Microsoft has just released a technical document on installing SharePoint Foundation 2010 on SBS 2008. You will find it here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff959273(WS.10).aspx
It great to finally have a guidance document from Microsoft on this process but there are a few issues from what I see.
The major one is around section 10 whose heading is – Step 10: Connect the ShareWebDb database to SQL Server 2008 you’ll find that the contents are actually identical (word for word) with Step 12: Connect the ShareWebDb content database which appears to be a simple editing over sight.
Step 10 should in fact detail how to attach ShareWebDb to SQL 2008 which isn’t that hard but unless that is done first you are not going to be able to complete step 12 of actually connecting the database to SharePoint Foundation 2010.
Apart from that major issue I also believe the document could contain some additional items of information, such as:
1. The document speaks of using SQL Express 2008 but doesn’t appear to mention the fact that this version of SQL although free is limited to databases of 4GB in size. So if your existing companyweb on SBS 2008 is greater than 4GB the detailed process won’t work.
If you however install SQL Express 2008 R2 you can then have a maximum database size of 10GB and if you then use remote blob storage like I explained in a previous blog post, you can have a database up to 16GB. You can always use a full blown version of SQL 2008 which overcomes the database limit but if you want a free version make sure you go SQL Express 2008 R2.
2. After the migration process is complete and you bring up the new SharePoint site it will look almost identical to WSS v3. That’s because SharePoint Foundation 2010 has a visual upgrade feature that you have to select to upgrade the look and feel of the site. I believe that a major reason why people would want to go to all the trouble of installing SharePoint Foundation 2010 on SBS 2008 is so they can benefit from the new interface.
So after you do the upgrade go into the site settings for the site and select the visual upgrade option to change the look and feel of your site to new SharePoint interface.
3. If you have configured PDF icons and indexing on your existing version of WSS v3 on SBS 2008 you’ll have to reconfigure it on SharePoint Foundation 2010. Getting the PDF icon is pretty simple, here’s my video tutorial on the process:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay6Xvb2oIUU
but getting PDFs to index now that is something much more tricky under SharePoint Foundation 2010. The solution is in my SharePoint Guide (which is yet another great reason to purchase it!).
3. If you try and install SQL 2008 Express on the SBS 2008 server you won;t be able to until you uninstall the existing SQL 2005 Express Management Studio. Not a major issue but handy to know when you are doing the prep work.
So there’s a few things I’ve noticed about the document upon first glance. The big issue is the fact that Step 10 needs to be correct to show the process of attaching the old WSS v3 database to SQL Express 2008.
I’ll let you know what more info I find as I dig deeper.
Tech Ed 2010 Australia wrap up
Now that Microsoft Tech Ed 2010 Australia is a done deal I’ve been lucky enough to be joined on another Need to Know podcast by Wayne Small to give us a round up of everything at the event.
The details of the podcast are:
http://www.ciaops.com/n2k – 25MB (40mins)
or via direct download:
So let me know what you think and if you are interested on being on the show please also contact me (director@ciaops.com) as I am always looking for people to talk about business and technology.
Stay tuned for more episodes coming soon.
SharePoint on Aurora
Given that SBS Aurora doesn’t include Exchange or SharePoint the first question I had was, could you actually install SharePoint Foundation 2010 on SBS Aurora? The reason for my questions is that, at this point, SharePoint 2010 is not available in BPOS (it will be soon). So what if you were busting for SharePoint 2010 on SBS Aurora?
The good news is that in my testing you can install SharePoint Foundation 2010 just like normal. You firstly need to make sure a version of SQL is installed on the server. I used SQL Express 2008 R2 (which has a 10GB limit). I then installed SharePoint Foundation 2010.
The files copied across as expected.
You have to create a new farm and connect to the SQL database you have already installed but that is straight forward.
Next the SharePoint Configuration wizard runs.
You then run the setup wizard and bingo you have SharePoint Foundation 2010 running on SBS Aurora.
SBS Aurora beta install
Now that SBS Aurora beta is out thought I’d take you through an install.
Yep, new install please.
Yep use the only disk in the system and blow it away.
Hmmm..looks a lot like stuff I’ve seen before, i.e. copying, expanding, installing etc.
Would be nice if the completing installation gave you a percentage complete like the previous components did. My initially install got hung up and I reset here and it didn’t like that at all. Maybe it was because my SBS 2008 machine was also running. So I shut down the SBS 2008 box and started again.
I live on this big island the South Pacific called Australia where we speak the English (Australian) dialect but we still use US keyboards. I don’t understand but it does work (generally).
Sure I read it all before I accepted it (honest, cross my heart).
How do they come up with these keys? Surely they must have run out by now?
Not very original here but make sure you don’t duplicate something that already existing on your network!
Need a complex password as usual. I’m getting good at these now.
