edmondegan, MCTS, SBSC

I made a post a while back on the old version of this site (which unfortunately is gone now) and I gave SBS2008 an hard time over the features and cost.

After actually spending a few months working with the operating system and swotting up with the training course this past week, I can quite happily saay I am sold – completely.

Initially I thought it was just Small Business Server 2003 thrown on a Windows Server 2008 platform with Exchange Server 2007 tagged on but when you dive in, there’s a hell of a lot of stuff under the lid, hopefully this post will help people make the decision in migrating to Small Business Server 2008.

Please bear in mind this is not a comprehensive deep dive into SBS, more so a quick overview of what I thought were interesting points.

Hardware Requirements

The minimum requirements to install the SBS primary server (SBS 2008 Premium comes with a second Ws2k8 license which is referred to as the Premium Server) are

• x64 Processor (2GHZ on Single Core, 1.5GHz for multi core)
• 4GB Ram
• 60Gb HDD (although this was debated that a 50GB partition on the nose will be accepted but using anything below will not work – I can’t confirm this)
• One NIC – SBS now supports only one Network Interface Card.

If we’re being realistic about this and going from personal experience with the roll outs we have done for clients via VeryPC Innovative Services, you should be looking at multi core regardless due to costs – multi core processors have never been so affordable/available and additionally you should be looking at starting off with at least 6GB RAM as anything below this will be a pain when navigating the operating system if you have a few apps running on it, don’t get me wrong, SBS will work with 4GB but it performs better with more RAM.

In regards to storage, the cost of storage these days is ridiculously cheap and u should look at investing in at hardware RAID controller, again the benefit of having an hardware RAID controller in your system cannot be emphasised enough, software RAID such as Intel ICH9R or some cheap NVIDIA based motherboards with onboard RAID is essentially fake raid, where the processor has to handle via the drives many of the functions of the controller, so when your raid array breaks and a drive goes out of sync and your server grinds to an halt and your users complain about delays in email, file access and any LOB (Line of Business) apps you have running on the server, say thank you to your choice of a software based RAID controller. 4 x 500GB or 4 x  1TB HDD’s in Raid 10 is an relatively cheap investment for the future and will ensure optimal performance and continuity for your business.

Installation

Installation takes a turn as we can now update the installation prior to actually booting the operating system for the first time (couldn’t do this in Server 2003), as with Windows Vista and Windows 7, the installation process is initiated by booting into Windows PE (Pre-installation Environment) and the option to search for updates (if your connected to the Internet) is available, this will download critical updates before the main installation is carried out so the possibility of having the system compromised immediately after attack is greatly reduced.

SBS 2008 also offers another huge advantage over SBS 2003 which is that you can migrate (which I’ll cover later) to SBS 2008 from SBS 2003, SBS 2008 (if you were to replace the hardware), Windows Server 2003 or even Windows Server 2008 editions, in the past you would have to perform a swing migration or create an new domain and manually move everything over (Recreate accounts, Exmerge out PST’s and import manually again etc), the way to initiate the migration is via a sbsanswerfile.xml (created by the sbsafg.exe tool on the install CD) which needs to be on a USB drive or FDD attached to the system at time of booting to put the system into installation mode.

Another significant change in this revision of Small Business Server is that you can only have one nic on the SBS server, this means no more SBS 2003 one in / one out perimeter firewall / routing setup. Essentially you will require a separate firewall for your network, again relatively cheap depending on the features you require (ie. bandwidth monitoring or other ISA style monitoring), If you have the Premium edition of Small Business Server 2008 you no longer get ISA bundled with the package but you could purchase Forefront Threat Management Gateway and install this on the second box and use 2 NICs on that box and configure it as a gateway.

Kiss goodbye to two NICS in your SBS box

Installation otherwise is the same as if you were installing Windows Vista or Windows 7, one very very very very (as Mark Cresswell @ QA said there’s a lot of very’s there) important thing to remember which is when installing SBS 2008 you MUST install the operating system on to Disk 0, Partition 1 if you want the bare metal restore to work otherwise it will fail and you will be left in a situation where you will have to restore the Operating System and restore the backup from within windows.

Post Installation and Migration

After the copying and expanding files process has completed you will be either be greeted with the Installation finished wizard and will be offered to ‘Start the migration wizard’ or you will be presented with a similar screen which when you select finish installation, will take you to the new Small Business Server 2008 Console.

If you choose migration you will be presented with the following screen.

When you click on start the migration wizard, you will be taken to a GUI which will walk you through the entire process of migrating everything from user data, mailboxes, group policy, sharepoint – you name it and it will do it for you.

This wizard will either perform the task for you or will provide you with the information on how to do it (e.g using robocopy to copy users shared folders from the source server, if you manage to screw up the wizard (as it asks you if you have completed something), you can reset it by editing the .xml file associated with it.

Once you have completed all the steps (some are optional) although Configure the network and Configure the Internet Address are mandatory you will be presented with the Small Business Server 2008 management console.

Backup

Small Business Server 2008 has found its backup process upgraded significantly since 2003, Windows Server Backup now allows us to restore the server from bare metal in the case of a disaster, simply booting from the installation DVD and choosing to restore the server will allow restoration to even dissimilar hardware by utilising WinPE and allowing direct injection of the storage drivers into the image while it is being restored to the hardware.

With the ability to store up to 64 backups on a single Disk and couple this with the ability to register VSS writers (such as Hyper-V, SQL) with the Windows Server Backup giving you the ability to backup applications rather than having to restore the entire O/S or run separate and time consuming backups, you get everything rolled into one. The other major change is that SBS 2008 doesn’t support tape drives as a backup destination.

Remote Web Workplace, Exchange 2007 and Sharepoint Services 3.0

SBS 2008 also comes with an greatly improved and simplified RWW providing easy access to remote desktops, Outlook Web Access via Exchange 2007, SBS 2008 doesn’t come with a license for the desktop edition of Outlook so you will be resigned to purchasing either Office with Outlook or relying purely on the OWA access. you get all the usual refinements, exchange activesync, you also get the ability to publish internal network shares via OWA so you can access your documents 24/7 wherever you have OWA access, this can be locked down also to prevent exposure of internal documents.

A new feature in Exchange 2007 is Outlook Anywhere, the ability to configure Outlook for RPC over HTTP access anywhere via the autodiscover service by simply entering your email address and letting the server configure the rest for you although this is reliant on having correct certificates in place.

Sharepoint Services 3.0 offers many benefits from pure collaboration to routing incoming faxes via email or to a document library for multiple user access.

Conclusion

My opinion has seriously changed on SBS 2008 over the last 6 months as it offers all the benefits above and more to boot, increased stability, increased security, cheaper licensing on CAL’s (can buy single CAL’s now instead of being limited to buying packs of 5) to mention just a few.

A lot of hardware is coming to the end of its lifetime for Small Business Server 2003 and now is the opportune time to move to Small Business Server 2008 as with the new migration paths,

¬¬  Edmond Egan is Technical Services Manager for BothRealities, a managed services company based in Sheffield,UK. He is also a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist and part of the Small Business Specialist Community with a passion for Server and Desktop Virtualization and Disaster Recovery.