been cabled together into a quick-and-dirty network. This is a significant SBS customer group, because two factors are driving the upgrade decision: pain and
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gain. Peer-to-peer networks traditionally suffer from poor performance (that’s the pain part) and many small businesses can easily see the gain a true client/ server network such as SBS can deliver (that’s, of course, the gain part).
Windows NT and Other Microsoft Servers
Considered the low hanging fruit in the small business space, those firms running Windows NT-based networks are more than overdue to upgrade to SBS. A big part of Microsoft message and efforts with SBS 2003 centers on moving folks on NT-based systems up to SBS 2003. The performance gains alone justify the conversion.
Soon-To-Be Newly Networked: VIRGINS!
These are the last frontiers in networking left today. Networking consultants, acting as explorers, seek out this type of SBS customer with a vengeance. Why? Because we can put our stamp on their successful network, and it’s likely this type of client hasn’t yet had a negative networking experience (or negative experience with their network consultant). Great SBS customers if you can find them.
Novell NetWare Converters
This is perhaps historically one of the touchiest and most-difficult SBS customer groups to work with for several reasons. I know, I know, you’re saying that NetWare is dead. Not so quick, my Missouri cousin! Why is it so many small businesses are running good old NetWare 3 even to this day? Granted, NetWare isn’t the dominant force it once was, but it’s a huge source of billable hours for me: converting NetWare to SBS. NetWare sites are prime to go to SBS 2003 in order to enjoy broad industry support for LOB applications.
Finder, Minder, Grinder
With respect to how SBS supports core business operations, let me take a moment to speak about the three major functions of nearly any small business: finder, minder, and grinder.
BEST PRACTICE: I have a book called SMB Consulting Best Practices (ISBN: 1-887542-11-6) that is totally dedicated to viewing the SMB space and SBS specifically from the finder, minder, grinder perspectives. So I’ll only touch on the business stuff here and encourage you to follow-up with my other text, which is more of a “pocket MBA” for SBSers!
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Finder
A finder is a rainmaker: the person who markets and “gets” or develops business for the firm. In many firms, it is the owner, CEO, or president; in others, it is a salesperson. Whoever has this important responsibility can directly benefit from SBS in many ways.
There is electronic-based commerce. Electronic-based commerce includes everything from basic e-mail communications to elaborate Web pages that provide direct updates to your accounting system or electronic data interchange (EDI) with Microsoft BizTalk.
BEST PRACTICE: Late breaking news! BizTalk will actually run on SBS 2003! In fact, teams at Microsoft are looking at making BizTalk part of SBS 2003 in some fashion.
At a minimum, a salesman in the early 21st century can benefit from using Internet e-mail, a feature supported by SBS with the Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 and Outlook 2003. A finder can benefit from Outlook in other ways as well. Outlook provides contact management and scheduling capabilities in addition to serving as an e-mail client. Outlook is discussed in Chapter 6. You will learn basic Outlook functionality, such as e-mail and using Company contacts, under Public Folders in SBS 2003. You will even learn how to run Outlook over the Internet, via Outlook Web Access (OWA). This allows you to check your SBS-based e-mail from a late-model Web browser from any Internet-connected PC in the world! Saying you’re disconnected while vacationing in the Australian Outback is no longer an excuse with Outlook-based technologies.
So I end the finder section with a real world example. I know a CEO of the landscaping company in Issaquah, Washington, who uses SBS to increase his company’s sales. His idea is to fax “spring cleaning” notices to past landscaping clients. SBS does this very well with its fax server support. Broadcast faxing is a breeze, and as an added bonus, this CEO found that he could fax directly to the names listed in the company-wide Outlook contact list. I’ll talk more about faxing in Chapter 9.
What’s really been said in this finder section is that SBS can offer you a competitive advantage over your competition.