Hmmm…I think pressing the BIG green icon at the top is best.
More waiting. I wonder what it is doing? I wish I knew.
Needed a reboot, so it did it all by itself. How grown up!
Still preparing my server. Maybe I should have called the machine MasterChef?
More ‘Please wait’ screens. I don’t know how much more of this I can take. Please tell what you are doing, I’m a big boy. I can handle it.
Ahhhhhh…green tick, must be all good now.
And here’s the desktop, not surprisingly it looks like Windows 7.
Here’s the dashboard. Plenty to click to keep me busy for the next few days.
Not much in the start menu anymore.
But still plenty in the Administrative tools. Still opportunity for mischief. Yeah!
Initial Observations (that I can see anyway):
– No networking options during installation
– No disk partitioning options
– 64 bit OS (course de jour these days)
– Some interesting partition and disk mappings that need further investigation
Now how do I connect this sucker to the cloud? More updates soon.
Microsoft InTune
It basically allows the installation of client software that connects the PC to the cloud allowing you to perform a number of tasks. Firstly you can monitor and examine the PC, you can also control the updates on the machine, you can also implement security and anti-malware and finally you can also use it for remote support. More information about the product can be found here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-au/magazine/ff742836.aspx
and the actual product site is here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsintune/default.aspx
The product is also in beta so I though I’d hurry along and sign up to have a look but unfortunately, it seems to be limited beta of which Australia currently isn’t part.
Damm! I’m sure that it will make it’s way ‘down under’ soon and I’m keen to give it a whirl as I feel there is real call for such a product especially deploy via something like Microsoft BPOS (which is the plan).
There are already plenty of other tools out there that do the same or more but I think there is certainly a call for something simple and standard, a bit like Microsoft Security Essentials. It won’t be everything to everyone but I certainly think it will appear to a large segment of the market.
I think this certainly adds value to a potential BPOS offering and will allow IT Professionals to offer a greater range of services at a lower cost. Combine this with the planned implementation of Exchange 2010, SharePoint 2010, Office Web Apps and improved Office Communications Server I think you’d really have to be mad to not at least be checking out what these offer and how they can be integrated into your business.
This is simply more evidence (for better or worse) that Microsoft is moving to the cloud in a big way. I also think they are approaching it in a smart way with things like the new SBS Aurora which is a hybrid solution. However, this means resellers are going to have to learn to become ‘cloud and proud’ as I say.
I was wrong
When I said two years ago that I thought SBS 2008 was going to be the last version of SBS (here’s the post). Interestingly, it has taken until now for the future of SBS to be revealed and it seems to be a bit of an each way bet.
Firstly there will be a version called SBS 7 that will be the traditional in house SBS with servers, Exchange, SQL and so on. However, there will be a hybrid version called Aurora that will be based on Windows Home Server and have services hosted in the cloud. You can read about these products here:
http://www.winsupersite.com/server/sbs7_preview.asp
and here
Interestingly the Aurora product allows up to 25 users while SBS 7 allows up to the traditional 75.
My observations?
1. If the average SBS install is 15 users then Aurora is going to be the product that is most popular.
2. With most businesses divesting themselves of infrastructure (especially small businesses) Aurora gets the nod again.
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.”
4. SharePoint Foundation 2010 is included with SBS 7 and via the cloud so it is probably going to be an even more utilized feature of SBS going forward. If you don’t know SharePoint, Office Web Apps, Office co-authoring then you are going to struggle to provide value above and beyond just installing common services like email.
Reading Paul Thurott’s review (above) I have to agree with the following:
“solutions like Aurora make more sense, I think, for a much bigger percentage of the customer base”
So, good news that SBS will live on in at least two forms. I will be very interested to see how Aurora performs against 7 given the push to the cloud, now even more so by Microsoft.
SharePoint Foundation 2010 on SBS 2008 – the prep
So you want to install SharePoint Foundation 2010 onto SBS 2008 eh? We’ll I’m here to tell you that you need to do your prep work or else you are going to end up in a horrible mess. This post will take you through the steps you should complete prior to any upgrade. Future posts will cover the upgrade process.
Let’s assume that you have decided that you really want to install SharePoint Foundation 2010 on SBS 2008. The most compelling reasons are the ability to run Office Web Apps and allow document co-authoring with Office 2010. The first question to ask is whether you are planning to migrate your existing Companyweb data or start fresh? If you want to migrate your data (which the most likely option) then you are going to need to ensure that it is backed up.
I’d always recommend that you backup your SharePoint data a number of different ways just in case you need to roll back. So the first suggested way is to do a normal full backup or image of your system using the inbuilt SBS backup or imaging software. Ensure that you have all the SharePoint databases on that backup. By default the WSS v3 databases on SBS 2008 live in
c:\windows\sysmsi\ssee\mssql.2005\mssql\data (although they can be relocated manually or via the SBS 2008 wizards).
