Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
SBS 2011 Configuring Certification Guide (70-169)
Tuesday, August 7th, 2012
This book came to me via one of the authors initially. Fellow Australian SMB IT Pro members, Robert Crane and Drew Hills combined their talents to write this guide on everything you need to know to pass the 70-169 Microsoft certification exam. The ebook comes in at over 200 pages and if packed full of good stuff that you’ll need to help you pass the 70-169 exam. Robert and Drew have paid particular attention to detail to ensure that they can be as accurate as possible with every aspect of the book.
The book starts off with an overview of SBS from the beginning through to the 2011 Standard Edition and also includes a brief overview of the SBSC community. The rest of the book is laid out with the information you need on a chapter by chapter basis along with some test questions that are similar to those you will see in the exam itself. All in all, this is a pretty well put together guide on how to pass the 70-169 exam. I’d recommend it if you don’t do SBS on a regular basis and want to ensure that you are well equipped to sit the 70-169 exam. Heck – it’s even good if you don’t plan to sit the exam as it exposes a few hard earned real world points of experience as well.
You can buy the book direct from Packt Publishing here
Well done to Robert and Drew on this achievement – writing a book is no easy feat.
Tags: Books, SBS 2011 Standard
Posted in Reviews | 3 Comments »
Buffalo TeraStation Pro WSS Quad
Tuesday, June 26th, 2012
Recently Buffalo approached me with an offer to try out their products to see if they had a fit for our clients in the SMB market. Given I’m playing with a few NAS devices at the moment, it was a great chance to take a look at something I’d not seriously done before. The local Aussie representative from Buffalo, Boris, kindly offered a Buffalo TeraStation Pro WSS Quad 4TB unit for an evaluation so I could get a good feel of how it performed.
The unit arrived well packaged and upon opening, I found a CD and small USB key which were both needed to get the server up and running. The unit is physically quite small with a single power supply. The power supply does have a cable lock that will prevent the cable being accidentally removed which I thought was a good touch. There’s a front Panel LCD which shows a stack of useful information. The downside though and something I didn’t like about it was that the LCD can only be read up close. The light blue on blue background made it impossible to see across the room which was a detraction from the overall tidy looking front panel.
Setting up the unit was quite simple with easy to follow instructions. The LCD display tells you what’s going on along the way, so it’s simple for an SMB to setup. The only improvement they could make here is with the 8GB MicroSD & USB reader they supply – the instructions don’t tell you that you need to put these together to for the installation process, and I can see non experienced SMB clients, missing this point.
Once the base setup is complete, you have essentially, a Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Workgroup edition system. You need to add it to the domain like you would a normal Windows Server and you do this by accessing the server via RDP.
Now the unit I have for testing has 4 x 1TB drives in it. Once I added it to the domain, I was able to see more about what is under the covers. I found they are using the Microsoft Windows OS based RAID for both the boot drive and the data drive.
I guess I had assumed they would have a RAID controller of some kind in there, and was surprised that they didn’t.
I setup some shares on the unit and then went about testing it’s performance as a file server. While I didn’t record any performance figures, I found it to be quite responsive to everything I threw at it. I decided to use DFS-R to add this server to my production network and copied over around 2TB of data to it. Again it performed flawlessly.
From an external perspective, there’s a few things of note on this system. Firstly, it has two NIC connections, these are not automatically bonded together so you can configure it however you like – even on two separate LANs if you chose. Nothing to configure – nice 
Then you have two USB 2.0 ports AND two USB 3.0 ports on the back that you can use for printers, backup devices or additional hard drives. There’s also a serial connection to allow you to connect this to a UPS. Check out the pic below for a better idea of what is here.
Given that this NAS has Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Workgroup edition, it has a few tricks up it’s sleeve that the WD unit does not have. For one, it can be used to host iSCSI targets, and that means I can use it with my Hyper-V environment and in other environments that I use iSCSI devices. This is where the Buffalo unit comes above some of the other entry level NAS devices aimed at SMB. It’s ability to be used as an iSCSI target gives it wider appeal for the larger SMB client.
Let’s talk for a minute about Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Workgroup. It’s got limits, like most MS products, and it’s important to understand what those limits are.
Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Workgroup edition has the following constraints placed on it by Microsoft.
- 25 remote connections (this roughly translates to 25 users)
- Up to 6 disks in the server (there’s 4 in this Buffalo NAS)
- No Single Instance Storage (this is a feature of Windows Storage Server 2008R2 Standard and Enterprise Editions)
- No DNS or RODC roles permitted
- No BranchCache.
