SBS wander off into the black abyss
Somehow I missed this bit of news last year. The Death of the Small Business Server. Possibly because I haven’t had to deal with SBS in a serious manner for a while now. Anyhow from the point of view of an Exchange administrator it is welcome news to see that SBS 2011 is the end of the line for the SBS. I have always found SBS to be a pain to work with. The migration wizards were prone to breaking in mysterious ways. The POP3 connector was horrid to troubleshoot and would still choke on a seemingly normal email all too easily. The most annoying thing was being forced to use the wizards for most things you do, and to suffer the consequences if someone else did not use a wizard. For small businesses there don’t seem to be any genuine alternatives unfortunately. Several Linux based alternatives are presented over at The VAR Guy but I don’t see a full Linux solution being a comfortable route, at least for most of the small businesses I’ve worked with in the past. There are a few odd ones out that embrace any alternatives to Microsoft of course. Windows Server 2012 Essentials and Zimbra Collaberation Server virtual appliance may be a better compromise for MSPs that are reluctant to touch a full Linux alternative for an on-site Exchange substitute. For me I’ll just be happy that I won’t have to worry about Exchange 2013 shoehorned into an SBS.
Jeffery Land's IT Solutions 