RIP–SBS

An announcement on the Official Microsoft Small Business Server blog that the current version of SBS (2011) will be the last cannot be allowed to pass without comment I believe. This is going to be a long post so hang in there as I share some thoughts.

Firstly, I have to congratulate Microsoft on providing such a fantastic product that has lasted so long. According to the Wikipedia article, the initial version of SBS (4.0) was released on the 22nd of October 1997. I am proud to say that I have been involved since day one with the product and have been lucky enough to generate a living from the product over many of those years. For that I thank Microsoft.

I however want to turn my attention to the reaction I have seen from many resellers who are bemoaning the demise of SBS and their cries that Microsoft is not listening to them and the SMB market place. In all honesty, I think it is these resellers who have it completely back to front in that it has been them who have not been listening.

Back in May 2008 I wrote this post:

http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au/blog/archive/2008/05/25/the-very-last-version-of-small-business-server.aspx

which spoke of SBS 2008 being what I considered the last version. Rereading the article, I found this a little prophetic:

“I can’t see that in another 5 years we’ll have SBS 2013. I’m sorry, but I think it will be gone.”

Back then I saw the EBS server as an option but that is also gone, however the gist is still as valid today as it was back then.

“You have either to move up market with EBS (which will be tough for one man bands) or embrace “cloud computing” (but if everything works right why do customers need you?)”

I have spoken before about the concept of having to specialize or upscale.

http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au/blog/archive/2012/04/28/valley-of-discontent.aspx

I also found this article about SBS Essentials from 2 years ago that I posted:

http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au/blog/archive/2010/07/13/i-was-wrong.aspx

Again, an interesting observation was:

3. If you are a reseller and you haven’t started learning about Microsoft online services a.k.a. BPOS well here is what Steve Ballmer recently told partners at the Microsoft world wide partner conference:

“If you don’t want to move to the cloud, then we’re not your company.”

I cannot therefore understand how ANYONE can be surprised by the demise of SBS as we know it. The writing has been on the wall for a long time, problem is most have chosen to ignore it.

Let’s look at some reasons as I see it.

A. SBS is Microsoft’s most complex product sold to the least technical and qualified audience (SMB). It is range of products such as Exchange, SharePoint, ISA (when it was on there) and so on, all crammed into a single server. That means compromises had to be made pure and simple. That also mean when update were made things broke. That’s what happens when you have complex devices, the chances of problems is much greater.

This also mean that SBS was out on it’s own in regards to development. I know for example that SharePoint is not supported on a domain controller or on Exchange server EXCEPT on SBS. So if it isn’t every except on SBS isn’t that going to spell problems? Sure is and this was the case will all products on SBS.

B. The technological landscape has changed. Sure cloud computing isn’t all that’s it’s cracked up to be and online services still can’t totally replace all on premises installations but guess what? The trend is that they will. Broadband link speeds are improving. Cloud based technologies are advancing so rapidly now that there soon won’t be anything that isn’t possible via the cloud.

I remember when SBS 4.0 came out. I was a Novell guy. Novell even had a small business server style offering that I considered for many clients but guess what? I looked past the immediate technical deficiencies of SBS 4.0 and believed that it would wind up being the product more greatly adopted. Luckily I was right. The same applies here, you have to look at the overall trend and not be blinked into what you BELIEVE is happening here and now.

I will also point out to those who point to low broadband speeds being a limiting factor for cloud adoption, I’ll bet you don’t remember having to get SBS 4.0 running with a 33KBps dial up modem? SBS survived that and prospered in the early days of broadband, the stage we are at now with the connections to the cloud is no different to my mind. The connection speeds are only going to improve.

C. The customer landscape has changed. Most customers work outside a traditional office now. They have employees and contractors all over the world, working at all different time and on all different devices. Their expectation of computing is now as a utility, they want to pay a monthly fee for exactly what they use.

Most business owners I speak with DON’T want servers. They DON’T to pay upfront for technology and most also DON’T want IT providers. Why? In short most have gotten screwed by IT providers who were no ‘professional’ enough. Much of the sour reactions to the demise of SBS has come from the traditional SBS User Group community. These guys do a GREAT job for their clients, they go above and beyond the call of duty HOWEVER they are the minority by far. I can’t tell you the number of SBS systems I have seen that are so poorly installed, configured and maintained that I shudder to even be considered an IT person when I see them.

In the end resellers serve customers and if customers don’t want servers then that has to be accommodated.