Ok – now we’ve got that out of the way, we can see that this unit is really designed for the SMB space with 25 users or less. It can be used as an iSCSI target however which makes for good, cheap, reliable storage if you have a need for that. It would be ideal too in small branch office environments provided you are under that number of users.
Overall, this is a great little unit. I’m a little disappointed in the software only based RAID and the front panel LCD screen. It does however win points for having the ability to be an iSCSI target which gives added flexibility depending on the scenario you use it in. Pricing for this unit is higher than units including Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials, so I’d recommend looking at your business needs before deciding on what style of device you really need.
Tags: Buffalo, NAS, Windows Storage Server 2008 R2, Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Workgroup
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WD Sentinel – Small Office NAS and Backup for SMB Clients
Wednesday, February 1st, 2012
I’ve had the pleasure of having a WD Sentinel running in the SBSfaq.com office network here for the last 2 months. The WD Sentinel was released late last year by Western Digital as their first device focused around Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials. I’ve been given the DX 4000 model which has 2 x 2TB drives in it to review although they have other models as well. The WD Sentinel DX 4000 is basically a NAS on steroids. It’s based on Window Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials (WSSe) and includes all the cool things that WSSe has to offer. It’s designed to support up to 25 users for file access to the server as well as a pretty cool backup facility for up to 25 PCs or Laptops.
From the outside, the WD Sentinel DX 4000 has an LCD panel on the front with up / down controls, a power button, a few LEDs for status of the unit and the individual drives and a door to protect the hard drives. The hard drives can be easily removed and installed without the need for any tools at all. In fact, Western Digital have even built in an eject mechanism into the drives to cleanly disconnect them should you need to remove a drive due to failure.
On the rear of the unit, you will find 2 power supply ports (only one power supply comes as standard), 2 LAN ports and 2 x USB 3.0 ports. There is also a reset button that can be used as part of the process to restore this unit back to factory defaults.
Out of the box, the DX 4000 requires no monitor, keyboard or mouse. In fact there’s no where to plug any of those things in. That’s because it’s designed to operate as a headless device from the start. This is where it gets “tricky” as most SMB IT Professionals will expect to connect these things to it. Simply connect the DX 4000 to your LAN, plug in power and within a few minutes it will acquire an IP address and display it on the front panel. The paper quick start guide that is in the box works seamlessly guiding you through it. It takes around 26 minutes to setup from this point, and once it’s finalised, it’s ready to go. You can then add this to your domain if you have an SBS network or similar or leave it in it’s own workgroup – either way it’s easy setup. You get access to the WSSe console from the desktop and can then see all the configuration options for it including setting up user access, shared folders and even monitoring things like the CPU temperature on the system. Once it’s done, for the diehard SMB IT Professionals, you can connect to the server via RDP if you like and see it like a normal Windows Server.
Redundancy – the unit comes with a single power supply, but you can optionally purchase a 2nd unit and therefore provide a degree of fault tolerance not seen on low end NAS devices like this. In addition, the 2 Network connections are teamed automatically to provide redundancy and will automatically use whichever one is connected without user intervention. Depending on the unit that you purchase, you will have either 2 or 4 drives in it. My unit had 2 x 2TB drives in it and this was configured as a RAID 1 or mirror set from the factory using the on-board RAID controller. If you purchase a unit with 4 drives, it’s automatically configured as a RAID 5 array. The big thing here is that your data is protected from the start from a single drive failure. The drives used in the WD Sentinel are from Western Digitals RAID series drives – not the cheaper desktop drives that many low end NAS units use.
Growth Potential – whilst my unit came with 2 x 2TB drives in it, I elected to install an additional 2 drives to it. Normally this process is painful in normal servers as you need to manually do a heap of work to make it all work. Not so with the DX 4000. Once I installed the additional 2 x 2TB drives, the WD Sentinel automatically commenced expanding itself onto those new drives. In the process it also changed the RAID configuration from RAID 1 to RAID 5 which gives better performance for the unit too. During this process, I played the average user and did nothing. I didn’t NEED to do a thing because it handled it all. The conversion from 2 drives in RAID 1 to 4 drives in RAID 5 took just over 24 hours which is fair enough – during this time however I didn’t really notice a thing. This is a set and forget device in that respect for sure and I could even walk my mother through doing this remotely if I had to.
