I work for an IT consulting company (~40 people), and we've upgraded our internal production network to WS08 in April 2008.
So far, we've had few issues, most of them due to ISVs not being completely ready to support WS08 back in April 2008.
By now, we've killed of most of the WS03 VMs as vendors started supporting Server 2008.
WS08 offered lots of improvement - SMB 2.0 is getting a lot of love from our users, as access data over the VPN is now much faster, without the need for expensive WAN accelerator appliances.
Terminal Services were also much improved, being now able to eleminate the need for Citrix for some of our smaller customers. For them, this is a great value proposition.
Otherwise, Server 2008 seems like a good incremental upgrade. There is no need to throw out all 2003 servers right now, but transition them when the hardware is due for replacement.
A product that IMO has a much bigger impact is the release of SBS 2008. It finally gives you 64bit & Exchange 2007 for the smallest of customers.
We deployed internally (we're an IT consulting company).
We use it to run our DC/DNS/DHCP primary infrastructure server. Works fine. I see no advantage right now though, and wouldn't deploy such a setup at a customers site.
In WS08 R2,.NET support will be added to Server Core. This will make it a great option for big web server farms.
Microsoft licensing scheme can't be enforced, that's why they moved it out of view in the software, as it plain and simply doesn't work, and may even lead to wrong proconceptions on how MS Licensing works.
Synchronizing your Mobile Phone against Exchange and use Device CALs? You need one more CAL.
One more worker on the factory floor using the "factory" user account and use User CALs? You need one more CAL.
As a service provider, i think it depends on your billing model.
We mostly serve smaller businesses (20-150 employees) and charge everything by the hour. Thus, as long as i can charge the customer, i'll do whatever i can to help him.
Mostly this is high level stuff that the internal IT guy can't handle or doesn't want to handle, but i've spent an entire afternoon to sort the holiday pictures of the CEO of a small company. Cost him 185.- per hour, but he didn't seem to mind.
But everything changes if you're working for a large service provider, like IBM GS, where the customer just pays a flat rate and you have to close tickets as fast as possible, as customers will call up with every little thing because it doesn't cost them anything.
As for your comment, one day when you move into the "real world" you will realize that you dont always have the resources to test every single patch that comes down the line.
True. Reality bites and all that.
However, do not blame your software vendor for YOUR lack of procedures!
If your management considers it acceptable to deploy security patches directly into production there _will_ be regressions sooner or later. They're not your fault, they're not Microsoft's fault, they're your management's fault for not following best practices.
You don't have to use the Edge Transport if you have an appliance like the Barracudas.
Also, SBS 2008 also connects a hub transport directly to the internet, so for smaller businesses this is actually a recommended configuration.
I run Exchange 2007 Edge + ORF + Forefront for Exchange in the DMZ. It works well enough. And as an MS Partner, it's a lot cheaper than buying a decent antispam/av/etc. appliance.
*Multiple super users does not provide a better audit trail because that user is privileged enough to alter the audits anyway. At the top of the tree trust has to be implicit.
I disagree. In a criminal case, you're right.
But if we're talking about common, everyday mistake where you just want to know how fucked something up, this is good enough.
If you run a Groupware server, you're not running it for yourself. You're running it for the users.
It doesn't matter if you think that Evolution or whatever beats Outlook/Exchange, it matters if everyone else in your company does the same. If they do, good for you.
Slashdot Mirror
Yep, again they're eating at Citrix. Which is a good thing IMO, their pricing is insane.
I work for an IT consulting company (~40 people), and we've upgraded our internal production network to WS08 in April 2008.
So far, we've had few issues, most of them due to ISVs not being completely ready to support WS08 back in April 2008.
By now, we've killed of most of the WS03 VMs as vendors started supporting Server 2008.
WS08 offered lots of improvement - SMB 2.0 is getting a lot of love from our users, as access data over the VPN is now much faster, without the need for expensive WAN accelerator appliances.
Terminal Services were also much improved, being now able to eleminate the need for Citrix for some of our smaller customers. For them, this is a great value proposition.
Otherwise, Server 2008 seems like a good incremental upgrade. There is no need to throw out all 2003 servers right now, but transition them when the hardware is due for replacement.
A product that IMO has a much bigger impact is the release of SBS 2008. It finally gives you 64bit & Exchange 2007 for the smallest of customers.
