Archive for SMB – Page 3

Ballmer to Retire from Microsoft

Steve Ballmer, in an internal letter to Microsoft employees, announced his plans to retire as CEO of Microsoft within the next 12 months. This letter was posted to the Microsoft News Center today (August 23, 2013).

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2013/aug13/08-23StatementPR.aspx

Steve has been the target of a lot of kudos and bashing over the years. I don’t intend to bash him.

My only experience with Steve is when he would come and speak to the worldwide MVP Summit. He appears to be very much at home with an audience of 3,000 techies drilling him with questions. He would stand up on stage, take questions from the audience, give his answers (all without any notes or teleprompters), and quite often, jot down notes on comments he received.

He truly was larger than life on that stage. He would move all around, rarely sitting. You could feel his passion for Microsoft.

Here is a photo I took at the 2009 MVP Summit when one of the MVP’s gave him a “Windows Home Server (WHS)” sticker:

steve_ballmer

It’s a dawning of a new era for Microsoft. I wish Steve well.

SBS is now WSSMB!

imageI have worked with the Microsoft Small Business Server (SBS) product line since 2001. The product itself goes back to the Windows NT era when it was called Microsoft BackOffice Server.

In 2004 I was honored to be designated as a Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) for the SBS product. This past January, my MVP status was renewed for a 10th straight year. It’s amazing, given the fact that I am one of

But recently Microsoft decided to shake things up a bit, and we were informed that there would be a “technical expertise name change” to our SBS MVP group.

Effective July 17th, 2013, the technical expertise Small Business Server will be renamed to Windows Server for Small and Medium Business. Please note this is a MVP Program expertise change only and has no impact within the product team structure.

And you know what? That’s fine with me.

Many people have been very disappointed over the fact that the SBS product, as we have known it, will not be continued. I’m not one of those people. I see this as an indication that things never remain the same. New things to learn; new skills to develop; new opportunities to do what I like to do – help businesses be more productive.

So, I am officially a WSSMB MVP (at least until my next review period at the end of the year).

Swing Migration Updated!

Jeff Middleton is founder of IT Pro Experts and creator of the Swing Migration methodology and tool kit. He has just announced new updates to his kits.
http://itproexperts.com/blog/platform-migration-project-solutions-matrix/

I have successfully used Jeff’s Swing Migration for years to upgrade customers from older versions of SBS to the newer Microsoft platforms (SBS 2008, SBS 2011, Windows Server Essentials 2012). His methodology also applies to standard Windows and Exchange server migrations.

Scorpion Software Webinar

Dana Epp, a fellow Microsoft MVP, has a webinar scheduled for Wednesday January 16th. His company, Scorpion Software, provides secure password management solutions.

Here is a personal (video) invitation from Dana:

Windows Server 2012 Essentials RTM and Trial!

Today Windows Server 2012 Essentials has been released to manufacturing (RTM).

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A trial copy of Windows Server 2012 Essentials is immediately available for download:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2012/10/09/windows-server-2012-essentials-released-to-manufacturing-available-for-evaluation-today.aspx

Windows Server 2012 Essentials will be available for purchase on November 1, 2012.

It was just a few months ago (July) that the beta version of this product was announced. Then just a month ago we had the announcement of the Release Candidate (RC) version of 2012 Essentials.

The news that caught everyone’s attention (both good and bad) was that the name “Small Business Server” (SBS) would not be used by Microsoft as it moved forward with the 2012 era of Microsoft servers.

However, that does not mean that Windows Server 2012 Essentials isn’t jammed packed with features for the small or medium sized business. Here are just a few of those features:

  • Supports a maximum of 25 user (50 devices) with client CALS built in!
  • Enhanced Remote Web Access features, extending to Windows 8 clients
  • Wizards to setup, configure and manage Office 365 from the server
  • Support for Storage Spaces, allowing for  creation of resilient storage using a mix of different size disk drives
  • Supports backing up of workstations (maximum of 25) on a daily scheduled basis)
  • New health monitoring reports
  • Supports implementation as a Hyper-V guest
  • Supports third party add-ins
  • Supports Mac OS X clients (version 10.5 and up)

So, what’s changed? I’ll list what I consider are three two of the more important changes:

  • Windows Vista and XP workstations will not be supported
  • Exchange and Sharepoint have been removed from the product, but can be purchased and installed as separate packages
  • No Premium Add-On (PAO) packages, so no specific SQL package, although SQL can be purchased and installed as a separate package

10th Annual SMB Nation

I encourage my fellow I.T. Pro’s to consider attending this year’s SMB Nation Fall Conference to be held at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas, from Oct 12-14, 2012.