Backup – well the client PC backup is part of the WSSe environment – as such it’s a single instance storage of all the client PCs (up to 25) in your network. It automatically will backup the PCs if they are in the network and turned on during the backup window. Clients can restore individual folders or the entire PC if required. To restore an entire PC is pretty darn simple – the user can easily be guided through creating a recovery USB stick via the WD DX 4000 console and then they can boot their PC off that USB and restore their machine from the most recent backup. Very cool. Oh – and should a backup fail for a machine, it will be displayed on the front LCD panel of the DX 4000.
Server Backup – Although WSSe includes a backup utility by default, Western Digital have elected to disable this due to inherent limitations in its design from Microsoft (basically it can’t backup more than 2TB). What this means is that you need to look at alternate options to backup any data you have on your WD Sentinel. Western Digital are working on some options for this now and will announce more in future. For me however, I’m using BackupAssist to backup my DX 4000 to an external Western Digital 3TB MyBook drive. I’ll do a separate blog post on that tomorrow to show you how BackupAssist get around the 2TB limit.
File Storage – I’m using my unit for production data and have it integrated into my SBS domain. I’ve configured (using the WD Sentinel console) a number of shares and have copied over data from other servers in my network to centralise all my data storage on this device. Access to the data is controlled via a group I’ve created on my SBS server and this is the easiest way to do this. Once I’ve added members into the group permitted access to this server, I can then use the WD Sentinels console to further refine who in that group can access which shares on the sever.
Remote access – the WD Sentinel also has the inbuilt Remote Web Access application that is resident in SBS 2011 Essentials, and Windows Home Server 2011 Premium. This isn’t needed in my particular use, but would be very useful in small offices that don’t have any other servers. The Remote Web Access allows users to remotely access files and folders on this server using nothing more than an Internet Explorer web browser.
Media Streaming – is also another feature of this device where you can upload photos, music and other videos onto it and it will allow them to be displayed on iPads, PCs, or even your DLNA compliant TV. In a business sense, I can see this being used for training videos and the like being shared across the network to users that need access on demand to them.
Overall, I’m very impressed with the Western Digital Sentinel DX 4000 unit. It’s a very good implementation of Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials and I can see that there’s been a lot of thought given to redundancy of the device in many areas. We’ve had a great deal of interest in this unit from our client base already and I think it will only continue to expand. If you are in need of a small office server like this, I’d certainly recommend looking at it as a solution for your business needs.
Tags: Western Digital, Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials
Posted in Reviews | 3 Comments »
Microsoft Security Essentials
Monday, December 14th, 2009
The news is all abuzz about Microsoft releasing free Antivirus software recently. Indeed they have – Microsoft Security Essentials is available free of charge. So like any good techo, I need to take a look at this. I’m evaluating this from the perspective of finding out if it could replace Trend Micro WFBS on our client sites. I uninstalled Trend Micro WFBS 6.0 from my Windows 7 laptop, rebooted and installed the new Microsoft Security Essentials product. Install was pretty straight forward – I reckon my grandmother could do it.
Naturally I skipped over the EULA like most techos and that is not good. You see according to the EULA, MSE is free for home use and home based business use. It is NOT free for business not based at home. What this means is that the majority of my clients are not permitted to use this on their work computers. Strike One for MS.
Ok – so now it’s installed my laptop, I take a look at the application itself. It looks very simple indeed. I start to dig under the covers and find it’s already setup a scheduled scan for me. Great. Looking through the console I can see this is a pretty simple product. Obviously designed for the end user in mind, and not the techo.
In all our client sites, we really love the centralised management console that we have to control the systems configuration and reporting. This to me is mandatory for any product that I’ll use in the SMB space and NOT having it means that this product is worth less to me. No central management console – Strike Two.
No after using it for a few days (I started writing this a little bit back now), I’ve found some very “interesting” features. One of them is that the laptop fails to go into suspend mode. It just freezes and locks up. Hmm – did not have a problem with this with Trend. Strike Three and you’re out.
So in brief… this is a product designed for home use, NOT for small business use at all. If you want free AV supported by a name we all know, then this is certainly something to look at.
Tags: Antivirus
Posted in Reviews | 2 Comments »
WordPress for Dummies
Monday, October 26th, 2009
Reviewed by Ben Love from Grassroots IT
I should know better. I know I should. Or more accurately, I should at least pretend that I know that I should know better. Or something like that. I’m an IT Pro with a dirty little secret. Wanna hear? I’m a sucker for a Dummies Guide. There. I’ve said it. Please don’t judge me. I know I should like mucking around in spec guides, deep dive how-to’s and RFC’s, but seriously, have you ever tried to read that stuff?
