The symphony of SBS

The Oferized view of Microsoft Support

THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS "DIVA" — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 23:09:38 GMT

Ofer Shimrat, whom I am excited and honored to be giving a presentation with at www.smbnation.com in

re: The symphony of SBS

Noah Kaufman — Tue, 22 May 2007 02:54:48 GMT

I would like to mention another thing to consider, since I think that both Karl and Vlad have brought up valid points. Specifically it's the issue of trying to do the best thing for the customer, despite the customer's intentions to the contrary. Karl talks about how there are many people out there installing SBS who don't have a complete grasp of the fundamentals of what SBS is all about. I believe that these people are out there and continue to operate because they are offering the customer a service at a price they can afford.

Let me put this another way by using an example; we have a customer with a decent sized SBS installation with about 25 workstations supporting a 25 million dollar per year manufacturing business with about 80 employees. This is a customer that we've done business with for over five years, and for the most part they have been a satisfied but slow paying customer. One problem we've had with them is that they refuse to spend money on anything unless it's already a problem. Last week a mirrored disk set on their server failed when the RAID controller and one of the drives failed (along with the RAID battery). We had submitted a proposal last year outlining three different alternatives for doing backups -- everything from just buying a set of USB drives, to using a fancy dedicated backup appliance. Unfortunately the customer ignored advice, and is now facing a huge data recover bill because their backups were so out of date.

My point here is that as knowledgeable and caring SBS consultants we have to work within the limitations that the customer sets, and in many cases those limitations are very narrow (financially speaking). We don't really like recommending "low-end" server hardware to customers -- rather, the customers demand the maximum functionality at the lowest possible price.

And as business people, if we don't do our best to accommodate them -- then someone else will.

And that's the problem; you can stand up for all of your professional "ethics" and doing things "by the book", but at the end of the day if the customer won't pay what costs -- then we've failed. We've failed both as technologists and as business people; and that's not a pleasant place to be.

In the end, for us it is a matter of being pragmatic and doing our best to ensure the customer gets the best possible result based on their situation and the financial resources they want to invest in their technology.

What is frustrating about dealing with Microsoft support, especially in the SBS world, is that when things go wrong - they usually go VERY WRONG, and it often takes far too long (in terms of our labor hours) to resolve the problems.

If we're lucky - the customer picks up tab for our time, however more often than not we wind up having to "eat" substantial blocks of time because the customer is either unwilling or unable to cover the cost of our time to research, work with Microsoft, and eventually solve the problem.

And lately, it seems like the amounts of time we've had to invest, without compensation from the customer, have been growing larger. This bad for everyone, but especially for Microsoft -- although they probably don't realize it yet.

For example, if it takes a substantial amount of time (say several hours) over and above what it normally takes to set up SBS to integrate Vista with SBS -- who will pay for that? Typically it's not the customer, because most customers don't really care about what runs on their desktop as long as they can get their work done. So if we have absorb the cost ourselves, then it makes our prices go up and then we're not as competitive.

And if we're not as competitive, then we lose business. So to avoid this fate, we often find ourselves in the uncomfortable position of having to suggest to customers that they DON'T RUN the latest and greatest from Microsoft. This is tough thing for us to do, because we like Microsoft products, and as technologists we want our customers (and ourselves) to be running the best stuff possible.

But not if we have to do it our expense - and this is where the lack of Microsoft support is really hurting Microsoft (and us). Since we are not championing the latest and greatest, our customers aren't as likely to rush out and buy the latest version of Office or upgrade their client workstations to Vista. And that's where we all lose money.

I realize I have probably written far too much in order to try make my point, so let me summarize by saying that being an SBS consultant is serious balancing act, and not one for the faint of heart, since it requires balancing the needs and desires of your customer on the one hand while managing the risk to your business associated with installing and supporting Microsoft technologies. As of late, this risk has been going up due to changes within Microsoft's SBS support organization, and for everyone out there in front of customers, this has made a challenging job even tougher.

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re: The symphony of SBS

Leen Kleijwegt — Sun, 20 May 2007 11:56:50 GMT

I agree with Karl and Vlad. My opinion is that, for MIcrosoft, SBS is still a "strange" product in the Microsoft line, it has been since 4.0 and it still is. There are no real owners of the product in the MS organisation because of its content. SQL belongs to SQL, Exchange to Exchange, Windows Server to Windows Server, ISA to ISA and so on. Therfore there are to few dedicated SBS engineers at MS, all over the world btw... Because we are dedecated SBS-ers and only want to best for our clients, our questions are most of the time real difficult. With the branding of Small Business Specialist this will not change, the scope here will be Vista and Office 2007. (I already read a MS article "How to build your network", not a word about SBS....) So, if we have real questions, we have to stick together and I am very happy with you all. Many of my questions were solved by your input. Leen Kleijwegt lkleijwegt@corbus.nl CORBUS Dedicated Small Business Server Specialist The Netherlands

re: The symphony of SBS

Ofer Shimrat — Sun, 20 May 2007 05:13:16 GMT

[copied from Karl's blog] Greetings Vlad: I am under the impression that MANY “problems that people call Microsoft for all stem from poor deployment, unprofessionalism and lack of research” – not ALL problems. I am under the impression that people should initially resort to the bevy of online resources before attempting to call Microsoft support, or any OTHER vendor’s support for that matter, because the answer may be closer and faster than waiting for 60 minutes before speaking with someone that may - just may - be competent in SBS matters. That is like going to the hospital emergency room for cold symptoms. I also have had to endure tech support calls to Microsoft and I concur that it can be improved. My experiences have varied anywhere from the level of incompetence that Karl was experiencing all the way to first rate “guru” level assistance from Microsoft in England, India, Texas and North Carolina. I am sure that Microsoft is aware of these issues of inconsistencies in their tech support line up – just like Symantec, Pervasive, Cisco, Netgear, Intel, Sage, Meridian Systems, etc – they ALL have room for improvement and are probably devising strategies to counter negative perceptions as we speak. Do you know ANYONE that is cheerfully happy on a CONSISTENT basis with their experiences with tech support with DELL, HP, AMERICAN EXPRESS or AT&T – to pick on a few. I don’t. Having said that, Microsoft could GREATLY improve its tech support specific to SBS by doing a better job of what exact SBS centric errors exist and how to solve them - if only the errors and other symptoms in the Event Viewer were a FINITE science that could be quickly looked up and resolved. Perhaps Cougar will address that better. But to say SBS is dead for these issues is a stretch – in my opinion. And after all this, Karl’s blog, is a forum of opinions, so go ahead and dismiss my “arguments one by one quite easily” – if I do not have a retort I will probably learn something new. Respectfully, Ofer Shimrat

I'm Only A Small Business Specialist

Tim Long — Sun, 20 May 2007 04:16:24 GMT

Today I was talking to someone about Microsoft certifications. The conversation went something like this:

re: The symphony of SBS

Vlad Mazek — Sun, 20 May 2007 02:36:45 GMT

(copied from Karl's blog) Ofer, So you're under impression that the problems that people call Microsoft for all stem from poor deployment, unprofessionalism and lack of research? I could dismiss your arguments one by one quite easilly, but I think you're missing the point of Karl's article and the pain point that we are all experiencing: The technical support is not good enough. I don't care that you don't need it - great for you! Those that do need the support aren't getting it. And thats the point, and the final undoing of SBS bundle - the complexity is skyrocketing while Microsoft's (and ours) ability to effectively support these complex integrated solutions is being marginalized. -Vlad