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I remember attending the very first SMB Nation conference (2003) that Harry Brelsford organized and held in Indianapolis, IN. I’m not sure anyone (except Harry) who attended that first conference could imagine the impact that SMB Nation has made to the SMB (small/medium businesses) technical community.

I would love to be there in person, but I am limiting the amount of traveling I do this year as I recover from last year’s illness.

ATTENTION: You can now attend SMBNation virtually!

If you are unable to attend the conference in person, they are offering the chance to attend the conference from the comfort of your workstation. This offer is space limited (500 people). If you sign up by Oct 4th, the cost is $299. After that, the price for the virtual admission goes up to $399.

Just click on the Global Broadcast button to register!

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HP-Microsoft SBS Update Webcast

imageHP and Microsoft are hosting a joint live webcast to address the recently announce Windows Server Essentials 2012 product, which is the follow-on product to the various Small Business Server solutions.
 
Webcast is set for Wednesday July 18th starting at 8am PST (11am EST)

Topics that Lucy Ellis (HP) and David Fabritius (Microsoft) will cover include:

  • Windows Server Essentials 2012 features and benefits
  • Customer Scenarios
  • HP Product Portfolio and transition plans
  • Q&A

Click here to go to the link for joining the webcast by computer or phone.

Here is a pre-recorded clip with Lucy and David inviting you to this free webcast:

Tampa Bay SBS User Group Meeting

The monthly meeting of the Tampa Bay SBS Usergroup (TBSBSUG) takes place tonight (Thursday July 12th). We will gather early for dinner at the Winghouse on 4th street in St Petersburg, followed by our meeting that starts at 6:30pm.

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This is an important meeting, given the announcements this week on the upcoming releases of Windows Server 2012, and it’s impact on those who have been selling and supporting the Small business Server product.

We are honored that Kevin Beares (Microsoft) will be speaking with us to get our feedback and to discuss some of the misconceptions surrounding this week’s announcements.

For more information, please contact Rayanne, the TBSBSUG lead.

Managing for Success 2012

I worked with Karl Palachuk two weeks ago at Microsoft’s TechEd technology conference in Orlando. He and I were both facilitators at TechEd’s Birds of a Feather sessions during the week.

This past week (Jun 26-28) Karl did something very interesting – he put together a three day, 18 hour online conference titled “Managing for Success 2012”. I was very impressed with the speakers chosen, the range and depth of information presented, the professionalism with each presentation, and most importantly – the fact that they stayed on time!

Kudos to Karl for a job well done!

SMB Online Conference

BPA Warning of Invalid Server Containers after Migrating to SBS 2011

If you migrated to SBS 2011 from an earlier version of SBS, you may encounter an issue where users are unable to send mail to mail-enabled public folders. If you run the SBS 2011 Best Practices Analyzer, it will report he following warning:

There are empty Servers containers

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This issue is easily resolved by using ADSI Edit to remove the empty Servers container. The BPA warning does not give you the specifics on how to do this, so I’ve included some instructions and screen snapshots of the process.

Warning: Using ADSI Edit incorrectly can cause issues with your server. Similar to warnings that you see when using Registry Edit, it is recommended that you have a backup of your server before proceeding.

Step 1: Start up ADSI Edit and access the Configuration connection

  • Start the ADSI Edit utility by clicking Start –> then type: adsiedit.msc and click OK
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  • When the ADSI Edit window displays, in the left frame under ADSI Edit, you may only see an entry for “Default naming context [server.domain.local]”.
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  • If so, right click on “Default naming context”, and then click Settings. Under the section “Select a well known Naming Context”, click on the drop down box, select Containers and then click OK.
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  • Your left frame should now look something like this:
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Step 2: Drill down Configuration to CN=Servers

  • Drill down Configuration –> CN=Configuration,DC=domain,DC=local –> CN=Services 
  • Continue drilling down CN=Microsoft Exchange –> CN=domain –> CN=Administrative Groups –> CN=first administrative group
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  • Expand CN=Servers and verify that there are no server objects listed
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  • Right click on the empty CN=Servers container and click Delete
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Rerun BPA and the warning message should no longer display!

For more details on this issue and its resolution, please check out Microsoft’s Windows Server Essentials and Small Business Server Blog site.