D. These same SMB resellers in my opinion have failed to band together in a way that allows them to present a united face to Microsoft. With some many tiny resellers out there Microsoft really doesn’t have any visibility on what is really happening out there.

I know there have been plenty of false starts trying to get a strong and united community voice to represent the SBS cause but you know what? Simply saying something doesn’t mean it will be heard, you have to frame it a context that the other party will understand. Microsoft has never really understood the SMB (sub 75) market and that is not all their own fault. You need to show them volumes to make an impact. Sure SMB represents a huge group, COMBINED I agree but the reality is it has been about to provide a coherent front.

As hard as this may sound, I firmly believe that there needed to be a united international organization to represent the needs of SMB resellers to vendors like Microsoft, but to my knowledge there is not one that has come close.

E. Microsoft is a corporation. It is a business. The main aim of a business is to generate revenue for its shareholders. If the SBS investment is not paying dividends and doesn’t seem to be well then good business logic says that it should be shut down and the resources allocated to where there is more opportunity.

At the end of the day, don’t forget SBS is Microsoft’s product. They LICENSE people to use it. I hear the complaint about what do businesses do who have based their business model around SBS? My argument is that if you blindly based your whole business around a single product from a single supplier and didn’t have the acumen to look at the trends in the market and learn from others who are in the same space subject to the same pressures then your business is going to struggle.

If you a single man IT reseller focused on SBS and you are surprised by the demise of SBS then you have not being doing justice to your shareholders i.e. YOU!

F. The support of SBS doesn’t end today. You can still buy SBS and you will be able for a while yet. SBS will still be supported but it is certainly on the decline as a platform. Know what? That means an opportunity to look to grow into something else. That means an opportunity to consider what options are available. The bottom line it means you gotta do some work to help clients understand what they need. As they say when you have lemons, make lemonade.

It probably means that you need to consider and develop your business model. As I mentioned before, it is really not the first time that should have had to consider this BUT even if it is that doesn’t stop you from making that a priority now.

Conclusion

An intelligent person understands that they cannot totally control their environment they can only control their reaction to it. Most people like me started out in IT because they loved change. They loved testing new hardware and software. They loved running things up in their spare time. They loved to learn what made technology tick and then deliver solutions to customers.

It seems to me that most people who bemoan the demise of SBS have become old ‘fuddy duddies’ who have become the mainframe people they used to mock. Change is a part of business as it is a part of life. An old Japanese saying is most appropriate here I believe. It says that the average man sees life as a daily burden weighed down by frustrations but a warrior sees it as an opportunity to test and hone their skills. It is what they live for. It is the spice of life that makes living so worthwhile. It seems to me that many SBS folks have become too sedentary in a field where change is the constant factor.

Book Review–Book Yourself Solid

Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even If You Hate Marketing by Michael Port
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I believe this is one of the few ‘must’ reads books I have come across for those that run their own business. I really got a lot out of the information provided and it have given me a list of things that I need to do to work on and improve my business.

The book is easy to read and takes you through a logic progression of helping you understand what your business is, what it does and how it can help customers. I particularly like the focus on building a business that aims to satisfy customers. I also like the take aways at the end of each chapter which provide you a list of tasks to perform. This, I believe, makes it much easier to transform the material into actions. The difference here is that is helps you understand what customers you really want and respond to which means you’ll provide a much better service to them rather than simply taking on any old client.

The book covers a lot of ground and includes strategies around web sites, Facebook, Twitter, and all the current technologies. I would certainly say that if you ran a business you should sit down and not only read this book but also but on your shelf for reference. To me, this an indication of a ‘must-read’ book. Not only is it worthwhile the first time you read it but every other time you do.

All in all, a really well laid out, easy to read book brimmed full of helpful ideas and steps to follow.
View all my reviews

Visit my Amazon book store for other recommendations

Always a way

I have always been a big proponent of Linkedin. I was an early adopter and have seen its growth skyrocket in the last few years. Some say that it is Facebook for business, which ever way you look at it you really a place you need to be if you are serious about your career or your business. You can view my public profile at http://www.linkedin.com/in/ciaops and if you are already on Linkedin then feel free to connect up with me directly.

One of the surprising benefits I found from Linkedin was the fact that once I linked my Twitter feed into the Linkedin my audience grew significantly. I also found far more interaction with what I posted in my Twitter stream from people who saw the information via Linkedin. I was therefore disappointed to read about the fact that this would no longer be available.

Twitter cuts off service to Linkedin

After some consideration I have found what I think is a suitable replacement using If This Then That.

