The Sikh Geek

The details are on The Official SBS Blog so now you can start downloading. It is around the 10 GB mark and consists of 4 ISOs for SBS 2008 RC0 DVD1,2,3 and SQL 2008. You can download from here.

You need a 64 bit machine and recommended to have 4 GB RAM (although people have run it with less). I’m running mine on a Dell Dimension C521 which is just a desktop but quiet and small, costing a few hundred pounds with an AMD64 processor and 4 GB RAM. Also, people have been virtualising it using either VMWare or Server 2008 using Hyper-V without too many issues.

I think once you’ve gotten over the fact that it is a single NIC and no ISA, that there is a lot of value in it. You’re getting Server 2008, Exchange Server 2007, Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 and SQL Server 2008 Standard Ed as the core components for Premium. So, whereas people used to sell Premium because of ISA, it’ll now be a case of selling it for SQL Server 2008 and the 2nd Server license for LOB applications.

It really does take SBS to another level and the SBS Team have again done a great job integrating all these components into a coherent, powerful and usable solution but see for yourself.

The next AMITPRO Meeting on Tue 10th June will be focused entirely on SBS 2008 with Emma Cockburn and Sonal Gathani of Microsoft coming along but we’ll also look at SBS 2008 in a little bit more technical detail.

… what I forgot to mention is that you’ll have to start getting your head around Forefront, at least for the Public Preview, as it will come as part of the installation. I’ve found the default settings to be very aggressive on the filtering and sender id side, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We’ll have to see what the AV vendors come out with to support SBS 2008?