posted on Friday, April 21, 2006 10:20 PM by bradley

Ray... you were doing so good until that last part....

If you are setting up a network of up to 75 users, one of the more
economical choices available is Windows Small Business Server (SBS)
2003.  The price of the operating system (say for 10 users) is around
$1,800.  While that does not sound significantly less than the
"full-blown" Windows Server 2003, the cost is significantly less if you
consider everything that ships with SBS at no additional cost.  The
basic version of SBS includes SharePoint, Exchange Server and Outlook,
while the Premium version includes SQL Server and ISA Server.  In
addition to this, if you purchase a good backup software solution like
Veritas Backup Exec, the Small Business Version of the backup software
includes an agent for Exchange Server and ends up costing you (if you
use Exchange Server) less than 1/2 the cost of Backup Exec for Windows
2003 Server since the Exchange Server license must be purchased
separately for that version and costs more than the basic backup
software itself.

 

In addition to cost, SBS is almost entirely installed via wizards and
this simplifies the installation process and prevents a lot of the
configuration errors that often occur during an integrated Windows
Server installation.  The various parts of the puzzle are far more
easily installed in SBS than in Windows Server.  Chances are, once the
installation is finished, all the parts will "talk well" to one another
and the conflicts should be relatively few and easy to resolve.
 

That's the good news.

 

The bad news is that SBS expects to be the SOLE master of your network.
The documentation explains that your SBS server must be the Domain
Controller and must be installed at the "root of the forest".  So, if
you decide a few years down the road (for whatever reason) that you wish
to transfer a part of you network load to another server, SBS is REALLY
reluctant to share the sandbox with another server.  In theory, of
course, anything is possible.  The reality is that the very simplicity
of your original install created a pretty "closed" system and migration
of DNS and Active Directory and other issues which is relatively simple
between two Windows Servers becomes a bit of a nightmare when one of the
servers is a SBS.

 

This is not necessarily a reason for avoiding Small Business Server.
If, however, you decide to expand your network down the road, you might
be looking at scrapping your investment in your Small Business Server.

 

Ray

'

So Les Connor was sharing with me this email from a Canadian listserve...and the first part of the post ...man it is warming my heart...but then we get to that "bad news" part.

 

Man oh man... how wrong can Ray be.

 

Ray... I have not ONE but two servers in my network and I have some file storage and live communication server on the second one.  And in fact in the R2 era we will be able to easily and cheaply add a Windows Server, an Exchange server or a SQL 2005 workgroup for the price of that server OS.. with no cal cost.  THEN comes the kicker.. Ray, Ray, Ray...once a SBS box hits that 75 user limit or whatever thing that you need to be big server land for ...like trusts and what not... you just go through the Transition pack.  You don't scrap anything.  You keep your investment.

 

The only thing unique about SBS is that it must hold all the FSMO roles and be the primary domain controller...that doesn't mean that it can't share the wealth and have addiitonal servers.  No you can't put Exchange on another box, or the parts that come with SBS but that doesn't mean you can't add additional servers. And honestly... get good hardware and I don't need additional servers. 

 

And for those folks that argue "well but you have all your eggs in one basket in SBS" to that I argue... yeah but it's one well looked after and monitored basket.  And honestly I find this ironic when everyone else in big server land are doing virtualization ...that they are sticking like 10 servers on one physical machine and folks think what we do in SBSland is crazy.

 

How can it be..how many years after SBS 2003 shipped that folks can get it so wrong?  What marketing information are they reading?  Where are they getting this stuff?  Why is the message not getting to the marketplace? 

 

It just amazes me how people get SBS so wrong. 

 

So let's recap class..... additional domain controllers.. CAN DO... additional servers... CAN DO.... grow into big server land parts if needed... CAN DO..... Remote Web workplace that NO ONE ELSE HAS..... HAVE THAT.

 

Come on marketing.... get that message out there of what SBS is...because people out here are not getting the message of what SBS truly and really is.. it does not limit me or my firm AT ALL.

Comments

# re: Ray... you were doing so good until that last part....

Monday, April 24, 2006 10:29 AM by Geoff MacCombe
I'm continually surprised by these statements, it's a hard upward sell when smart customers do there research and see those. I know factually that they are incorrect. I have a "mortgage" company client with to regional offices a great distance apart yet under 50 users, each office has a local DC, which in turn is controlled by the SBS server here even further north in our data center, guess what it works and has since implemintation nearly 18 mos ago.

# SBS and the domain controller issue

Tuesday, April 25, 2006 9:32 AM by Rob Murphy
Can you send me a link to the podcast that confirms the fact that SBS 2003 (standard or enterprise) will happily coexist with other domain controllers on the same network\tree\forest etc please bearing in mind the following from microsoft.