What I want is something that will cut to the chase, tell you 90% of what you probably want to know, use simple language and point you to where you can find more if you need more details. True to form, the latest release by Dummie’s author Lisa Sabin-Wilson doesn’t fail to deliver.
It was fortuitous that “WordPress for Dummies” arrived courtesy of Wayne Small (www.sbsfaq.com) when it did. I’d been considering a refresh of our corporate website for a while, but wasn’t overly excited about having to work with the existing platform. After talking with Wayne about his new WordPress based site, I thought some further investigation was warranted.
The WordPress platform came to life in 2003 as the successor to a personal publishing system called b2/cafelog. Since then it has grown to become arguably the most popular self-hosted blogging tool in the world which, as I was to learn, is also a formidable CMS platform for less ‘bloggy’ sites. Sabin-Wilson’s publication guides the reader through an easy introduction to WordPress, including options to either self-host, or use the hosted wordpress.com offering. Beyond this the majority of the book is devoted to how-to-use topics on the various sections of the WordPress product. Sections such as “Inserting media files into your post” and “Making your post links pretty” provide an easy to read introduction to help get beginners up and blogging in no time.
One of the great features of the WordPress platform is the flexibility provided by the truly astounding range of often free Themes, plugins and other customisation options available. Sabin-Wilson provides a brief introduction to the range of options available, and then sets the reader loose to explore with a list of recommended sites for further reading. In my case even more tantalising was the chapter on “WordPress as a Content Management System”, or in other words, WordPress as a less-bloggy-than-usual site. Worthy of a book on its own, this topic is given 27 pages that barely scratch the surface. What it does provide however is a true Dummies Guide experience, giving you just enough of a firm but gentle push to get you moving in the right direction.
All in all, a classic Dummies Guide. The language is conversational and easy to read, the technical details sufficient, but ultimately leaving you wanting more. In my opinion, the perfect introduction to a new technology.
Tags: New Web Site, WordPress
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HP Proliant ML330 G6
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
Recently HP released the 6th generation of their product line. As part of that they released the ML330 G6. This server is focused on the mid level SMB client and includes features that are designed to answer their business requirements. I’ve been fortunate to have one of these servers for quite a few months now as I was beta testing it for HP. During the beta I found that the server was 100% stable with no unexpected crashes – something I’ve come to expect from HP.
The ML330 G6 servers come with a range of CPUs all based on the Nehalem CPUs. The Nehalem CPUs are designed to cater specifically for higher workloads than previous generations CPUs. They have some impressive performance optimisations around Virtualisation that I tested out myself with various configurations. I loaded up the ML330 G6 with Windows Server 2008 R2 and the Hyper-V role. I then installed SBS 2008 as a virtual machine in just over an hour. Wow that’s fast. Whilst the system I had was in beta, I was certainly impressed with the performance and stability of the server. OK down to the tech specs.
The ML 330 G6 supports up to 2 physical CPUs and is currently sold in speeds of 2.0Ghz up to 2.53Ghz. There are factory configurations feature Quad Core CPUs across all models with either single or dual CPU standard which means loads of grunt for the workloads we’re likely to throw at them. What is particularly interesting here is that when you push the CPU hard for some tasks, it is designed to overclock itself a little in order to get that task done faster than before. It does this by shutting down one or two of the other cores of the CPU to ensure that it does not go over the thermal limits of the system.
Memory expansion is not something you’ll need to worry to much about. With up to 18 memory slots, you can take this system up to 144GB of DDR3 Registered RAM if you really need to. One thing to note is that the Nehalm architecture requires that the memory configurations be balanced across the CPUs. This means that you need to have equal amounts of RAM dedicated to each CPU. This is one of the ways that Nehalm achieves it’s massive performance improvements over previous generations of process architecture. You also need to keep in mind that there are two type of memory you can install into your HP G6 servers, DDR3 Registered and DDR3 Unbuffered. The two types of memory are actually incompatible memory types and you can’t mix the two. It would seem strange then for HP to offer such configurations until you understand the logic behind it. You can use the DDR3 Unbuffered RAM for configurations up to 24GB and it’s designed this way as a low cost method for small system configurations. However if you are designing larger configurations with higher memory requirements then you need to consider using DDR3 Registered from the start to give you better overall growth paths.
