THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS DIVA

Hi, I’m Susan and I’m from Horse and Hound Magazine...

You remember the scene in Notting Hill where Hugh Grant accidentally gets in the press line trying to see Julia Roberts and pretends to be from Horse and Hound Magazine?

Well that’s what I felt like all this week for me.  Ending up in the Press line and not quite feeling like I am a member of the Press.

 So on a plane home tonight… and now stuck for the evening in a Denver hotel… here’s some random thoughts typed up regarding WPC ….

Finally the next versions of SBS are announced

 And it’s about time.  I was hoping that the SMB sessions listed - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mssmallbiz/archive/2010/07/06/tons-of-smb-content-at-wpc-2010-for-you.aspx  would be recorded.  I would have loved to hear what people thought, what questions people had but unfortunately I don’t think that many of them are recorded.  I’m finding few SMB track sessions on the www.digitalwpc.com.  And unfortunately, due to the small size of the room and the fact I was late coming down from another meeting, I missed it.  The “bouncers” monitoring the room attendance turned away more than a few due to overcrowding and firemarshall rules.  Even some web sites noted it as “little noticed announcement” http://www.ctoedge.com/content/microsofts-entry-level-cloud  

Now the good news is that there’s enough videos up from various sites (http://www.microsoft.com/showcase/en/us/details/8d465b97-4060-498f-b0e4-5158ccdf1e7d   that it should give you an idea.  Take Home Server, stick it on 64 bit, (think like it’s brother Vail the beta of the next version of Home server), make it a domain controller, limit it to 25 pcs,  have it back up the workstations.  For Exchange and SharePoint, those two items will be in the cloud.  You won’t be able to (nor will you want to) stick Exchange 2010 on it.  There’s no WSUS on it either

There’s a add in console where various vendors can add in their plug ins… think of Home server now and how many doo dads and add ins that are there.  Now here’s where you come into play.  You want a connection to a cloud service in Aurora?  Ask that vendor to sign up for the Aurora beta and download the SDK when it comes available.

 SBS v7

 Many people said about SBS 2008 that there was no wow.  That you waited until the hardware changed out before needing an upgrade.  SBSv7 will probably be a similar story.  http://www.microsoft.com/showcase/en/us/details/2cb2de23-f0a3-4197-b121-96fdf59af39e  As you can see from the video the console of SBS v7 looks the same as SBS 2008.   Exchange 2010 is new, SharePoint 2010 foundation is new, the RWW page has the adjust the monitor size back in again (remember it was taken out in SBS 2008), and it’s be redesigned and it’s running on Win2k8 R2 but … and sit down on this one… there’s no client backup in it.  Yup, I know, you are going “man, that would be so cool”, but honestly, I don’t want it on SBSv7.  The client backup is a different file structure set up.  The last thing you want is Exchange 2010 sitting on that drive extender stuff doing it’s thing.  You just need to trust me on this that there’s a reason that I’m so strongly “I don’t care” that SBS v7 doesn’t have client backup.  Just stay tuned and that’s all I can say right now.

 The leadership team

 I’m still a bit scratching my head as to why Microsoft would flip flop Jon Rosskill with Allison Watson right before the partner conference… but then again flipping them right after would be just as bad, wouldn’t it?  Of all the keynotes I watched or heard, the one that resonated the best was Kevin Turner.  To be honest, I dunno, Jon Rosskill did not impress me.  Especially so when he said that Microsoft has earned the partners trust.  Man, not from my view point.  It’s still needs to be earned regarding the issue where partners have to put in their client names and contact info.   Now mind you (and I need to confirm this) but I think they are making more changes in the BPOS program and I thought someone said there was going to be some announcements about margins, but I couldn’t find it in the information online http://www.thevarguy.com/2010/07/14/microsoft-cloud-channel-chief-talks-bpos-partner-profitability/  (for example), so I’ll check around and report back on that one.   Eron Kelley who is a product manager for BPOS actually was more honest about the fact that they need to continually earn the trust of partners and it was something they were still working on. http://varvid.tv/2010/microsofts-senior-director-of-product-management-for-bpos-eron-kelly-at-wpc-2010/   

Migration options

One thing that wasn’t clear from some of the early articles was the migration paths to Aurora and v7.  Both with have a “migration” story.  But seeing someone’s comment the other day about how there was no migration story for SBS 2008 and that you had to practically clean install, I want everyone to step back a bit and take a look at what you are asking for.  My feeling is that many folks still asking for a migration path are looking for an inplace upgrade.  You are moving from 32 bit to 64 bit …there is no upgrade path.  Then Exchange has not provided an inplace upgrade as 2003 is different from 2007 is different than 2010.  

 The “ask” I’m seeing from folks, just isn’t possible.  There is a migration story now.  A good one.  One provided both by Microsoft and third parties.  http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/small-business-server-2008-migration-resources.aspx  But it certainly isn't an inplace upgrade for sure.
 
 …well that’s enough of a brain dump tonight…

P.S. Aaron did an interview of me here - http://varvid.tv/2010/sbs-diva-susan-bradley-shares-her-insight-on-wpc-2010/


FTC Blogger disclosure:  Microsoft has offered to pay for and I accepted travel, lodging and pass for WPC.  Otherwise I'd be cheap and watching it on www.digitalwpc.com  and following the #WPC10 hashtags on twitter.com.