Bill's Bit Bucket

Yesterday started a new day in my working life.  A colleague and I have decided to merge our two companies so that we can better support our clients and back each other up.  In addition, we'll be able to eliminate a lot of duplicated efforts.  So I am pleased to announce that Leeman Consulting, LLC is quietly disappearing into the background as I join my colleague Kim and we go forward as Trif Technologies, Inc.

It is going to be a crazy couple of months as we get our new offices setup, get up to speed on each others clients, etc. but in the end it will be well worth it.  So keep an eye on this space as I will no doubt be posting our "adventures" as we put all the pieces in place.

I had intended on keeping up to date with my blog posts from the Summit but as you can see that idea didn't go very far.  As much as I always think I will be a prolific blogger the reality is I never seem to make the time for it.  To that end a friend, colleague, and fellow SBSCer, Roger Heim has written an excellent summary on his blog.  So if you are looking for information on what's happening with Small Business Server 2008 aka Cougar check out his nice summary.

Thanks for taking the time to put this together Roger, nice work!

I'll be honest I came to this summit with a chip on my shoulder with regards to SBS 2008.  From what I heard about the removal of tape support, ISA going away, and what appeared to be a Fisher-Price look to the screens for administration, RWW, etc, I strongly believed moving to SBS 2008 was something I was going to hold off for as long as I could.  Well, so far with just a few sessions under my belt I have to admit I was too quick to judge, especially with limited information.  With each session I'm getting more excited about the move to SBS 2008.

The migration experience looks like it won't be as onerous as I imagined (other than the need for a second physical server since you can't do an in-place upgrade).  For example, the new answer file looks like a great tool for standardizing deployments.  The migration doesn't change your existing domain name so there are almost no changes needed on the existing workstations other than logging into Outlook once so that it will be reset to point to the new Exchange server.  Various components of the migration process will manage the move of your Exchange Data, User Redirected folders, SharePoint data etc.

This is just a quick high level look, as I get more information I will pass it along.  This looks like it is going to be a great conference.

Things are getting underway.  Here's a quick summary of what's new with SBS 2008.

• Composed of full versions of Exchange Server 2007 Standard Edition, Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition, and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.
• Premium Edition includes a full version SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition
• Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
• Forefront for Exchange (1yr Trial)
• OneCare for Servers (1yr Trial)
• Integration with Office Live
• Premium Edition is on a separate hardware server
  • Comes with second copy of Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition
  • Can run Terminal Services in App mode (TS CAL's sold separately)
  • Separate TS CAL's need to be purchased
• CAL's now available in 1, 5, or 20 user increments
• Separate CAL's for Standard and Premium Edition

Well I survived getting up at 5am so I could beat rush hour traffic.  It was painful as I normally don't go to bed until 3am, but this looks like it will be worth it.  We're at the Omni Mandalay in Irving, Tx for the next 4 days.  Today, is all about Small Business Server 2008 aka "Cougar".  I'll do my best to blog about the various events today, but I am a rookie blogger so we'll see how it goes :-)

More later...