Minder
There’s one law of business that I’ve never seen broken: For every finder, there is at least one minder. Minders serve as office managers, administrators, COOs, and all-around nags. Bless ‘em, because we need ‘em. SBS was designed with minders in mind (please don’t mind the pun!). Typically, when I’ve deployed SBS from a minder’s perspective, it has been to implement a piece of industry-specific line of business (LOB) software. You will see in Figure 1-1 that I listed LOB applications. One such LOB application is BenchTop, a very powerful service management software application implemented on the SBS system at a client site I consult to. BenchTop, which uses premium SBS’s SQL Server application for its engine, is very much a minder tool. This application brings control to the workflow and allows the manager (aka the “minder”) to compile performance metrics specific to his industry. The minder at this site unknowingly benefits from SBS because SQL Server is included as part of the premium SBS bundle. All the minder knows is that BenchTop makes his job easier and he is more productive.
Also falling into the minder category with SBS is the whole business planning cycle plus cultural and organizational reengineering. Here’s what I mean. When SBS is introduced into an organization like a small business, it often upsets the apple cart in a good way. Managers start thinking “We’re gonna do things differently around here and we need a fresh business plan.” And the collaboration of Outlook and Windows Sharepoint Services will improve communication and improve organization outcomes, etc. It’s a management revolution inside each box of SBS! To some extent I make this point again in the grinder section that follows next.
Grinder
Grinders are the worker bees. These are the people who are typically task-oriented and look at the SBS infrastructure as a support system that makes them more productive. Grinders benefit from SBS in two distinct ways.
First, LOB applications such as BenchTop that run on top of premium SBS’s SQL Server allow the repair staff to enter important job and task information. This helps track the flow of goods in the system and effectively lowers cost by allowing better control. Another business application that uses SQL Server is
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Great Plains from Microsoft, a robust accounting application. I’ve had tremendous success installing this on SBS machines, and I can attest that the worker bees—typically accounting clerks, bookkeepers (and yes, beekeepers)— have been able to complete their work in an efficient and reliable manner. Most important, in both cases with BenchTop and Great Plains, the grinders trust that SBS allows them to better do their work. Such has not always been the case with worker bees, known for coining such pithy phrases as “The #@%$!&* computer network is not working again!” in the early days of computer networking (and during the first two releases of SBS in the late 1990s—OUCH!).
Second, basic communication applications, such as Outlook e-mail, contacts, and scheduling, have allowed grinders to improve the quality of their work, which translated into greater productivity for the firm. Many times SBS is introduced into business environments that have no prior network or e-mail service, often fundamentally changing how people do their work and, in its own way, reengineering workflow. The improvement in e-mail communications is but one example. Throughout this book many more business workflow improvements are presented hither and yon.
SBS Philosophy 101
It is difficult to overlook the sheer numbers of small businesses that could benefit from an SBS-type networking solution. Such was the idea behind SBS. Microsoft recently found SMB religion and has made SBS a cornerstone of its push into this relatively virgin small business space. The numbers speak for themselves when it comes to measuring the number of small businesses. Although you can easily say that there are only 1,000 companies in the Fortune 1000 list, conversely you might be surprised to know that there are over 22 million small businesses in the United States, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration. Can’t you just see the marketing wheels at Microsoft turning and the marketing staff dreaming of an SBS installation at every small business? You betcha.
In this section, I’ll present SBS philosophy from three views: that of the small business, the SBS consultant, and Microsoft.
The Small Business
Understanding that small businesses are fundamentally different from larger enterprises, the SBS product literally sells itself when positioned by SBS consultants as a tool to help small business run better, with less effort, and, ultimately, more easily. You could say that SBS is nothing more than a return to the original LAN paradigm that both Apple Computer and Novell rode in the 1980s. This LAN paradigm, with a few modifications to accommodate SBS, is anchored by these key tenets:
• Sharing: The major justification for implementing SBS in the small business is the ability to share information. Sharing information, such as cost accounting data at the construction company, allows staff to work together with less redundancy (multiple entries are eliminated). Owners get better information about their operations. Staff works together as a team.
• Security: Like the enterprise, small businesses demand that reasonable levels of security be provided to protect sensitive information from competition and from loss or casualty. SBS provides regular Windows Server 2003-based security (and there’s a lot of security features there, let me tell ya) in the standard SBS edition, plus the security afforded by Microsoft ISA Server in the premium SBS edition.