Next I’d do a command line stsadm backup via:
stsadm –o backup –url http://companyweb –filename drive:\directory\filename -overwrite
This will create a single file backup of your WSS v3 site. Why this? It is much easier in my books to create a new clean WSS v3 site somewhere (say on a virtual PC) and then restore a full WSS v3 backup using the above command. This form of backup is probably the most easily transportable there is for WSS v3.
While still at the command line I’d also do:
stsadm –o export –url http://companyweb –filename drive:\directory\filename1 –includeusersecurity –overwrite
Why this extra command you ask? The difference is that the –export command allows me to import the data into an existing WSS v3 site, whereas the –backup command overwrites what is there. Thus, maybe I want to import the data to a sub area of another site for testing or maybe recovery. Like I said the more options the better in my books.
With that complete and still at the command type the following:
stsadm –o preupgradecheck
What that will do is run a check to see whether there are any obvious deal breakers to prevent an upgrade from WSS v3 to SharePoint Foundation 2010. That command will produce a file you can study at your leisure and see if something untoward might pop out during the upgrade process.
If all that looks good then you are probably ready to commence the upgrade but here’s where I’d ask you to stop and think. What is your fall back procedure? What happens if it all goes belly up and you need to roll back to the original WSS v3? What happens if you need to reinstall WSS v3? Have you ever tried that? Do you know where to find the documentation for that? I’ll tell you now that there ain’t any install wizard to get Companyweb back up and running on SBS 2008 if things go pear shaped so I strongly recommend you understand how to do a full disaster recovery of WSS v3 on SBS 2008 before you go any further.
With that in mind, and with you hopefully scurrying off to do some research I’ll let you know that you can’t simply upgrade WSS v3 Companyweb on SBS 2008 to Companyweb on SharePoint Foundation 2010. You will have to uninstall WSS v3 completely from SBS 2008 before attempting to install SharePoint Foundation 2010. Yep, you read that right, totally remove WSS v3 from SBS 2008.
Now even before you install SharePoint Foundation 2010 on SBS 2008 you are going to need to install a swag of prerequisites. Do you know what these are? Will they affect anything that is already on the server? Will they interfere with any third party apps installed on the server (like AV produces say). Hopefully, you now understand my point about making sure you have a fall back plan in case problems do arise.
Next consider what database version you are going to use with SharePoint Foundation 2010. By default SharePoint Foundation 2010 comes with SQL Express 2008. Great you say but remember that SQL Express 2008 has a 4GB database limit. WSS v3 came with SQL Server Embedded Edition 2005 (SSEE) which has no database limit. So if your existing Companyweb databases are greater than that, or likely to grow beyond 4GB you have some thinking to do. The easiest and cheapest option is to go with SQL Express 2008 R2 which now has a 10GB database limit and remains a free download. Maybe you want to go full SQL Server 2008 as a license is included with SBS 2008 Premium if you have it. See, not as straight forward as you think.
Now SharePoint Foundation 2010 is going to need to have a version of SQL Server 2008 at least to operate installed prior to the installation of SharePoint Foundation 2010. There is already SQL Server 2005 on SBS 2008 that is used for WSUS amongst other things. What conflicts might that cause? What compatibility issues might that raise? Well for starters SQL Server 2008 generally can’t be installed if SQL Server 2005 Management tools are already installed so these will have to come off before SQL Server 2008 goes on. Do you know how to do this? Have you every installed SQL Server onto a SBS 2008 server? Do you know the correct procedure for getting it working? In some cases when you go to install some versions of SQL Server 2008 onto Windows 2008 it says that it won’t work on that version of the operating system. As I have blogged here before you may need to install an SQL Server 2008 Service pack first, then SQL Server 2008 then the Service Pack again. Simple eh?
I hope that you can at least begin to appreciate the complexities involved in getting SharePoint Foundation 2010 on SBS 2008 operational. I agree there are plenty of benefits but in my experience there is also plenty of pain. Stayed tuned to future posts where I’ll run through the steps of actually getting SharePoint Foundation 2010 running on SBS 2008. But for now do your backups, run the upgrade check and make sure you have a recovery plan.
Microsoft SMB Team down under
Thanks to a boat load of hard work from some SBS-MVP’s here in Australia the Microsoft SMB team is heading to our shores to speak with partners. An added bonus is will also be the attendance of Jeff Middleton of ‘swing’ and Sbsmigration.com fame.
All the details about the events, including registration can be found here. If you not only want to hear about the future of the SBS progress but also provide feedback directly to the team that makes SBS then I’d recommend you come along. I will also be a great opportunity to meet with your fellow SBS’ers.
CIAOPS 