- Small Business Server 2008 – Installation, Migration, and Configuration
- David Overton
- 709字
- 2025-02-25 11:04:12
SBS 2008
You are able to look to SBS 2008 to deliver the following:
- Provision of a robust email system to a small (up to 50) group of users
- Support for easy collaboration between those users: email, shared calendars, document repository, and Internet access to all facilities
- A single source of common data across the customers and suppliers of a business, with easy tools to manage that data in one place
- Provision of a web site for customers, suppliers, and staff
- Management of the company's PCs for security, efficiency, and backup
- Enabling staff to be productive while working away from the office
To explain a bit more about how this is done, I will briefly describe the role each component technology has to play in the overall solution.
Each technology provides much more than the short description below.
Windows Server 2008
Windows Server provides much of the infrastructure that is used by SBS 2008. All the networking components that enable PCs to find each other, the server, and the Internet are managed by Windows Server.
All the user information is stored in the Active Directory on Server 2008. This includes their usernames, email details, and security access. Active Directory has the potential to be an extremely complicated tool to manage, but SBS 2008 pre-configures almost all of the settings to ensure the solution matches the business needs. By using Active Directory, you ensure the security of data as access is controlled by a centrally managed user list.
Windows Server 2008 provides the platform for the other technologies mentioned below, so without it, you could not run Exchange 2007 or Windows SharePoint Services. Those core platform technologies also include file and printer management to enable the base level of collaboration and sharing.
Exchange Server 2007
Exchange Server 2007 is the primary information sharing platform, providing email, calendar, and contact functionality across the business. This enables both individual and shared accounts, and securely managed access to each other's calendars and contacts when desired.
This is then presented via Microsoft Outlook as part of Office, via the web interface known as Outlook Web Access or to mobile phones that support the ActiveSync protocol.
Windows SharePoint Services
Windows SharePoint Services provide the information collaboration services outside of email, calendars, and contacts. These are delivered through a web-based portal that can be accessed both internally and externally via the Internet. This portal is secure and searchable, so once a file is shared on the site, provided you have the permission, you can quickly find it.
SharePoint is also a platform for applications and more ISVs are delivering their software to run on top of SharePoint.
A pre-built portal is provided in SBS 2008 called CompanyWeb.
Windows Software Update Services
SBS 2008 centrally manages the update process for all the computers in the business, ensuring that they are updated in a timely fashion and only when approved by the administrator.
This is delivered using the Windows Software Update Service, which evaluates the updates that should be delivered to machines on the network, downloads them to SBS 2008, and then deploys them to the right machines on the network. The success or failure of the update is monitored and reported back to you.
Windows SBS Console
The Windows SBS Console is the one-stop shop to manage all of the technologies mentioned above. It covers 90%+ of the configuration and management that you will need to do on SBS 2008 as will be seen in the later chapters of this book.
One of the key strengths of the console with its wizard-based approach to configuration is that it can coordinate several facets of the embedded technologies to make what would be a complex configuration on Windows Server 2008 into a simple check box or two on SBS 2008.
Premium Server technologies
The final piece of the puzzle is the Premium technologies, which consists of a second Windows Server and SQL Server. This server is designed to run applications in the SBS network. Since some applications will not run on the latest versions of Windows Server or SQL Server, you get the disks for Windows Server 2003 and 2008, and SQL 2005 and 2008; however, you can only install one version of Windows and SQL onto the server.