• Cost Effectiveness: Relatively speaking, SBS is cheap. The standard version of SBS, a very popular option, can be purchased on the street starting for under $600 USD. In fact, there are some major hardware manufacturers that have seen fit to send you out the door with the standard SBS edition and a capable server for $1,000 USD! Man is that a change from the not-too-distant days past of $5,000 server machines for the small business. So tack on a few $500 USD capable workstations and another $1,000 USD for necessities (virus protection suite, hubs, wireless cards, etc.) and you’re up and running on a pauper’s payroll, not that of the prince! Note you might find you will need a mid-range server when you look closely at your needs. Such a server runs $1,500 USD standalone as of this writing.
BEST PRACTICE: When amortized, for accounting purposes, over the typical five-year holding period seen in many small businesses (versus the more aggressive three-year holding period typically seen at the enterprise-level), SBS is really cost-effective. After the basic installation, allowance for training (say, a one-time $500 USD per user outlay) and technology consulting fees, an SBS network easily costs less than $500 USD per user per year. THIS IS $1.38 USD PER USER PER DAY, FRIEND! (Yes, I’m shouting for emphasis.) That’s less than my subscriptions to the USA Today and Wall Street Journal newspapers! That’s less than my first cappuccino!
If you’ve ever worked at the enterprise level, you’d be viewed as kooky if you told someone you had lowered your annual IT costs per user to less than $500 (more likely at the enterprise-level it would be over $5,000 USD per user per year).
• Efficiency: After an initial period of negative productivity (measured in hours) while everyone is learning the new SBS network and its powers, company-wide productivity for the firm quickly soars to a level exceeding pre-SBS days. One example of this is the use of broadcast e-mails and faxes instead of making lots of telephone calls.
• Better Work, New Work: This includes fewer mistakes because of better communications, such as e-mail with staff, vendors, and customers; better scheduling with Outlook’s calendar, etc.; and new work, such as winning new contracts because your work is of higher quality (proposals with accurate financial information derived from staff, and so on). In fact, as an SBS site starts using more and more SBS features, I’ve seen these small businesses dramatically increase their business. Back at the ranch, oops, I mean the previously mentioned landscaping company client, you will recall that SBS's faxing capabilities are used to fax “Spring planting announcements” to its clients resulting in increased sales. Small businesses, enlightened by the powers of SBS, have also been known to enter into new business areas, knowing they have the network infrastructure to back up promises. Need more
convincing? A small construction company I worked with, confident that SBS-based e-mail and remote communications solutions wouldn’t fail them, took on work in other cities.
• Bottom Line: How does SBS sum up? Properly implemented, SBS can help small businesses enjoy higher-quality work and get more work finished with the fewer resources:
Land — Office space is used more efficiently, as older office machines, file cabinets, and the like are eliminated. Hell, with the Remote Web Workplace feature I’ll explain in Chapter 8, the whole darn office space can nearly be eliminated and everyone sent to Starbucks coffee shops to use Wi-Fi to do their business!
Labor — Existing staff works more efficiently, allowing owners to squeeze out more productivity. But fear not that SBS will result in staff
downsizing. I’ve worked with a variety of SBS sites and have never seen a layoff or firing related to SBS. In fact, the opposite tends to occur. Small businesses get excited very quickly with SBS when they understand it and see it working. In short order, additional (and unplanned) work requests roll in. For example, several of my small business clients who barely knew what the Internet was prior to the SBS installation call back and ask for Web home page development assistance. I typically refer an intern from the local college to these clients, allowing them to save on Web page development costs and giving a starving college kid the chance to earn some money. And guess what! More often than not the college intern becomes a full-time employee, actually increasing headcount at the client site as a result of the SBS implementation.
Capital — Not to understate the initial capital investment in getting an SBS network up and running, but, after that outlay is made, the general consensus is that SBS delivers a positive return on investment (ROI) by increasing the firm’s productivity and mitigating additional large capital outlays for the foreseeable future. One example of this is the reduced wear and tear on photocopiers. A client of mine who has
aggressively exploited SBS features now stores documents electronically and faxes directly to vendors. By doing so, this customer found it could forego the purchase of a new, expensive photocopier.