If This Then That is a very simply yet power site. It allows you to create automation ‘recipes’ from other online services. I already use the user to send a copy of every tweet that I do to the online notebook Evernote. All I needed to do was create something similar but send it to Linkedin.

Once you create an account you think link in your online services or ‘channels’. Here you can see some of the ‘channels’ I have already configured (including Linkedin)

I can now start linking these services together via simple rules.

In the case above, if I tweet with Twitter post that tweet to an update on Linkedin.

So here’s the tweet and

Here’s the update on Linkedin (it may take up to 15 minutes to come through).

Pretty handy eh? If you haven’t looked at If This Then That then I recommend you do. There is a thriving community of people developing and sharing recipes, so you don’t even need to make your own!

If This Then That to me point in the direction we’ll see with cloud services. Basically you’ll be able to easily and simply combine them together and automatically share data and information between them. Very, very powerful when you think about it.

Hop count exceeded-possible mail loop

Sometimes when a new Office 365 account is created and you attempt to receive email from outside Office 365 the external sender will receive an email bounce message that looks like:
Generating server: bigfish.com
user@company.com.au
VA3EHSMHS043.bigfish.com # #SMTP#
The reason for this is that the Office 365 tenant name that has been used for this account had previously been used and either cancelled or allowed to lapse. Thus, the original tennantname.onmicrosoft.com already exists in the ForeFront Online Protection for Exchange (FOPE). This creates a looping condition when emails are received from outside Office 365 to that tenant.

Experience has found that allowing up to 72 hours for the issue to resolve itself can be frustrating if time constraints are upon you. In many cases the response from support to this issue will be to simply wait until the situation is rectified. There is however something that can be done to potentially resolve the issue.
Information about resolving this can be found in the post:

http://www.cloudusergroup.at/post/2012/04/30/hop-count-exceeded-possible-mail-loop-in-office-365-beheben.aspx

which is in German (so you’ll need to use browser translation), however the summary is:

If the affected office 365 tenant is an E plan then you can you can log into the FOPE control panel to check the entries. To login into the FOPE control panel, firstly log into the Office 365 tenant as an administrator.

Select the Manage link from the Exchange section on the Admin Overview page.

Select Mail Control from the list on the left of the page. Then on the right you, under Additional Security Settings, you will see Forefront Online Protection for Exchange. Click the text Configure IP safelisting, perimeter message tracking and e-mail policies.

The Forefront administration console will launch in a new browser.

From this console select Administration then Domain from the menu bar.
This will display the list of domains. You should only see the domains that you have configured for the tenant (as above) however, there may still be a duplicate domain as shown from the original blog post above.

If there is an incorrect entry there you can update FOPE with a Powershell script.
$ LiveCred = Get-Credential
$ Session = New-PSSession ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange ConnectionURI https://ps.outlook.com/powershell/ -Credential $ LiveCred Basic Authentication AllowRedirection
import PSSession $ session AllowClobber
set AcceptedDomain Identity -OutboundOnly $true
set-AcceptedDomain identity -OutboundOnly $false
You then need to wait about 1 hour and recheck the FOPE entries again. All things being well the duplicate entry should have disappeared. Once the duplicate entry has disappeared then emails from outside the organisation should be received correctly.

It is important to realize that access to the FOPE control panel is not available to users of the Small Business and Professional Plan (P Plan). In that case you can still use the above Powershell commands to clear any duplicate domains.

You will also find that Microsoft has created a knowledge base article covering these issues:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2495882

the resolution in the article is to contact FOPE support to resolve the issue. I also found the following Technet Blog

http://blogs.technet.com/b/hot/archive/2012/02/03/moving-domains-from-bpos-s-to-office-365.aspx

that also contains similar information.

Desktop to Cloud June meeting

Last night was the first night of the monthly Desktop to Cloud User Group and I think it was a resounding success. Why? Because we had about 20 people in attendance, which isn’t bad for a first meeting.

Photos taken by Geejay Schneeweiss (GJ’s Computer Services)

As you can see from the above shots the venue at the Stanton Library was excellent with plenty of room and great facilities.

Photos taken by Geejay Schneeweiss (GJ’s Computer Services)

The meeting covered off some basic introductions of everyone in attendance and then some discussions about the direction of the group.

Photos taken by Geejay Schneeweiss (GJ’s Computer Services)

We also had some good discussion around some cloud solution to common issues such as password management and workflow. You’ll find a copy of the slides from the event here.