In terms of the disk subsystem, the model I had came with an Smart Array 410 controller which is expandable to up to 512MB of Battery Backed Write Cache. The standard server allows for up to 4 Internal Hot Pluggable or Non Hot Pluggable 3.5” SATA or SAS hard drives. There is an optional expansion chassis that will allow for a further 4 x 3.5” drives of either type if you need it. This gives this low end system some serious potential in terms of disk capacity. The very entry level model comes with a low end Smart Array B110i controller which I’d recommend upgrading to the 410 with BBWC as soon as possible. Whilst I’ve not tested this low end controller, I really think you will need the better disk throughput to keep up with the processing grunt this server has to offer.
Externally the server has 3 drive bays of which one is already filled with a DVD ROM as standard (about time too). It has 8 USB Ports in total 2 on Front, 4 on Rear and 2 internal (1 for tape but I didn’t use this). The system has 4 x PCI-Express slots internally of various configurations (x8 Gen 1, x16 Gen2 and x8 Gen 2). The standard power supply is a 460w non hot pluggable/non redundant power supply. You can replace it with a hot pluggable unit and add a second for redundancy. This is another area that needs consideration as you have the option to “right-size” your power supply configuration therefore ensuring optimum efficiency in terms of power management. Check out their guidance here. There’s also the option for redundant fans in the system too if needed.
The server runs pretty quietly in my office and it will be a shame to have to give it back to them as I’ve grown somewhat attached to it. Overall I am impressed with the ML330 G6 server. It seems to have a fair degree of expandability without the high cost normally associated with it. My one down side (and this is common across most name brand servers right now) is that I’d like to see them have a couple of ESata ports on the rear for things like external disk backup devices. Given the world is moving this way I can only hope that the G7 series will accommodate this request as a standard feature.
You can find out more about the ML330 G6 here or buy one from my company here if you so desire.
Tags: Hardware I use, HP, Hyper-V, SBS 2008, Virtualisation
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Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009
I d a lot of presentations and I often have been using a Logitech Wireless Presenter. Unfortunately the one I’ve had died. I needed to find a substitute quickly. The only real option available was the Microsoft Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000. This mouse is a fairly small notebook style device that is not moulded for either left or right hand and as such for me it’s not one I use every day. On the underside of the mouse it’s got a number of buttons that allow the presenter to control the presentation whilst walking around the stage. One of the buttons controls the inbuilt laser pointer which is fairly bright at a long distance. Other buttons allow for control of the presentation, media within the presentation and the volume of your laptop.
The mouse comes with a hard plastic carry case to house both the mouse and the Bluetooth dongle which does well given it normally rolls around in my laptop carry bag along with everything else.
Biggest Advantage – compact portable size and the hard carry case
Biggest Disadvantage – not moulded to my hand like the Explorer Mini Mouse – therefore I need to carry two mice with me.
The mouse retails for around $99 AUD and is available through normal channels.
Tags: Hardware I use
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Explorer Mini Mouse
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
I was talking to Shannon Dowden the local Microsoft Geek Gadget Girl about the problems with mice and certain desktop environments. Shannon told me that the Bluetrack mice would solve all my problems. Sure… right, I’ve heard that before 
Ok – so Shannon put her money where her mouth was and gave me one to try out. I took it home and the first thing I tried it on was my frosted glass desk at home. Most mice simply don’t work in this environment and I’ve needed to use a mouse mat under the mouse which is quite a pain. Anyway I used the new mouse on the desktop and IT WORKED… it just worked. I was sold. The BlueTrack technology is featured in a number of mice in the MS hardware range now and it’s designed to operate on just about any surface at all. From my tests, it works on everything I’ve tried so far which is great.
What I like specifically about this mouse aside from the fact it works on my glass desktop is the feel of it. I find that for a mouse to be usable over the long term it needs to fit my hand just right. This mouse does that nicely. The mouse runs on a single AA battery and right now I’ve used it for a couple of months day in day out without changing the batteries just yet. It comes with a snap in dongle that powers the mouse off to save battery. Also it comes with a small carry bag to protect it when it’s in my laptop bag. All in all a nice package indeed.
It retails for around the $ 99 here in Australia and you can buy them from a variety of commercial outlets.
Here’s the link on the MS website for more information
Biggest Advantage: Comfort factor – this is one mouse I use every day with my laptop
Biggest Disadvantage: The carry case opening is not secure enough to hold the mouse side it in my laptop carry bag. End result is the mouse often slides out easily.
Thanks Shannon for the mouse – I love it!
Tags: Hardware I use
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Microsoft Small Business Server 2003: A Clear and Concise Administrator’s Reference and How-To
Monday, July 11th, 2005
I should preface my review by stating openly that I was a contributing author to the SMB Nation Press book Windows 2003 Small Business Server Advanced Best Practices – I wrote Chapter 8 which was all about the Remote Web Workplace facilities of SBS2003.
