The Sikh Geek

I’ve been running SBS 2008 for many months now from the Beta programme and over the weekend I installed the RTM version of SBS 2008. There is no in place upgrade from Beta versions to the RTM version, so it meant a reinstall. The first thing to say about the installation is how easy it is and how much quicker it is compared to SBS 2003. I am a big fan of the easiness of SBS 2008 and I know that might make me a bad consultant to some who think it’s been made too easy. I like the wizard driven approach and that’s been refined in SBS 2008 from 2003 just enough to make things easier to access, such as surfacing the Smarthost option (for sending outbound emails) rather than having to dig into the depths of the SMTP Virtual Server to do it.  The SBS Self-signed Certificate is conveniently placed on the Sharepoint Company Web and I was able to download it and install it on my Windows Smartphone (I have previously done this with the Orange E650 and HP iPaq Voice Messenger with a problem). The only slight problem I had was setting up the Internet Connection which failed and was told to go to Fix Network, which I did and it did fix it by installing IPv6. I could then rerun the Internet wizard and Exchange was configured and ready to go. I let SBS 2008 install Forefront and Live One Care for Server which came on a limited time trial basis and they’ve obviously tuned Forefront to be slightly less aggressive on the filtering as in the Beta it was rejecting left, right and centre. I really like the "Network Essentials Summary" on the SBS Console Homepage which gives a quick overview of the state of the server and in Network -> Computers you see the state of the client computers as well.

In terms of resource usage the early indications are that memory usage is up from SBS 2003 and with 4 GB on my machine, it is using 97% of that. Therefore, the 4 GB recommendation is only really a minimum you should have and more likely 8 GB would be a working average in my opinion.

Whilst the installation is a breeze, there’s lots to learn such as Exchange Server 2007, Server 2008, WSS 3.0, Forefront (if you decide to use it although I’m not sure what other options are available for SBS 2008?).

The SBS Team have done a great job on this and I don’t think they are given enough credit. Remember that is one of the products from Microsoft that is completely 64 bit! Anyone who writes software knows that integrating various different products from different product teams is not an easy task.

I’m still learning but I’m enjoying learning about SBS 2008! Next step is Virtualisation …

I forgot to add that I’ve had 2 BSODs (Blue Screen of Death) related to nvstor which is the driver Microsoft uses to manage storage for the NVidia nForce SATA Controller. From my searching around some other people have reported this but with Vista. I am currently running SBS 2008 on a Dell Dimension C521 which is actually a desktop machine until I virtualise SBS 2008 and put onto proper server hardware (once I’ve worked out how to do a Physical to Virtual Conversion of SBS 2008?). However, I have noticed my test server which is a HP ML115 uses the NVidia chipset as well! The Beta2 version of SBS 2008 was rock solid, it never crashed once in the 6 months I was running it.

I’ve been seeing "reset to /device/raid0" in the event log but there is no Raid on the machine??

During this year’s WPC in Houston there was much discussion about how the PALs should communicate publicly. To cut a long story short the PALs have created a Sharepoint site http://www.sbscpal.com which has been very kindly provided by Jose Morales (one of the European PALs based in Slovenia). It’s a WSS 3.0 site which Jose and his team at B4 Contact have built a CMS around called Sharepoint CMS. This allows the public facing site to be branded and have some great templates added. The content is easily managed via an intuitive web based interface. It has been created by the PALs and paid for by the PALs but with the full support of Microsoft. It is independent of Microsoft so they do not control the content, we do as a Community!

The site is split into the PAL regions of the World and on the frontpage you can click on the respective country flag to go into that public area. The UK region can be found here and is maintained by myself.

The reason for writing this post is to start to encourage people to contribute to this site via me if you are a UK SBSC Partner. The content is open to what you think would be valuable but here are some of my thoughts :-

• Blog roll links to SBSC UK Partners (if you have an active blog let me know!)
• Contact details of Current SBSC Groups
• Upcoming Events
• Partner Interviews (let me know if I could interview you about business/technical stuff?)
• Business/Technical Articles (would you be willing to write an article for the site?)
• Customer Case Studies (do you have an existing Microsoft Published Case study which could be highlighted or one of your own stories?)
• Links to other existing resources

Now, I know you UK SBSC Partners can be a shy retiring bunch sometimes so I’m not expecting a sudden stampede to contribute so I’ll be reaching out to certain people in the coming weeks to seek contributions by calling in favours, begging and bribery:-) We have commitments from Microsoft to provide contributions so this is a serious thing we are doing. We want to make this site unique and not just be duplicating content. This can be a great Showcase/PR vehicle for you as a UK Partner because it will be seen at the highest levels of Microsoft not just in the UK but also at Microsoft Corporate level. I’m pretty sure Andrea Russell in Redmond will make certain that people within Microsoft see what we are doing as a Community.