It was agreed that members should post information, comments and suggestions for content to the Meetup group page at http://www.meetup.com/desktop2cloud/. Over the next few weeks you will start finding more information there.

You can also register at http://www.desktoptocloud.com.au and the event site at http://d2cug.eventbrite.com.au/.

The meeting is on Wednesday the 25th of July from 6:15pm at Stanton Library, 234 Miller St, North Sydney NSW 2160 and I hope to see you there. Stayed tuned to this blog for further updates on Desktop to Cloud. I have also created a dedicated blog for the group at http://www.ciaops.com/d2cblog so make sure you subscribe for all the updates.

Audible comes to Windows phone

Those who follow this blog and my Goodreads know that I enjoy reading and writing reviews. One of the real killer apps in my books that has been missing from Windows Phone 7 of late has been Audible.

Audible allows you to listen to audio books on your mobile devices. It is another company owned by Amazon (a business I really, really like for many reasons) so purchasing audiobooks is really simple. You can either opt for subscription plan or purchase them as one offs.

Thankfully Audible has finally come to Windows Phone 7 and can be downloaded for free:

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-AU/apps/bdc813dd-c20b-41f8-8646-de72fa0b365d

I have for a long while now used audio to listen to podcasts, books, etc while on the go. It allows to to get through so much more stuff. Once you start you’ll never stop, trust me. Sign up for Audible today and expand your mind.

Office 365 training material

I get plenty of questions about training material for Office 365, especially the certification exams – 71-321 Deploying Office 365 and 71-323 Administrating Office 365. This is becoming more the case now that the 71-323 is part of the new Microsoft SMB competency.

There is currently not a lot out there in the market however the place to start is the recent Office 365 Jump Start range of videos. There are 18 videos in total and can all be downloaded for off site viewing. There are also some older Office 365 Jump Start videos for IT Pros that are also helpful and free again.

Microsoft has also just released some e-learning courseware for the 70-323 Administrating Office 365 exam. There is a cost for this and I can’t provide any recommendation having not used it. It would expect to see some e-learning for the 71-321 Deploying Office 365 become available soon.

Next, you have use the Microsoft Virtual Academy which currently has the following Office 365 courses:

There is also plenty of other training material on other technologies in there, all for free.

As for books well I have read the following from MVPs Loryan Strant:

Microsoft Office 365: Exchange Online Implementation and Migration

and Brett Hill

Working with Microsoft Office 365: Running Your Small Business in the Cloud

Both are not specifically aimed at content for passing exams but still offer plenty of information that will help.

Finally, there are the Office 365 Virtual Labs for IT Pros, again free from Microsoft. This will allow you to get you hands dirty in a full virtual environment. This is especially handy for the SMB types who probably don’t have the infrastructure to implement Office 365 Federation.

I’m sure as time goes on there be lots more becoming available so stay tuned.

Beyond the 10GB Companyweb 2010 limit

A hurdle that is fast becoming an issue with Companyweb on SBS 2011 is 10GB database limit imposed by SQL 2008 Express R2. Back in SBS 2008 days Companyweb used SQL 2005 Express Embedded Edition (##SSEE) which allowed unlimited database sizes. However, the issue with SSEE is that it is a 32 bit data platform and SharePoint 2010 Foundation requires a a 64 bit database platform. Enter SQL 2008 Express R2 as the storage platform for Companyweb (SharePoint Foundation 2010) on SBS 2011.

As the use of SharePoint increases and customers start storing lots and lots of files in there as well as using version control suddenly 10GB starts to look pretty small. So what options are available to you to break the 10GB barrier with Companyweb on SBS 2011?

Option 1 – Split your content across multiple content databases

Just because your data exceeds 10GB doesn’t mean it can’t live in multiple content databases. You can easily create a second content database into which you can create another Site Collection. Well, maybe not easily, but it cane be done. See –

http://blog.arjanfraaij.com/2011/01/sharepoint-2010-add-site-collection-to.html

Once that is created you can create a link from your first site to the second one. In this scenario your total site storage is now 20GB. In theory you could keep adding content databases as you need to, each providing 10GB a pop.

Downsides? It is certainly more cumbersome working with multiple SharePoint content databases. You have to make sure that you have set up indexing on that database, assigned rights and linked back and forth from the original. In the end you now have content in two places which can always spell trouble.

Option 2 – Implement Remote BLOB storage

I have blogged about this before and the issues you may face which you will find here and here. You can do it and it is free but I wouldn’t recommend it for the reasons in those other posts.