I was approached by the publishing company of this book to display it on my website www.sbsfaq.com. Prior to that I had not heard of the publisher or the author. They graciously sent me two copies – one for me to review and the other for our local SBS Group as a giveaway. Now that I’ve had a chance to review the book I thought it best to post my review.
The book claims to be the “perfect companion to keep with you as you setup Windows Small Business Server 2003, maintain it and troubleshoot the issues that arise”. That in itself is a grand claim to fame, so I expected the book to give me an overview of the features and then dive into the maintenance and troubleshooting facets of an SBS2003 environment.
My impression of the book overall is that it is a combination of chapters that may have been written for a more enterprise level book and they’ve downsized it to meet the SBS market by throwing in a few SBS comments here and there. Now that may sound very harsh, but it’s the feeling I could not help get out of my mind. In many places they mention things that would never be used in your average or even more advanced SBS network. To give an example, in the Exchange section they talk about Administrative Groups when in reality this is only of any use if you have multiple exchange servers in the SBS2003 domain. They even recommend against installing Exchange 2003 Service Pack 1 which I do not understand. They also suggest using the /3GB switch with more than 2GB of RAM, which is not recommended by Microsoft on any machine on which you run as a domain controller AND and Exchange server.
In one area they talk about SBS2003 being able to have additional domain controllers (which you can and I have a number of running sites like this) and then in the section on Active Directory they say categorically that you can’t have additional domain controllers in SBS networks (page 21).
I found the SQL section quite good as it gave a good understanding of the basics of what SQL server is about, the various parts of the database, management console etc – good to get up and running, but then the chapter ends too quickly. There is also good coverage on Group Policy in later chapters and even some tips on how you can export and import GPO’s from one domain to another (although I’ve not tried it myself) which would be really handy if your doing a number of setups for your clients and wish to use the same GPO’s across multiple SBS2003 installations.
Now with all I’ve said you would think that I would not recommend this book at all. To be honest, there is some good information in there, but it’s not SBSised enough for me to warrant the title of and SBS2003 book. In my opinion the information is more suited to the midsize Windows 2003 network.
Tags: SBS 2003
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Advanced Windows Small Business Server 2003 Best Practices
Tuesday, February 1st, 2005
The following review was written by Robert Crane of CIAOPs. Robert is a leading member of the Sydney SBS Group. Robert can be contacted directly on director@ciaops.com if you have any feedback for him.If you spend anytime online with the members of the SBS community you’ll know there are some real experts out there, experienced with every facet of the product. For many people running IT businesses focused on SBS it is almost impossible to keep up to date with these experts and their recommendations but now you can !
Harry Brelsford new Advanced Windows Small Business Server 2003 Best Practices Book combines the knowledge of all these expert into an old world technology book that you can actually sit down and read. This book is not designed for end users it is really aimed at the IT consultant who is implementing SBS for customers. But more than that I believe the book it aimed at those consultants who want to “do more” with SBS and provide real value for their clients.
The book deals with advanced topics including Sharepoint, Remote Web Workplace, Understanding hardware and more. The book also includes a chapter written by our own Australian SBS MVP Wayne Small that looks at Advanced Mobility options and SBS. The book covers a lot of ground and each chapter has a vast amount of highly relevant information about improving the implementation of SBS. The authors come from the “real world” and most run SBS focused consulting businesses so they are more than well qualified to speak about these topics. In the books you’ll find ways to do things better, install options you never knew existed and generally improve any installation of SBS to the point where a potential customer just can’t say no. Being written by so many talented authors the book delivers on its promises and should be a mandatory addition to any SBS consultants books shelf ( along with Harry’s other books of course ).
The only disappointing factor in the book was the fact that it didn’t delve into the world or virtual machines. Microsoft’s virtual PC, and server as well as VMWare’s offering provide excellent ways to test and demo all sorts of software not just SBS. In my experience every consultant supporting a variety of software on any platform ( but especially SBS ) should be using these technologies extensively.
There are few other places around where you will get so much information, from so many experienced people in topics directly related to SBS. This book is not really designed for those consultants new to SBS ( they should read Harry’s other books first ) but is aimed at those professionals already familiar with SBS who want to take the product to higher levels. After reading this book there is little doubt you will have increased not only your knowledge of SBS but also your marketability to customers. Benefit from the experience of the best in field and take SBS to a new level.
Tags: SBS 2003
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