Small Business Server (SBS) has been around since the late 90’s, a lifetime in computer years. It’s gone through 5 complete overhauls, including the newest version 2008. IT Pro’s have had a love hate relationship with the operating system (OS) since its inception. The newest version SBS 2008 (Standard or Premium) has made a lot of great enhancements that were needed for small businesses. Microsoft has also released a new product made for the medium business market called Essential Business Server (EBS). This separation between SBS for the small business and EBS for the medium business is at the least a sign that Microsoft is listening to the small to medium business (SMB) market. Microsoft caught a lot of gruff from the online community saying that a company with 75 users was a “medium” business, and that old SBS products would suffice.
SBS is a wonderful product for companies that are small (1-75 computer users) and growing steadily. This is not a product for companies that are expecting or experiencing explosive growth. SBS takes an integrated approach and bundles the following products:
Server 2008 – file sharing, printing, security
Exchange 2007 – Email and collaboration
SharePoint 3.0 – Collaboration and productivity
SUS – Internal Windows Update for your network
120 – day trial version of OneCare and Forefront Security – Microsoft’s server, workstation, and email antivirus
SQL 2008 – database services
There are two editions of SBS called Premium and Standard. The standard edition comes with everything above except for the database server (SQL 2008). Premium edition also comes with an additional server license so you can move SQL to a second server. Past versions did not allow this and would require you to migrate to a different product. This is always costly and time consuming, neither of which any business wants to hear.
The biggest improvement for the 2008 version is the requirement of a 64-bit architecture. The technical reasons for a 64-bit architecture are too much for this article, but you can think about it like this: Your computer is like a car, and the difference between a 32-bit and 64-bit architecture is like the difference between a V6 and a V12 engine. If you’re really interested in all the technical details this site will have more than enough information to get you started. The bigger engine is long overdue for a product that wants to run applications that larger organizations put on several different servers.
Exchange and SharePoint are two awesome products that allow an organization to collaborate in a more familiar way… through the web. These two products allow you to share office documents, contacts, calendars, and just about any other type of information you can think of with people inside and outside your organization.