So, contact me at vijay@sikhgeek.com or Mob: 07773 123 562

I had to read Emily’s post twice! An article about SBS 2008 in The Guardian?? Really??

Interesting article by Kate Bevan who is a technology journalist and was writing about setting up SBS 2008.

She writes a blog at http://stuffandthoughts.wordpress.com which has some posts on SBS 2008. She’s also on Twitter so I’ll see if I can connect with her on there!

Nice highlight by Emily

P.S. Why not consider Digging the article at http://digg.com/software/Servers_with_a_smile

You’re invited to attend the worldwide launch event for Windows Essential Server Solutions, which includes Windows Essential Business Server (EBS) 2008.

Please join us for the Windows Essential Server Solutions Virtual Launch Event, held November 12^th, 2008, at 8-9 a.m. Pacific Standard Time at http://www.thedreamserver.com.

Microsoft and its partners are launching Windows Essential Server Solutions, a new family of integrated server solutions that address the unique needs of small and midsize businesses (SMBs). During times of stationary or shrinking budgets and economic uncertainty, minimizing the redundancies and optimizing parts in your IT infrastructure can help control costs and raise productivity. With the unique challenges firms face upgrading and maintaining their IT infrastructure, smart organizations are re-evaluating their plans and expenditures and investing wisely.

This live, one-day, virtual tradeshow is to launch Windows Essential Server Solutions, which includes Windows Small Business Server 2008 and Windows Essential Business Server 2008. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and other Microsoft executives will introduce these new products and will be joined by Mark Minasi, an independent expert and best-selling author.

Webcasts:

In addition to the main launch keynote, there will be both business and technical sessions that will address concerns and questions that decision makers have in today’s tough economy.

1. Opening Keynote / Launch Webcast – Presenters: Steve Ballmer, Steve Guggenheimer, Michael Risse, Steven VanRoekel

2. Mark Minasi Session: 7 Tips that IT can use During the Economic Downturn, Includes interview with Chris Phillips

3. Turn Your IT Infrastructure into a Strategic Business Asset – Customer and Partner Perspective, Presenters: Michael Cocanower, CEO of itSynergy, and Steve Porter, CIO of Touchstone Behavioral Health

4. Windows Essential Business Server - A Real-World Customer Perspective, Featuring Sumeeth Evans, IT Director of Collegiate Housing Services

Channel Partners are invited to take part in a special session to find out what opportunities Windows Essential Server Solutions provides for their practice

5. Windows Essential Server Solutions for Channel Partners - Hear directly from  two Microsoft partners, Richard Opal, and Lyf Wildenberg, who are making deep investments in Windows Essential Server Solutions,

Exhibit Hall

Visit the exhibit hall and discover how integrated hardware and software solutions provide enterprise-class infrastructure without the complexity or cost. Learn how affordable blade servers can help make the goal of an infrastructure- in-a-box a reality. And find out how software for backup, security, line-of-business (LOB), and management work together seamlessly to help ensure SMBs are more secure and productive.

14 Booths:  You will be able to get information and interact with representatives from:

• AMD
• CA
• Citrix Systems
• Dell
• HP
• IBM
• Intel
• Lenovo
• SUN Microsystems, Inc.
• Symantec
• Trend Micro
• Microsoft Windows Mobile
• Microsoft Windows Essential Server Solutions
• Microsoft Dynamics

Harry Brelsford of SMB Nation (as if I have to explain who he is!) has organised a one day conference at the Microsoft Offices in Victoria, London on 5th December 2008.

The content will be provided by Harry and Jeff Middleton of SBS Migration, pretty much the de facto Guru on migrating SBS Servers.

Check out the full agenda here and sign-up.

Good to see Richard Tubb has taken on the role as post event secretary, so count me in to the celebrations afterwards - good man!

Yesterday evening was the first in a series of SBS/EBS launch events by Microsoft. It was run through the London SBS Group which is run by Ian Watkins of Oxbridge Technology. I made my way down to London as I’m going to miss our own Midlands SBS Launch Event on 12th November as I’ll be off to India on that day. It was a good event and very well attended and great to catch up with some familiar faces as well as some new ones as well.

James Senior and James Burgess presented an overview of SBS/EBS and highlighted some of the Partner opportunities and did some demo as well. There were some questions asked by the attendees which were (the blue bits are my own thoughts):-

Can you have the same server name after a migration?