Downsides? Many (don’t do).

Option 3 – Upgrade the existing SharePoint SQL instance on SBS 2011

For this you will need to purchase a full version of SQL (typically via the SBS 2011 Premium Add on pack) and then install it over the existing SQL 2008 Express R2 instance that is used for SharePoint.

You’ll find details of that process here –

http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2011/02/28/how-to-migrate-companyweb-to-a-sql-2008-r2-standard-instance-on-sbs-2011-part-1.aspx

Downsides? Firstly, you are going to have purchase a full version of SQL. It also kind of makes SBS 2011 “non-standard”. This doesn’t mean it isn’t a supported configuration (as I understand it) but I can’t say how SBS 2011 wizards and updates handle things being ‘non-standard’ going forward.

It also means you have yet another SQL version on your SBS 2011 server that will need separate updates along with the other versions of SQL that are already there (i.e. SQL 2008 Express R2 and SSEE).

Option 4 – Install a new version of SQL Server onto the SBS 2011 server

Once again here you’ll need to purchase a full version of SQL (typically via the SBS 2011 Premium Add on pack) and then install it as another SQL instance on the SBS 2011 Server.

Once you have done this you will need to move the SharePoint content databases from the default SQL 2008 Express R2 instance to the new full SQL instance via SQL detach and reattach as well as ststam –o deletecontentdb and addcontentdb commands.

Downsides? Like the above option. You have to buy a full version of SQL and SBS 2011 is now ‘non-standard’ (although supported). You have an additional version of SQL to patch and update. The added downside here is that this new version of SQL has created a new instance which means it is consuming additional RAM on your SBS server. Thus, now you have SSEE, SQL 2008 Express R2, and Full SQL consuming RAM for all their instances, not forgetting that by default SQL wants is not memory trimmed (i.e. it will consume every piece of free RAM it can).

Option 5 – Install a new member server that includes SQL Server

Here you’ll need to purchase an additional Windows Server and SQL License (typically via the SBS 2011 Premium Add on pack), some additional hardware (or virtual machine) and create a new member server in SBS 2011 domain with full SQL installed on it.

Once you have done that you will need to move the databases (much like in Option 4 above) to the new server with full SQL.

Details on doing that are found at –

http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2011/03/02/how-to-migrate-companyweb-to-a-sql-2008-r2-standard-instance-on-sbs-2011-part-2-premium-second-server.aspx

and –

http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2011/03/07/how-to-migrate-companyweb-to-a-sql-2008-r2-standard-instance-on-sbs-2011-part-3-migrating-the-content-database.aspx.

Downsides? Again SBS 2011 is not longer ‘standard’ (but again still supported). You need to spend more money on SQL and Windows licenses and potentially additional hardware. The other downside is that now database requests for SharePoint are sent from the second server with SQL installed back to the SBS 2011 box out via IIS to the client (if I understand the flow correctly here). That means extra network traffic and potential latency as data requests for SharePoint are pull from a database across the network. You might never notice this with the fast infrastructure we have today but it is still slower than having it all hosted on one server.

But hand on a sec ….

This whole discussion has really focused on just the SharePoint content database, however this is not the only database that SharePoint Foundation uses. In SharePoint you’ll also find the following databases typically:

Sharepoint_config

SharePoint_admincontent_

WSS_logging_

WSS_search_

so what about these? Should they also be moved? The following article does tell you how to go about this (Although I believe there are issues with the document),

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg616007.aspx

In theory I would say no for every database except one. The first three databases should generally remain small and no exceed the 10GB limit, however what will also grow as your content database grows? The search database. If you leave it where it is on SQL 2008 Express R2 it will be limited to 10GB in size. The only way that you’d probably notice that the search database has reached its limit is when search results are not returned for information you KNOW is in the database.

Can’t say that I have ever seen a search database exceed 10GB but in theory, given enough SharePoint content to index, it could. So, if you go a full version of SQL with unlimited database sizes I would also be moving the search database (wss_search_ by default) to the full version of SQL to allow it breathing space as your content grows.

To move the search databases the easiest way is probably to recreate them by stopping and restarting the SharePoint search service but in this case nominating the location of the full SQL server for the storage of the index data.

Conclusion

For most people that need to exceed the 10GB option the best option I would say is to get the Premium Add on. Install full SQL on a new member server and swing the content (ShareWebDb) and the Search database only across to this new SQL instance that has no limits on the database size. However, I hope this post has at least provided you with some options of what is possible.