SBS Consultant
To paraphrase from my SMB Consulting Best Practices book, SBS is a “consulting practice in a box.” It’s a structured setup with an assured positive outcome; it’s a To Do List and a Server Management console that is used at each site; and it’s about making every customer implementation exactly the same to contribute to consulting success. SBS is a consultant’s dream, and I’ll leave it there as my other tome uses over 600 pages to express these sentiments.
Microsoft
So what does Microsoft think? Well, Microsoft extends this SBS paradigm specifically by adding these design goals:
• Ease of Use/Simplicity: The idea was to make everything easy, easy, easy. And when compared to the old command-line interface of NetWare
3.x (which a surprisingly high number of small businesses are still running, having foregone the opportunity to upgrade to NetWare 4.x, 5.x), you could say that SBS is easier to manage and use. For example, Dawn, who works at an athletic club I’ve assisted, took many years (appropriately so) to master NetWare. When Dawn was confronted with the decision to upgrade to the newly released NetWare 5.0, I loaned her a training machine that had SBS installed. One week later, Dawn was confident and had even confirmed that her narrow market vertical applications would run on SBS. Not surprisingly, Dawn and her firm became another SBS success story.
But easy is in the eye of the beholder. Whereas Dawn was coming from a more complex networking environment, allowing her to enjoy the ease of SBS when compared to NetWare, SBS has sometimes fallen short for small businesses that have never been networked. These firms, accustomed to working manually with file cabinets, fax machines, and basic word processing, are often disappointed with SBS initially when
they (a) can’t believe installing a network is so difficult and (b) don’t understand why servers don’t work perfectly all the time (for example, blue-screen crashes or applications stop responding). So take Microsoft’s SBS ease of use argument with a grain of salt.
However, if it is usability that you are measuring, clearly SBS wins when compared to other NOSs such as NetWare and Linux. With its superior graphical user interface (GUI), SBS encourages even those on-site power users unaccustomed to managing a network server to feel comfortable using the Start button, menus, mouse, and so on. Score one for SBS for high usability. Of course, I’m assuming the SBS consultant has asked for and approved the power user’s help.
• Making Decisions for the Customer: In the context of having an automated setup and implementation process (“just add water”), SBS (in Microsoft’s view) reduces the research, engineering, and guesswork that goes into making the networking decision. Microsoft correctly asserts that users do not have to decide whether the SBS machine should be a domain controller (it should, because it controls the operations of the network) and whether to install Active Directory. Active Directory is the directory services database used to store user and computer account information.
• Designed for Success: This point speaks to the SBS consoles I’ve previously discussed. The idea is that SBS administrators should enjoy a “simple, stupid” networking management experience and not really have to perfectly plan what they intend to do. Adding a user is a click away in the Server Management console. Simple.
BEST PRACTICE: Here again, I must interject a few clarifying comments regarding the pro-Microsoft comments. For new users and NetWare administrators coming over to SBS (such as Dawn), I’ve found the SBS cool tools—such as the management console and wizards—are great and really aid the SBS learning process. So on that count, Microsoft is correct with its ease of use, automatic
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decision making, and successful design assertions. But for old-school Windows Server gurus with headstrong ways of doing things, the SBS consoles are sometimes more of an enemy. These Windows Server gurus begrudgingly use the SBS Server Management console (interestingly, the native tools are exposed in the Server Management console, removing the need to drop down and use the Administrative Tools folder). I’ll say it now and most assuredly say it again: Do everything from the SBS Server Management console (and its wizards).
Microsoft has another view of SBS with its Go To Market (GTM) methodology (visit www.microsoft.com/partner and select Windows Server under the Server family product on the left). GTM is a four-step methodology:
Learn About It. Microsoft views its partners’ success with SBS as a function of how much knowledge they have about the product. Microsoft offers SBS hands-on labs (online
and in-person), Microsoft Official Curriculum (MOC)
courses specific to SBS and other training tools. Sell It! There is no shortage of resources when it comes to supporting your SBS sales efforts. Logos, canned PowerPoint presentations, and the like are all accessible from the Microsoft Partner site referenced above.
Build On It! Here the idea is to add value by bundling SBS with additional services and products. For example, you might implement the Microsoft Great Plains solution on top of SBS as your package. You might also sell and deploy a LOB application such as those discussed earlier in the chapter.
