THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS "DIVA"

Now in honesty there are times that I will get frustrated with my server...but lately it's been due to issues with SP2 rather than anything else.... and there's a couple of lines in this blog post that I just had to respond to

http://wvconfidential.com/wordpress/?p=91

1.  Ridiculous reboot times - 30 minutes he says?  How about when I reboot my server I have just enough time to visit the ladies restroom before the server is back in operation.  Now granted, I'm a girl so there's a bit of primping that goes on (no Vlad not pimping.. primping...you know... putting another spackling of makeup on the face and what not) so that might make my visit to the ladies room longer than the time you guys take in the mens room, but you get the idea.  If it's taking 30 minutes to reboot your box, you have a DNS problem more often than not caused by a poorly set up dns that you aren't pointing your nics to your internal IP address.  Post a ipconfig /all in that blog and let's see if there's a problem with your DNS configuration.  I'll bet there is.

2.  Insane complications from having too many SQL instances on one server.  SBS monitoring is only supported on msde.  And yes, you can just stomp on the msde instances so that the memory stays in check if you are seeing that issue http://msmvps.com/blogs/bradley/archive/2005/02/04/34984.aspx once you do that your instances are happy as little clams.  I've never lost a SQL instance by patching a Sharepoint one.   Never lost monitoring.  Never lost Sharepoint.  Never lost a SQL instance period to be honest with you.  Now granted in fairness I've not installed SQL 2005 sp2 at this time because I don't install service packs at the drop of a hat and I wait for windows of maintenance and only finally did the SQL come out with the final post sp2 fix up patch, but I've never lost one sql instance due to patching another one?  I'd say we need to look at some event logs as to the trigger cause?

3.  Completely useless wizards to help average Joes set up their network!  Hmm.... sorry I just have to comment about that quip about MSCE type of folks.  More often than not it's the big server land folks that balk the most at the CEICW wizard.  If you want to do the following all by yourself.. you just go for it.. you can in fact set it up manually by hand if you really wanted to... and in fact if you want to knock yourself out ...here's the list you need to do:

1. Configuring the networking such as ensuring the binding order is correct on the server.
2.  Setting the DNS forwarders on the server.
3. Automatic certificate creation.
4. SSL enabling of web sites.
5. Configuring ISA access rules and web publishing if ISA is installed or via RRAS if no ISA.
6. PPPoE dial-up options.
7. Automatic scripting options
8. UPnP device provisioning.
9. Automatic removal of selected e-mail attachments.
10. Configuring Exchange recipient policy.
11. Configuring Exchange POP3 configuration.

and that's all done in under a minute.  If you think you can do it BY HAND in under a minute... you just go knock yourself out will ya?

4.  The most complicated firewall, ever. You know that CEICW thingy that you wanted to do by hand?  Yeah.  Go run that.  And then the 28 rules will be done for you. Think ISA is too hard?  You know we have a girl who's an ISA MVP who doesn't think ISA is complicated.. http://isainsbs.blogspot.com/  but you don't have to install ISA you know.  You can choose sonicwall or any other hardware firewall if you like.  And the most complicated firewall ever?  Ever?  I've seen some Cisco Pix and they are no walk in the park there.

So in all of this venting and ranting.. I do have to apologize.. I'm in a mood tonight.. one where I want you to continue to hate SBS.  Please.  Please hate it a lot.  Enough to stop installing it for your customer base.  Please just walk away from SBS and start installing Windows 2003 and Exchange and all that separate stuff.  Because if you are this closed minded, I don't want you to be installing screwed up SBS boxes for your customers.  Stick with something you know and manually set up please.  Stick with the parts you are used to.  Don't try to learn something new, or try something new, or get out of that routine you are used to.  Please, just stay where you are.

I don't want you to touch a SBS box if you've never even once gone to this blog site: http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/ 

I don't want you to touch a SBS box if you've never visited the newsgroups at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/newsgroups/dgbrowser/en-us/default.mspx?dg=microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs 

If you don't know what the Partner managed newsgroups are for SBS on the Partner web site, or never have said "Hi" to Marie McFadden in the partner managed newsgroups, please don't touch a SBS box.  Truly, just don't.

In fact, why don't you tell your clients that SBS is a horrible product that they will outgrow and you find it too limiting.  Why do I want you to do that?  Because if you do you just might have a client like I was about going on six years ago now when the consultants I interviewed said they didn't like SBS.  And I knew it was perfect for my needs.  Perfect for my firm.  And I walked away from the partners in my city that tried to talk me out of it.  Because I knew it was a great fit.  It's still too good of a value to my business to walk away from SBS.  But I walked away from those partners that wouldn't listen to my needs and instead gave me as a recommendation, what they were comfortable with.

Sorry Jason (I think that's your name) .. but you know what.. we can help.  Pull up a chair, and let's talk.  I still like SBS.  It still meets my needs.  It still it a good little product and no other released product has Remote Web Workplace goodness (and no, the PFM of beta of Home server doesn't count yet, as it's not a released product) .. No one. And there's still no better way that I've seen to securely and dependably remote into a network.

... and I still have just enough time to visit the ladies room when I reboot my SBS server, so if yours takes longer, how about we start there with a ipconfig /all and go from there, okay?

The email address here is sbradcpa(-at-)pacbell.net You can email me here on the blog as well.  Let's talk.