"Q. What is Windows Server 2003 for Small Business Server?

A. Windows Server 2003 for Small Business Server is designed for partners who want to deliver a server solution based on Windows Server 2003 as part of their product offering. It provides the same version of Windows Server 2003 that is used by Windows Small Business Server 2003, but it has none of the added features included in the standard edition or premium edition of Windows Small Business Server 2003.

Windows Server 2003 for Small Business Server has the following restrictions:

• Only one computer in a domain can be running Windows Server 2003 for Small Business Server.

• Windows Server 2003 for Small Business Server must be the root of the Active Directory forest.

• Windows Server 2003 for Small Business Server cannot trust any other domains.

• A Windows Server 2003 for Small Business Server domain cannot have any child domains.

• Each additional server must have a Windows Server 2003 for Small Business Server client access license (CAL). You can use CALs for each user or for each device."

( excerpt from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/sbs/evaluation/faq/prodinfo.mspx - note that the products this refers to is the sbs 2003 family which is 'windows small business server 2003 standard edition' or 'windows small business server 2003 enterprise edition')

if what you say is correct (i.e. more that one domain controller allowed in a sbs 2003 standard or enterprise network) then why are microsoft misinforming us?

member servers i know are ok.

secondary dc's ? (what as in pdc/bdc pre NT5 compat), do you mean mixed or native mode.

having a server that will not relinquish fsmo roles is a pain in the *** for diaster recovery as I hope you well know.

I found that SBS 2003 CAL's way too expensive it was cheaper to buy server 2003 standard ed and exchange 2003 standard - with much more flexibilty with regard to recovery.

On a sillier note wouldn't placing more than one DC in a sbs 2003 (std ot ent) network be in violation of the microsoft eula.

I eagerly await your reponse.

Rob



# re: Ray... you were doing so good until that last part....

Wednesday, April 26, 2006 2:41 AM by Matt Ridings
What I would love to fully understand is why SBS cannot play nicely with another dhcp server?

I have a few clients whose business absolutely dictates redundancy of connectivity, and while I can't fully replicate their SBS environment across servers I can pull off the minimum with an additional windows server based domain controller. How come I can replicate dns, wins, and active directory information.....I can populate the default shares out with a combo of DFS and FRS....and can even failover to a separate gateway if their router dies (although not failback :( ). But I can't do a simple thing like maintain a failover dhcp server without hacking my own solution via a service monitor and automation scripts.

Is it absolutely critical that I have it? *shrug* I could probably do without it and be fairly safe given the default behaviour of dhcp when neither a new nor the old server cannot be contacted...but I like much shorter dhcp lease durations than the default, particularly with so much temporary wireless activity in my clients locations. So an outage of the SBS server of more than a day could be a real issue for them without a backup dhcp. (yes I realize that the ip is technically not supposed to be released upon loss of a dhcp server...even if the lease duration is passed).

I'm certainly not defending the folks who are passing along such misinformation regarding the usage of SBS and other domain controllers/servers. I'm about as big a SBS zealot as you'll ever come across. I'm just stating that the reason such misinformation exists has as much to do with the lack of clear, prominent, straightforward, information from MS regarding exactly what the 'differences' are. The people who really screw up new SBS installations in my experience are those who are the most experienced in traditional windows environments. (you should have seen my first sbs install....) The mistrust of 'wizards', the concept of the product being somehow 'less than' what they normally work on, etc. all lead to a woefully inadequate installation of the product that will be riddled with errors for all time without a complete reinstall. Yet the vast majority of documentation out there for SBS is not written for that audience. The information that exists on these few, but important, differences is what I call 'After the fact info'. In other words you won't find out the answer until after you've run into the problem. And then only after a lot of googling and searcing of the kb. It certainly didn't cross my mind that I couldn't run a second dhcp server on a second domain controller until the first time I tried it.

I guess what I'm saying is that yes, you're right that the differences between SBS and standard Win Server is minimal under the covers. And in most cases the information bandied about is just wrong. But there *are* still some important differences, they just don't seem to be as readily accessible or published.

By the way, while I take your point regarding virtualization I'd like to add that your comparison isn't really apples to apples. Moving, restoring, or rolling back a virtualized server can be done literally in a matter of minutes from a total hardware failure since the hardware is 'virtual'. So it's just a matter of loading the last virtual image into the virtual server software on *any* available machine. Heck, if there wasn't such a performance penalty to virtualization I'd run all my servers that way for just that reason :)

Cheers, and thanks for always providing a good read.

Matt Ridings
MSR Consulting