THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS "DIVA"

'Looks like this might be a tough sell for SBS 2003 Premium users.  Now they have to purchase two servers in order to use SQL 2008?  Yikes!  Kind of takes away the idea of "Small Business", don't ya think?

Also, where's System Center Essentials?  There was a lot of talk about this being included so SBSC Partners could create more Managed Services for their clients.  Any more info on how we are going to leverage this new SBS to sell more Managed Services to our clients?  From the official website it doesn't seem to have much more to offer than SBS 2003 has.  Am I missing something?'

One thing to keep in mind for existing SBS customers... if they are like I was when SBS 2003 came around, I had a bit of a 'wheezy' server that was running SBS 2000.  Thus when I rolled out SBS 2003, I 'demoted' the SBS 2000 hardware and put another Win2k3 license on it and because I'm one of the rounding error insane people that got software assurance, that 'wheezy' old SBS 2000 box because the second/member server/Live communication server. 

Also, these days, with virtualization, no one said that those two servers HAD to be two separate physical servers.  From a security/usabilty/resources/LOB app get it away from my DC because you know they code the crappiest I'm moving away from this mindset that I have to shoehorn all that I do on one physical operating system and asking myself ...why not look to virtualization so I CAN departmentalize that crappy line of business software on a separate virtual server?

Remember that as this person upgrades to SBS 2008, that old SBS 2003 box can be used and unlike in my SBS migration era where I had to fork out the cash for another Win2k3 license, in SBS 2008 premium it's part of the package.  IMHO this gives you 'wiggle' possibilities. 

The SQL 'can' be placed back on the main SBS box if you really want it to. 

So want the SQL on the SBS box?  No prob.  Can do.  Want it on a member server?  Can do.  Want an extra Win2k8 license for a Terminal Server?  We now got.  Want to virtualize it?  Can do that too.  Want the member server to be 32bit versus 64bit?  Yup that's possible as well. See the wiggling around and alternatives that are offered up here?

The transition to SBS 2008/64bit will be a long sell, make no doubt about it.  As the existing hardware ages out, I personally have a hard time putting old software on new hardware.