We deployed internally (we're an IT consulting company).
We use it to run our DC/DNS/DHCP primary infrastructure server. Works fine. I see no advantage right now though, and wouldn't deploy such a setup at a customers site.
In WS08 R2, .NET support will be added to Server Core. This will make it a great option for big web server farms.
That's not completely true. The default list trusts Windows Update, which in XP/2003 was still web based. Thats probably what the GGP referred to.
Of course, microsoft.com itself isn't given any special treatment.
Microsoft licensing scheme can't be enforced, that's why they moved it out of view in the software, as it plain and simply doesn't work, and may even lead to wrong proconceptions on how MS Licensing works.
Synchronizing your Mobile Phone against Exchange and use Device CALs? You need one more CAL.
One more worker on the factory floor using the "factory" user account and use User CALs? You need one more CAL.
That's why all major server vendors ship startup CDs that contain all the major drivers and system management Software.
IBM calls them ServerGuide, HP calls them SmartStart. They're meant for small businesses without automated server deployment.
And Software as a Service is also as proprietary as it gets.
Now you don't even own the hardware anymore and can't even try to fix something on your own.
My fault, i only had it vaguely in my head.
OneCare for Server, which shipped with SBS 2008 will be discontinued by mid-year. No direct replacement on schedule.
The OneCare for Client offering will convert to a free version, as you said.
OneCare has been discontinued. It sucked.
No, it's not free.
It's part of Windows Server. So you'll need a Windows Server license and the appropriate number of CALs.
As a service provider, i think it depends on your billing model.
We mostly serve smaller businesses (20-150 employees) and charge everything by the hour. Thus, as long as i can charge the customer, i'll do whatever i can to help him.
Mostly this is high level stuff that the internal IT guy can't handle or doesn't want to handle, but i've spent an entire afternoon to sort the holiday pictures of the CEO of a small company. Cost him 185.- per hour, but he didn't seem to mind.
But everything changes if you're working for a large service provider, like IBM GS, where the customer just pays a flat rate and you have to close tickets as fast as possible, as customers will call up with every little thing because it doesn't cost them anything.
USMT automates the steps you mentioned, so i don't understand why you put a question mark after "migrates the profile".
Link?
It's a possible and supported upgrade path.
It's also supported to run Exchange on a DC, but that does not mean that it's a best practice scenario.
IMO, best practice for XP->Win7 would be to use USMT to migrate the profile and deploy a new Windows 7 Image to the hardware.
That's how i upgraded our machines from XP to Vista, and it worked without any major issues.
Erm, i don't think people running their own AS have an issue with the pricing of Cisco's services.
And 64bit Windows comes with both a 64bit IE and a 32bit IE.
The 32bit variant is the default.
Courage, Duty, Honor
True. Reality bites and all that.
However, do not blame your software vendor for YOUR lack of procedures!
If your management considers it acceptable to deploy security patches directly into production there _will_ be regressions sooner or later. They're not your fault, they're not Microsoft's fault, they're your management's fault for not following best practices.
So basically you workarounded the fact that there's only a single super user by using a broker program.
Thanks for proving my point.
You're not. But i'm sure you can hire some Microsoft consultants to your test environment for you.
You don't have to use the Edge Transport if you have an appliance like the Barracudas.
Also, SBS 2008 also connects a hub transport directly to the internet, so for smaller businesses this is actually a recommended configuration.
I run Exchange 2007 Edge + ORF + Forefront for Exchange in the DMZ. It works well enough. And as an MS Partner, it's a lot cheaper than buying a decent antispam/av/etc. appliance.
That's much too direct. You have to think about job security when doing IT work.
Next thing you're going to recommend installing service packs and updates in general. ;)
Yes, they should. Namely by you. In your testing environment. Before deploying it to production.
I disagree. In a criminal case, you're right.
But if we're talking about common, everyday mistake where you just want to know how fucked something up, this is good enough.
If you run a Groupware server, you're not running it for yourself. You're running it for the users.
It doesn't matter if you think that Evolution or whatever beats Outlook/Exchange, it matters if everyone else in your company does the same. If they do, good for you.
I'd prefer to have a non-optimal tool to fulfill a job than no tool at all.
But for those that see open source as a religion instead of a means to an end, they'll prefer to have no tool and just the moral high horse.