The migration process is a domain join method where you have the servers on the same domain at the same time, so you cannot have the same name. Although Ian Watkins did say something about DNS aliases, whether the migration adds something to DNS to resolve the new server name to the old server name?

What’s the value/difference to an end user for WSS 3.0?

Microsoft made some great changes from WSS 2.0 to WSS 3.0 around the architecture of Sharepoint. It is now built on ASP.NET 2.0 and .NET 3.0 framework, which from a customisation and application development viewpoint is hugely significant. Whilst this is not all directly apparent to an end user (depending on how they are using Sharepoint) the overall experience is much better and easier to manage.

What’s the price of SBS 2008?

Unfortunately, I’ve still not seen any UK Pricing!!

Within the attendees only a few had actually played with SBS 2008 in anger and the impression I got was that people were waiting to get their hands on the RTM version through MAPS (which is due out in the next month). The RTM version is available on MSDN and Technet if you have access to that.

Emily did a great overview of Community stuff and what she had put in place and was intending to do and also setting the expectations of what Partners could reasonably expect. Check out her blog if you haven’t already which is being updated on a regular basis!

There was a presentation by Julie Simpson of ResourceIT which was an interesting discussion on Marketing/Sales for SBSC Partners. She has put together some special packages for SBSC Partners for business development which looked very interesting to me. Also her business works solely with Microsoft Partners of all types.

If you haven’t yet registered for an SBS Launch Event then check out Emily’s post on this.

A huge congratulations to Susan Bradley who has been awarded SBSer of the Year Award at SMB Nation 2008, which is currently on in Seattle. This is thoroughly deserved and as one commenter puts it on her blog, she is SBSer of the Era!

She is the ultimate professional and I hugely respect her for all that she does for the SBS/SMB/Security Community. This is all the more remarkable because that is not her day job to provide IT Support/Consultancy to other businesses, yet she has a more profound understanding of SBS/SMB/Security than most people who do it day in and day out for a living.

The other reason I respect her is that she has the guts to stand up for all SBSers, whoever they are and at whatever point they are in their business.

Thanks Susan.

We all know how SBS 2008 will be adopted, new installs and refreshment of hardware. For anyone who has listened to Gareth Hall, the Windows Server Product Manager for Microsoft, around the UK SBS Groups recently then you will know that he’s a pragmatic person and understands very well how these things go. I am discussing with several customers about being early adopters because I am confident that SBS 2008 will give them significant value and if we can get some good PR/Case Studies out of it, well that is something that I’m not going to turn down. It’s a differentiater for us.

Check out the WESS Partner Readiness Tour which is focused around the SBS Groups which is coming to a location near you over the next month or two.

I can confidently say that I’m not waiting for Microsoft to tell me what the value and opportunities are around SBS 2008. I would be very surprised if they were able to tell me anyway! I’m the one who knows my business and my customers and it’s me the customers pay to advise them.

If you want to tell Microsoft they are getting it all wrong then maybe consider actually engaging with them face to face.

On Wed 12th November at 5.30pm AMITPRO will be hosting one of the Microsoft SBS/EBS 2008 Launch Events at the Arden Hotel. Other events will be going on around the UK at various SBS Groups on various dates in Oct/Nov. This is a great endorsement and engagement by Microsoft with SBSC Partners who have been attending SBS Groups regularly. It’s brave of Microsoft to not go with a single big launch event and I’m sure this approach is going to pay off.

Thanks to Emily Lambert, SBSC Programme Lead and Gareth Hall, Windows Server Product Manager for making the right choice in my view.

Emily will be announcing the details very soon in the SBSC Newsletter, so keep an eye out for that. I just wanted to give a heads up for our Group Event, even though I’m going to miss it myself as I’m flying out to India on that day, doh! If you haven’t got one near you then come along to ours, there will be some serious networking being done at the bar afterwards over some liquid refreshment

Also keep an eye out on the other Midlands Group blogs for further info :

Steve Wright - Group Leader

Richard Tubb

Andy Parkes

I wondered when Vlad would perk up when he caught wind of discussions around SBS Consultants. We know his views around this even though his own services are seeking to make the click-through wizard approach of SBS even simpler with hosted services where you don’t even need the infrastructure.

I thought about all the responses to David’s second article and all the technical arguments but at the end of the day you only have to ask yourself the following questions :-

Is your customer happy with your services?

Is your customer happy with SBS 2003 as a solution?

Are you making money out of it?

Are you happy doing what you do?

If you answer yes to these questions then you can ignore what anyone says about SBS and you as an SBS Consultant. In life there is always people wanting to do you down but if you have confidence in what you do then these things shouldn’t matter. The customer is king!