Deploy It! Ah, the good stuff—installing and configuring SBS. This is considered the most fun part of the entire SBS equation by many.
Monday, May 12, 2008
A few pages a day of my SBS 2003 book
Hey gang - I thought I would start to post a few pages a day from my SBS 2003 Best Practices book and get the good stuff out in the wild! Enjoy the read and come back daily!
Here is my first attempt :)
Chapter 1 Welcome to Small Business Server
Howdy and welcome to Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003, better known as SBS. SBS, now in its fourth major revision, solidifies Microsoft’s position in the small business space. In past editions of my SBS books, I wrote that Microsoft was starting to “get there” technically with early SBS versions and beginning to understand the small business space. With SBS 2003, such historical talk is exactly that: legacy chatter. It’s time to look forward and not only appreciate the product maturity, but also appreciate its repositioning into two versions (standard and premium) with pricing that best meets the needs of different types of small businesses.
With the SBS 2003 release, it’s safe to say it’s NOW time—to borrow from crowd chants at NBA (National Basketball Association) games. It’s NOW time to go forth and implement SBS 2003 without the hesitations you justifiably had with the younger SBS versions.
SBS clearly represents Microsoft’s strongest commitment to the small business market, which, as you will see later in the chapter, represents the largest computing market when measured by sheer number of businesses. With a single Microsoft networking product such as SBS, it is possible to “right-size” a small business networking solution, and all with one reasonably priced and powerful personal computer known as a server.
BEST PRACTICE: This will be one of the only “before SBS” points in this book. But, before SBS, trying to implement Microsoft’s default business networking solution at a small business site was a frustrating exercise in budget creep, much like placing too big of an engine in a small car! I share this point with you because folks who look at implementing the full complement of Microsoft Server products at
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
a small business today are in many ways demonstrating pre-SBS
Neanderthal business ways. Enough said. Go forth with SBS!
A properly set-up SBS network can improve the way you run your business (or the way your clients run their businesses if you’re an SBS/SMB consultant), help lower computing costs, and, perhaps most important, make it easier for you, the technology consultant or SBS administrator, and your users to use and enjoy computers.
Defining SBS
Exactly what is SBS? Actually, there is more than one answer to that question. I like to think of defining SBS as akin to being a tax attorney: everyone’s situation is different and tax codes can be interpreted differently by different people. Note this section speaks towards both the standard and premium editions of SBS. Specific SBS constituencies, further described below, include:
• Cost-effective, cost-efficient crowd
• Larger-than-life image crowd
• SBS feature creatures
• SBS Zen crowd
• The Big B crowd: Small BUSINESS Server
• Converters and others
BEST PRACTICE: As you delve deeper into this book, there is no better time to expand on my comment in passing above about the standard and premium editions of SBS. The premium edition most closely resembles the predecessor SBS 2000 release in both price and bundled features and applications. It includes everything! The standard edition is much cheaper and doesn’t include Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2000 (ISA) or SQL Server 2000.
Table 1-1 below defines the components, and the premium edition
is discussed much more in Section Four.
Cost-Effective, Cost-Efficient Crowd
SBS provides a cheap, robust, reliable, and easy-to-manage small business networking solution. The small business crowd wants to work with business applications, send and receive e-mail, print, and make sure the data is backed up and protected from viruses. Properly deployed, SBS scores high marks in these respects. SBS offers a cost-effective way of bundling full Microsoft Server applications and the Windows Server 2003 operating system. Here the emphasis in on bang-for-buck, and SBS is viewed as just a different Microsoft stock keeping unit (SKU).
Larger-Than-Life Image Crowd
Presenting a larger-than-life image is the goal of some SBS clients who use SBS to look more impressive and bigger than their small business size warrants. With a high-speed Internet connection and SBS, these businesses look and act as if they are much larger entities. More than once, customers who’ve conducted business with these small businesses, thinking they’re engaging in transactions with a larger firm, are surprised to learn it’s been just three buddies, a pizza, and an SBS network all along. And get out your digital camera, for when these customers visit such an SBS site, a photograph of the look on their faces when they discover the firm that appeared to be a big-time organization is just an incredibly efficient small business is priceless.
