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taropatch
Average Member
USA
741 Posts |
 Posted - 19 April 2004 : 11:46:17
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I am looking to expand my business's peer-to-peer network to a server. Nothing fancy but we have about 8 PCs that we'd like to network.
The server would have some shared software for contact management, scheduling (shared calendar), email. Would like to have remote access for users outside the office. Hopefully, this would also improve our backup process.
I've never had a server or administered one. I've been reading a little about Windows Small Business Server 2003. - Should this be something pretty easy to implement/maintain?
- Any good suggested reading (books or online tutorials?)
- Should I consider any non-Microsoft OS? Linux?
I'd greatly appreciate any comments, suggestions or opinions from the snitz community. I know some of you have done similar projects, but I did not see anything recent.
Andy |
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Classicmotorcycling
Development Team Leader
Australia
2085 Posts |
Posted - 19 April 2004 : 16:09:03
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Andy,
Small Business Server (SBS) is easy to implement and will do up to 50 users (with the correct license purchase of course). If you do not plan on going above 50 users in your business for quite a while then that is fine to use SBS in my opinion.
SBS has some good options for the small business owner and easy to setup. With out sounding like a salesperson for M$ the features you get with a particular version is as follows:
Standard edition
Windows Server 2003
Windows SharePoint Services
Exchange Server 2003 technology
Microsoft Office Outlook 2003
Microsoft Shared Fax Service
Premium edition
Windows Server 2003
Windows SharePoint Services
Exchange Server 2003 technology
Microsoft Office Outlook 2003
Microsoft Shared Fax Service
Routing and Remote Access Services (RRAS)
ISA Server 2000 technology
SQL Server 2000
Microsoft Office FrontPage® 2003
It is up to your business and what it can afford, but personally for the cost, I would go the Premium edition as then you get a few extras. You also need to keep in mind that you can not add other servers to act as a BDC with SBS. More information on SBS can be found at: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/sbs/default.mspx
With the above in mind, then you could use something like Linux which could or would possibly do the same job for less, but I am not that up to date with Linux. I hope that helps.
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Cheers,
David Greening |
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taropatch
Average Member
USA
741 Posts |
Posted - 19 April 2004 : 16:20:38
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| Thanks for the info, David. SBS seems offer us a very good solution right now as I do not forsee exceeding 50 users for some time. I'll read more at the link you provided and go from there. |
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Gremlin
General Help Moderator
New Zealand
7528 Posts |
Posted - 19 April 2004 : 19:26:46
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| I'd agree SBS is definitely the way to go .. SBS2003 is shaping up to be quite a good product, I've been using it for a month or so now with no real issues with anything other than Exchange Server ... but then I always expect too much of Exchange and it never fails to let me down lol. |
Kiwihosting.Net - The Forum Hosting Specialists
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taropatch
Average Member
USA
741 Posts |
Posted - 19 April 2004 : 22:05:38
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| Thanks Gremlin. I'm going to attend one of Microsoft's TouchPoint Series events to learn more about their small business offerings. |
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taropatch
Average Member
USA
741 Posts |
Posted - 22 April 2004 : 17:21:35
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Gremlin,
What kind of issues have you had with Exchange? Just curious if you have any additional comments in your one month's experience with SBS. Are you using the premium version?
I have a webhost shared server where I host my company's website and pop3 email. Do you guys use your server for website and email or would you still use an outside webhost? I would most likely still use my webhost but would use SBS to host some intranet sites using SharePoint. When using sharepoint would I need to register domain names to point to the server?
Thanks for any additional info.
Andy
Ps. Microsoft's free TouchPoint Series was informative to this newbie. Not to mention they had a table of prizes to raffle and I won an HP color inkjet printer! Pretty sweet.  |
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Gremlin
General Help Moderator
New Zealand
7528 Posts |
Posted - 22 April 2004 : 21:33:59
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My issues with Exchange are perhaps better called "gripes" rather than specific issues. IMHO the administration side of Exchange is far from intuitive in many instances and theres where most of my peeves are, once you've got it setup (and SBS takes care of most of that anyway) it generally works pretty well.
Yes I'm using the premium version.
