Some new things to note, SBS 2008 also includes one year trial subscriptions to a couple of new MS security and management services…

Lets look a bit more under the hood.

The server boots up and asks you to select an administrators name. That's right, the user "Administrator" is not necessarily going to exist. you elect what name you want to use. Then there is the password. 8 Characters and complex by default. A green tick lights up when you meet the required level of complexity. Handy.

Then you get greeted by the new consoles.

The time to set this up from scratch is about 3 hours. You actually spend about 5 minutes clicking various things on 5 screens during setup (Domain name, server name etc) and then you are done (The oobe is very quick). SBS 2008 will automatically locate any routers (even across different subnets and IP ranges). The wizard automatically inserts ".local" on your domain name. (You can change this with an Answer file).

The first thing the server wants to do is get updates off the internet. This is great as this will mean all servers will start with a level playing field.

You setup your internet address with a wizard that helps you buy a domain name and configure your DNS records. There is even a built in Dynamic DNS client in SBS 2008 so you do not need a static IP. If the domain name you select is in use, it will prompt for alternatives and the wizard will arrange to have an email sent back to you with your domain password and keys. Nice !

The wizard can not help you if you have multiple domain names but we can manually tweak that later.

With the wizard you can setup email smarthosts (No need to crack open the Exchange System Manager).

Something else nice to note, you can change the server name (including on the RWW screen) with a Wizard, not a registry hack !

Something new, as with IE7 and Vista, SBS 2008 only likes real certificates. The days of SelfSSL are numbered. You need third party trusted SSL certificates (Maybe godaddy at $20 Per annum ?).

This change helps stop DNS poisoning (DNS cache poisoning is a technique that tricks a Domain Name Server (DNS server) into believing it has received authentic information when, in reality, it has not. Once the DNS server has been poisoned, the information is generally cached for a while, spreading the effect of the attack to the users of the server). You now need to export and transport the certificate to the remote end, you can't get it from the website. (you can take a package home to setup Outlook over RPC).

Would you believe, there is a wizard to purchase a certificate. It generates some coded text for you to send of to your cert provider.

Now lets look at User templates (now called User Roles). You can retrofit a role to an existing user using the wizards. With the Roles wizard you can repoint "My Documents", change disk quotas and gain granular control of IIS sites a user can access and that includes RWW and OWA. Very cool.

Speaking of RWW, not only can you setup your own shortcuts but you now have a section allowing you to change your Password in the AD. RWW also no longer uses RDP through port 4125. It uses 443 which will work better in hotels and the link. The connect to my computer can point specifically to a computer and there is lots more to find when you dig around.

You can now archive group emails into a SharePoint Library (Don't forget, Exchange 2007 does not have public folders .... by default). You can also make security groups that can only email internally. There are no more global mailboxes in the pop3 connector and a new 5 minute check. Pop3 now goes through SMTP and IMF etc.

You now have a Vista Widget that you can push out that gives access to SBS tools (OWA etc).

In the new console there is a network tab. You can see the status of all workstations here. You can see their A/V, Security and other related items here. It will show servers and workstations (XP and Vista). You can sort by Computers and devices (e.g. fax machines etc).

You can also see the connectivity section, this has the wizards in it that we ran at the start to get everything working, and more. (Remember, no firewall or Dual NIC in SBS 2008. The server firewall is simply a tool to protect from internal attackers like slammer etc. It is not an external firewall).

VPN through the Wizard is pptp. Without ISA and setting up a CA on your server will likely make L2TP an ugly exercise. Wizards open ports on your upnp routers to allow emails to flow etc. The pop3 connector still exists and now ... one new wizard ..... the Fix my network wizard. Fantastic.

The fix my network wizard analyses and fixes 70 common errors. (Includes AD and DNS). You can also select what changes are made, incase you deliberately broke you network and don't want it to fix something.

Windows 2008 server (and SBS 2008) now has advanced quotas. You can set quotas on Shared folders (not per server volume) and it can do protocols. All the NTFS, share permissions and Quotas are accessible again via a wizard. You can elect to monitor access or simply deny access, right down to file types like Mp3 files. You can link DFS to Quotas and then you control your part of the world.

You can now modify how RWW works, blocking users, exposing links and changing the images. WooHoo.

Backup has vastly changed. Yes, it no longer supports tape drives (use a third party application) it backs up to an image on a drive. You can now restore to dissimilar hardware and can virtualise. You can do 30 minute snap shots and stick it onto USB hard disks. The backup prepares the drives and during the process, even tells you to label the drives. For the snapshot to work, your databases need to be VSS aware (MYOB, Access, Outlook PST files etc). You no longer backup a file or a folder. It is a full partition backup without selections. This is where AD recovery will have to change (Command line backup to file). I would recommend 2, maybe 5 USB drives in a rotation. Another smart item, in SBS 2008, you don't need to safely eject the USB hardware. Now anyone can change the backups! You need to be aware that the backup disk needs to be 1.5 times the size of all the data storage on the server. Also note that the SBS backup will not allocate a drive letter to the backup drive.

Notes:

SBS 2008 now needs certified drivers.

Office Live can now use public facing websites and workspaces to distribute documentation to all staff, including remote.

One thing that I did not like was that SBS 2008 loads down into one partition from installation. Thankfully there are wizards to move things around later (Exchange data files, SharePoint, Wsus, User Shares, Folder redirection etc).

SBS is still licensed by Processor sockets, not cores. This is a good thing.

There is a patch that allows a second SBS server in your existing domain for 21 days. This helps you get to the start of your migration. (the default is 7 days).

IPV6 is installed and IPV4 can not be removed.

Now it is even more important to look into PowerShell
Using PowerShell and the way SBS 2008 installs itself, you can actually script installations that always come out the same. you can move data files around, install items and make customizations on the fly.

Not only has the RDP in RWW changes ports, companyweb is now on 987.

Reporting has also been enhanced. There are the 2 standard reports and then you can add your own reports. There are Archives of reports now available. Reports also now contain restart times. A small thing but something I really like.

There is also the status of Server and clients available at a glance (for the firewalls, Antivirus and updates.

NOTE: SBS 2008 on a network will Autopatch clients. Don't get caught off guard.

So who is the target for this ?

Essential Business server and Small Business server and then home server (WHS). EBS and SBS will be marketed together.

WHS is great for remote access and backups for 1-2 person company.

EBS and SBS look the same so that learning one, leads easily into the next.

Per capita, Australia sells SBS at a rate second only to the Dutch. On average SBS in Australia sells with 16 licenses (the rest of the worlds average is 11). All up, Australia is the 4th biggest seller of SBS in the world.

Microsoft have created the perfect solution with EBS and SBS, from 1 server (SBS STD) to 2 servers (SBS Premium) to EBS Standard (3 boxes) to Premium (4 boxes).

The target is anyone with 2 users to the top end of EBS (300 users).