Another take on the larger-than-life crowd is keeping up with the Joneses. SBS is sexy and allows you to use and show off the latest Microsoft Servers products. You too can be part of the hip, happenin’ SBS crowd on your block.
SBS Feature Creatures
Many view SBS as a set of mini-Microsoft Servers or “mini-me” (to quote from the popular Austin Power movie) and like to fully exploit SBS applications, such as Microsoft Exchange 2003 and SQL Server 2000. This group, the SBS feature creatures, are going to be most interested in Table 1-1, which is divided, as much as possible, into the server-side (the powerful computer that typically resides in a closet) and the client-side (user workstations) components. Almost
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to a fault, this group is sometimes more interested in SBS as a technology rather than as a device for running a more sophisticated and efficient business. That is a dangerous and ominous warning sign to beware, as any college business professor will tell you. Anytime you start to get more excited about the technology instead of your core business, then please set the book down and take a slight break. While the SBS technology is cool, it’s still just a business tool.
Each SBS component is discussed further in later chapters in this book, so don’t worry if you don’t understand, much less master, each one right now. Such comfort levels and expertise will be developed over the next several hundred pages and in your career as an SBSer. For example, each server component is defined in great detail in its own chapter. Take Microsoft Exchange Server 2003. You’ll learn much more about this e-mail messaging solution in Chapter 6.
Here is my first attempt :)
Chapter 1 Welcome to Small Business Server
Howdy and welcome to Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003, better known as SBS. SBS, now in its fourth major revision, solidifies Microsoft’s position in the small business space. In past editions of my SBS books, I wrote that Microsoft was starting to “get there” technically with early SBS versions and beginning to understand the small business space. With SBS 2003, such historical talk is exactly that: legacy chatter. It’s time to look forward and not only appreciate the product maturity, but also appreciate its repositioning into two versions (standard and premium) with pricing that best meets the needs of different types of small businesses.
With the SBS 2003 release, it’s safe to say it’s NOW time—to borrow from crowd chants at NBA (National Basketball Association) games. It’s NOW time to go forth and implement SBS 2003 without the hesitations you justifiably had with the younger SBS versions.
SBS clearly represents Microsoft’s strongest commitment to the small business market, which, as you will see later in the chapter, represents the largest computing market when measured by sheer number of businesses. With a single Microsoft networking product such as SBS, it is possible to “right-size” a small business networking solution, and all with one reasonably priced and powerful personal computer known as a server.
BEST PRACTICE: This will be one of the only “before SBS” points in this book. But, before SBS, trying to implement Microsoft’s default business networking solution at a small business site was a frustrating exercise in budget creep, much like placing too big of an engine in a small car! I share this point with you because folks who look at implementing the full complement of Microsoft Server products at
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
a small business today are in many ways demonstrating pre-SBS
Neanderthal business ways. Enough said. Go forth with SBS!
A properly set-up SBS network can improve the way you run your business (or the way your clients run their businesses if you’re an SBS/SMB consultant), help lower computing costs, and, perhaps most important, make it easier for you, the technology consultant or SBS administrator, and your users to use and enjoy computers.
Defining SBS
Exactly what is SBS? Actually, there is more than one answer to that question. I like to think of defining SBS as akin to being a tax attorney: everyone’s situation is different and tax codes can be interpreted differently by different people. Note this section speaks towards both the standard and premium editions of SBS. Specific SBS constituencies, further described below, include:
• Cost-effective, cost-efficient crowd
• Larger-than-life image crowd
• SBS feature creatures
• SBS Zen crowd
• The Big B crowd: Small BUSINESS Server
• Converters and others
BEST PRACTICE: As you delve deeper into this book, there is no better time to expand on my comment in passing above about the standard and premium editions of SBS. The premium edition most closely resembles the predecessor SBS 2000 release in both price and bundled features and applications. It includes everything! The standard edition is much cheaper and doesn’t include Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2000 (ISA) or SQL Server 2000.
Table 1-1 below defines the components, and the premium edition
is discussed much more in Section Four.