With SBS the idea is its a "one server" solution really everything runs on the same machine ... this is fine of course for smaller offices and networks, but if your wanting to be doing any serious hosting on it you might need to consider splitting some things onto their own boxes. |
Kiwihosting.Net - The Forum Hosting Specialists
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pdrg
Support Moderator
United Kingdom
2897 Posts |
Posted - 26 April 2004 : 07:33:23
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| SBS also comes with Sharepoint, which I didn't 'get' until I started using it, and now we never use \\server\file\shares for stuff any more as you can do it all so much more easily with Sharepoint imho. You can easily mod the Sharepoint sites look and feel with Frontpage, so you're not stuck with the default schemes and themes, which ming ;-) |
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taropatch
Average Member
USA
741 Posts |
Posted - 26 April 2004 : 09:57:02
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Yes, sharepoint looks helpful for creating departmental intranet sites.
Is anyone using Remote Web Workplace? Is this is the same or different from the "Routing and Remote Access Services (RRAS)" that comes with the premium edition? I'd like to have employees be able to log in to the server and their client PCs to access email, calendar, files on the server and their PCs. Does this feature allow for accessing the user's PC remotely like GoToMyPC.com? Or is it not quite the same? |
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pdrg
Support Moderator
United Kingdom
2897 Posts |
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Classicmotorcycling
Development Team Leader
Australia
2085 Posts |
Posted - 27 April 2004 : 06:02:18
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They sent me the 90 day trial for free.quote:
Originally posted by pdrg
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/sbs/evaluation/trial/default.mspx
if you've got $15 spare you can try SBS, but I must admit I'm disappointed there's no 90-day download 
I applied ages ago and it arrived last Friday for me. I almost forgot I applied over a month ago..
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Cheers,
David Greening |
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taropatch
Average Member
USA
741 Posts |
Posted - 20 October 2004 : 11:22:05
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6 months later and I'm finally ready to move on this. Anyone have any last minutes advice?
Anyone know how important ISA Server 2000 technology is? That comes with premium but not standard. |
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miperez
Junior Member
Spain
243 Posts |
Posted - 20 October 2004 : 11:41:49
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Well, ISA Server performs both proxy and firewall functions for your network.
The most important task it can do for you is preventing unauthorized accesses to your internal servers, port scans, blocking trojans in your network...
If you do not install it, maybe you won't notice anything. But just install it once, check the logs, and see how big ammoun of unwanted traffic you were receiving before 
Depending on your network, and if you are planning to have internal servers (Exchange, IIS,...) configuring it might be a little tricky, though. |
Best Regards
Mikel Perez
"Hell is the place where everything test perfectly, and nothing works"
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Gremlin
General Help Moderator
New Zealand
7528 Posts |
Posted - 20 October 2004 : 21:08:25
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| You may not need ISA if your behind a decent firewall/router anyway. If you've got a good quality router with firewall like protection then I'd say don't worry about getting ISA. |
Kiwihosting.Net - The Forum Hosting Specialists
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miperez
Junior Member
Spain
243 Posts |
Posted - 21 October 2004 : 03:31:54
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True!
I just thought of my old scenario, with a fully crackeable DSL router, ISA was a must there!! LOL |
Best Regards
Mikel Perez
"Hell is the place where everything test perfectly, and nothing works"
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pdrg
Support Moderator
United Kingdom
2897 Posts |
Posted - 21 October 2004 : 05:28:17
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If you have a choice, get ISA, as it acts as a local cache as well as a firewall thingy. Means you get to play god and control all the traffic. Each desktop machine installs an ISA client, means they do not have to set IE proxy settings etc, and POP3 etc conncetions all go through ISA. You can run many ISA instances if you need to, and the clients will hunt down a working node if one is brought offline for any reason. Here at 'the firm' we use one ISA server for Europe, but if it fails/whatever, we can all use the Americas servers with very little hit. You also get RAS access and SQL Server - this is a good thing.
Remember SBS is a server for people who don't want to spend their lives as netadmins - so it is largely wizard-driven for all but the wierdest settings. This may, however, mean you miss out on some funky (yet scary to config securely) features. It is best-fit-for-all solution, but **** good value imho, especially when yu consider how much life you regain from not having to integrate systems manually etc etc |
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