The ballad of SBS 2008

From the first moment I started using Microsoft Small Business Server Premium 2008 I knew I had made a mistake....

It was actually before the first moment I had a chance to use the OS. This may not be true for all vendors but Dell would not sell me an OEM copy of SBS Premium 2008 pre-installed. Their own small business quote team could not figure out why. Worse yet they sold me an Open License pack and listed media on the invoice but did not send the media citing some crazy Microsoft licensing policy. Okay, well I thought I could log into the Microsoft site and download it but that was a no go due to the same weird licensing policy.

It took 3 people from Microsoft Open Licensing Team before I convinced them I wanted the media shipped to me. I even had to pay for the FedEx charge. I will let all that speak for itself.

I get the OS and install it on my empty Dell Server. All goes pretty well I suppose until I see that there is no consolidated MMC server management console like there is in SBS2003. The nay sayers will say "nay, there is a console" but it is not useful out of the box like SBS 2003. I had to tweak it.

Setting up my clients posed some challenges due to the fact that one of the machines turned out to be Windows 2000. Guess what boys and girls. The most stable and longest running OS that Microsoft ever made is not supported in SBS 2008.

Guess what else is not included in the grossly expensive CAL price? Outlook. That is correct folks. If you buy SBS for the Exchange capability and happen to use Word Perfect instead of Office you have just added about $90 a machine to your cost of install.

It gets worse. The much improved backup tool built into SBS 2008 does not support NAS drives. EDIT - Not in the GUI at least - EDIT. You can add a cheap external drive from Wal-Mart and run your backup but if you have a RAID mirrored 2 TB NAS you are out of luck. Fortunately we had already bought another backup program which kind of supports NAS backup.

In conclusion I should have read the details more closely. While I have read about SBS 2008 it was mostly glowing reviews from fanboys. I thought that if SBS 2003 was good then SBS 2008 should have similar features and actually add features. Sadly it is the opposite. It is more expensive with less features EDIT that I care about EDIT.

Before any crazy fanboy (or fangirl) posts and says true things like "NAS was not supported in 2003" or "The cost of the CAL reflects the hardwork and dedication of millions of coders.... blah blah" or "Everyone had Outlook already so why give it away for free", EDIT insert nicer wording! EDIT.

I like Server 2008
I don't like SBS 2008
I may still suggest SBS 2008
I will not buy EDIT brand name removed EDIT again
OWA is not and is not likely to ever be the same as running outlook on your desktop. .

The positive in all of this is that the client has me on his side. I was able to work through Dell and Microsoft's attempts to force me to use clarkconnect out of frustration. I like that you can't use the administrator account for anything. I like the 64 bit system support. While no one will ever explain why it is any of Microsoft's business if I use 2 nics is still a mystery.

I am still ticked about the Outlook thing. Warn a brother would ya? Crazy.

UPDATE - 11/18/09 -
Billy, Thanks for the offer of help. I have your backup software installed and it is in fact backing up the client's data to a NAS. I will spare everyone my thoughts about small business backups. I am generally positive but I am frustrated about this whole project and wish to blend back into the background noise of the net.