It seems like there is someone standing right behind me all the time. Call it conscience, guilt, angel enforcers, whatever. Any minute they will draw their sword and take my head off with a single highlander turned samurai warrior chop.
This week I read of a man jogging on a beach being killed by an airplane landing on him. I swear I keep hearing low flying aircraft.
You don't know what you want until you get it and then you are usually half way through with it when you figure it out. The great moments in stories where people put the puzzle together and figure out that which had eluded them the first 300 pages never seem to happen in real life. That moment comes sitting on a riding tractor with hat hair in the rain . I can't figure it out.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
In the Swing of things
Lets talk about the Small Business Server again. I have been asked to help swing migrate a bunch of SBS 2003 servers to SBS 2008 using the SBSmigration.com swing kit. I have not done one yet but it looks promising. I am having a conflict of conscience and I am starting to question if SBS 2008 is the solution that I want to encourage going forward.
Looking at my clients that have SBS 2003, none of them use Exchange. One did but they use a hosted exchange solution now so there goes that. I can't find anyone that has ever or plans to ever use Sharepoint. These seem to be the biggest reason to put up the extra money required to buy SBS 2008. If you remove these from the equation you start to wonder why pay more for SBS.
I am trying to make a list of things I like about SBS 2k3 other that I can only get with SBS 2k8. It is hard to do.
1. Remote Web Workplace. This is a big one because the ability to work from home is more popular now than ever. You would have to buy software to give a Server 2k8 Standard this functionality. This goes in the SBS 2k8 column.
2. Built in VPN. This is used at almost every one of our SBS 2003 clients currently and is very popular. It is a nice solution for those pesky laptops that need access. This is by no means unique to SBS. You can get software or hardware to do this for you without going to SBS. This goes in the Standard column.
3. Fax Server. This comes standard with Server 2008 anyway so this is not really a reason to go to SBS. Another one for Standard
4. GUI wizards and controls. I have only one client that would ever think about logging into the server to do anything on the GUI management console. I guess our clients just aren't interested in that sort of thing. This is no big loss for me because if you are going with Server 2008 Standard you don't need to configure the kinds of things that you do with SBS. Another win for Standard.
5. Free Outlook client. Oh, wait, that's right. Microsoft decided for me that no one in the world ever opts not to buy Office. It is not included in the more expensive CAL for SBS 2008. I can't say I know why. Another win for Standard.
I can't think of any other reasons to implement SBS 2008 instead of Server 2008 Standard. Remember I removed the Exchange and Sharepoint from the equation so if a client needed that sort of thing I would have to say that SBS 2008 would be a consideration.
I will do a price comparison between sbs2k8 and 2k8 standard in my next post. Should be interesting. Lets see where that takes us.
Looking at my clients that have SBS 2003, none of them use Exchange. One did but they use a hosted exchange solution now so there goes that. I can't find anyone that has ever or plans to ever use Sharepoint. These seem to be the biggest reason to put up the extra money required to buy SBS 2008. If you remove these from the equation you start to wonder why pay more for SBS.
I am trying to make a list of things I like about SBS 2k3 other that I can only get with SBS 2k8. It is hard to do.
1. Remote Web Workplace. This is a big one because the ability to work from home is more popular now than ever. You would have to buy software to give a Server 2k8 Standard this functionality. This goes in the SBS 2k8 column.
2. Built in VPN. This is used at almost every one of our SBS 2003 clients currently and is very popular. It is a nice solution for those pesky laptops that need access. This is by no means unique to SBS. You can get software or hardware to do this for you without going to SBS. This goes in the Standard column.
3. Fax Server. This comes standard with Server 2008 anyway so this is not really a reason to go to SBS. Another one for Standard
4. GUI wizards and controls. I have only one client that would ever think about logging into the server to do anything on the GUI management console. I guess our clients just aren't interested in that sort of thing. This is no big loss for me because if you are going with Server 2008 Standard you don't need to configure the kinds of things that you do with SBS. Another win for Standard.
5. Free Outlook client. Oh, wait, that's right. Microsoft decided for me that no one in the world ever opts not to buy Office. It is not included in the more expensive CAL for SBS 2008. I can't say I know why. Another win for Standard.
I can't think of any other reasons to implement SBS 2008 instead of Server 2008 Standard. Remember I removed the Exchange and Sharepoint from the equation so if a client needed that sort of thing I would have to say that SBS 2008 would be a consideration.
I will do a price comparison between sbs2k8 and 2k8 standard in my next post. Should be interesting. Lets see where that takes us.
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