Cost-Effective, Cost-Efficient Crowd
SBS provides a cheap, robust, reliable, and easy-to-manage small business networking solution. The small business crowd wants to work with business applications, send and receive e-mail, print, and make sure the data is backed up and protected from viruses. Properly deployed, SBS scores high marks in these respects. SBS offers a cost-effective way of bundling full Microsoft Server applications and the Windows Server 2003 operating system. Here the emphasis in on bang-for-buck, and SBS is viewed as just a different Microsoft stock keeping unit (SKU).
Larger-Than-Life Image Crowd
Presenting a larger-than-life image is the goal of some SBS clients who use SBS to look more impressive and bigger than their small business size warrants. With a high-speed Internet connection and SBS, these businesses look and act as if they are much larger entities. More than once, customers who’ve conducted business with these small businesses, thinking they’re engaging in transactions with a larger firm, are surprised to learn it’s been just three buddies, a pizza, and an SBS network all along. And get out your digital camera, for when these customers visit such an SBS site, a photograph of the look on their faces when they discover the firm that appeared to be a big-time organization is just an incredibly efficient small business is priceless.
Another take on the larger-than-life crowd is keeping up with the Joneses. SBS is sexy and allows you to use and show off the latest Microsoft Servers products. You too can be part of the hip, happenin’ SBS crowd on your block.
SBS Feature Creatures
Many view SBS as a set of mini-Microsoft Servers or “mini-me” (to quote from the popular Austin Power movie) and like to fully exploit SBS applications, such as Microsoft Exchange 2003 and SQL Server 2000. This group, the SBS feature creatures, are going to be most interested in Table 1-1, which is divided, as much as possible, into the server-side (the powerful computer that typically resides in a closet) and the client-side (user workstations) components. Almost
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
to a fault, this group is sometimes more interested in SBS as a technology rather than as a device for running a more sophisticated and efficient business. That is a dangerous and ominous warning sign to beware, as any college business professor will tell you. Anytime you start to get more excited about the technology instead of your core business, then please set the book down and take a slight break. While the SBS technology is cool, it’s still just a business tool.
Each SBS component is discussed further in later chapters in this book, so don’t worry if you don’t understand, much less master, each one right now. Such comfort levels and expertise will be developed over the next several hundred pages and in your career as an SBSer. For example, each server component is defined in great detail in its own chapter. Take Microsoft Exchange Server 2003. You’ll learn much more about this e-mail messaging solution in Chapter 6.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
SBS 2008 to drop client-side backup
Mark Crall reports that:
Microsoft on Friday announced it won't be including client PC backup functionality when it releases Small Business Server 2008 to manufacturing in the second half of the year, but will consider adding the feature to future versions.Chris Almida, a program manager with the Windows Small Business Server team, made the announcement at SBS Migration's IT Pro 2008 Conference in New Orleans, where many of Microsoft's Small Business Specialist partners are gathered this weekend.
Microsoft on Friday announced it won't be including client PC backup functionality when it releases Small Business Server 2008 to manufacturing in the second half of the year, but will consider adding the feature to future versions.Chris Almida, a program manager with the Windows Small Business Server team, made the announcement at SBS Migration's IT Pro 2008 Conference in New Orleans, where many of Microsoft's Small Business Specialist partners are gathered this weekend.
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
Thursday, May 8, 2008
I am back
So where did this Small Business Specialist from SMB Nation disappear to?
For a few months, my blog was mistakenly (in my opinion) shut down by blogger. I received a rather cryptic message and appealed to the authorities above. Then wihtou notice the blog was reinstated. Ergo - I was gone.
I hope to start posting more frequently now.
Thanks everyone for reading!
For a few months, my blog was mistakenly (in my opinion) shut down by blogger. I received a rather cryptic message and appealed to the authorities above. Then wihtou notice the blog was reinstated. Ergo - I was gone.
I hope to start posting more frequently now.
Thanks everyone for reading!
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Back to Work
As I sit here waiting for my first cup of coffee, I realize that I should savor this moment. It is the morning of January 2nd and it is time to get back to work! The new year should come at us fast and furious with new product launches from Microsoft and the surrounding SMB ecosystem.
Happy New Year....forward!
harrybbbbb
Happy New Year....forward!
harrybbbbb
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