SBS Standard’s Gift to SMB IT Going Forward

Another comment made on Susan’s blog post here: A social question about the future of SMB servers

SBS fit the bill for SMB IT infrastructure and did so beautifully. It provided an awesome Enterprise oriented platform for our SMB clients. Many of us have seen jealousy in the eyes of our fellow Enterprise IT Pros since SBS 2003 and the RWW were first released.

Many of us have probably been through the flame wars that *NIX folks would toss our way, even Enterprise IT Pros too, about having everything on one box and EXPOSING it to the Internet?!?!?

One big plus that has become one of the guiding lights for me through all of the pain and angst of figuring out where we (MPECS, Monique my wife and co-owner, and our contractors) fit in to the new Cloudy picture is that SBS has given us a blueprint (no pun intended on the book) to move on with.

What is that blueprint?

• AD/GPO structure
• Exchange and its configuration out of the box (lots to learn here)
• File Resources and management (reports, quotas, etc.)
• WSUS and patch management
• Reporting (we know we need something right?)
• RDS (RDGateway, RemoteApps, and RDS to users) ***
• SharePoint

SBS gives us a clear vision into how Microsoft would and does configure the individual components built into the SBS Suite of products.

There is a learning curve involved here. No doubt about it.

But, we have the tools today that can get us to the point of virtually automating the install and configuration of most of the above bits today in PowerShell and to some extent the new Server Manager and Exchange Admin Console.

In the end, the message here is a hopeful one. On-Premises will be around and we plan to be there to integrate the solution set in a Microsoft Best Practices manner. SBS gives us a very important glimpse into those “Best Practices”. :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Chef de partie in the SMBKitchen
Find out more at
www.thirdtier.net/enterprise-solutions-for-small-business/

Windows Live Writer