IT Support | Microsoft Small Business Server 2011: A quick look and review…
Posted by The Blogging Desk on Tue, Mar 08, 2011
- by Mark, "The Mind", Sarro
Once upon a time Microsoft recommended against putting critical applications and services on the same server… Then came along Small Business Server; the all-in-one server for businesses who couldn’t afford separate servers for each critical application. (Exchange, SQL, Active Directory, File Server, etc.)
Since the introduction of Small Business Server 2003 the productivity and efficiency of small businesses have increased threefold; With Microsoft putting the power of enterprise solutions and software that was often out of their financial grasp directly into the palm of their hands.
Now comes SBS 2011 and its three offerings:
SBS Server 2011 Standard – designed and priced for small businesses with up to 75 users. The technology included in the offering: Windows Server 2008 R2 64 bit, Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Foundation and Windows Server Update Services (WSUS).
SBS Server 2011 Essentials – designed and priced for small businesses with up to 25 users. Designed to be deployed and managed by individuals within organizations that are limited in the IT prowess. It is designed to integrate with Microsoft online services: Office 365, cloud backup and cloud management solution.
SBS Server 2011 Premium Add-on - This offering allows the option of adding additional servers for data management and applications. It includes an additional license of Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard edition for small businesses. Premium Add-on is available in both versions of SBS 2011; Standard and Essentials.
The SBS product offering has been improving upon its features with each version as they come out. The “Essentials” offering is very promising for those smaller businesses who do not want the administrative overhead of managing and maintaining the upkeep on Exchange or backups.
However, it must be stated that in exchange of the economic factors of going with a single server solution you run the risk of not having any redundancy or guarantee of no downtime in the event that an issue arises on the server. The question must be weighed: “How critical is server uptime to my business operations?” If you answer very critical then a multi-server environment may be a better solution. Either way, we at Trigon Technology can help you with choosing and implementing a solution that is right for your business and operations.
