Q: So Ive recently come into possession of one of the Small Business Server 2003 packages that were sent and Im afraid to try it for my office. Ive been wanting to run Exchange for our e-mail, but it was always too expensive until now;). So the simple question is: Is a standard ADSL 1.5/256 enough reliable Windows Server / Exchange Server running as a mail server that will be used by approximately 4 clients, both locally and remotely?
Id also looking at using other features, such as SharePoint Services and possibly move our web hosting in house. Our slow ADSL connection is good enough for this? And while Im on the subject, does anyone know any good arguments against the elimination of our Linux file server fully (Im throwing around the idea of everything on the Windows SBS box).
Best Answer: If this is the first server you are putting in. Check out the Windows 2003 Small Business Edition. You will save a lot of money on Software (it come boudle with SQL database and Exchange and many other windows server software for about one half price of the windows 2003 server standard edition that does not incude those software.) The only thing to keep in mind is that only one small business edition server is allowed per window domain, so don't be thinking aobut buying another the next time around.
Hardware wise, you should go with Dual Core Processor, I would even suggest 4gb if you plan on activate addtional services on the server after checking out Windows Samll Busines Edition.
Dell and HP are both reliable, but from my experience it is the Technical support that makes the different. Dell in general has the best customer support when things do break.
You don't need a internet connection for IP address. the company should be running in a private IP address. You can still use the current DSL for internet. Unless you have other requirements that not mentioned here such as allowing user to access the database from the internet.
Re:Originally posted by: guy
thanks for the replies. I think I'm going to have a go at setting it all up this week. What about the fact that we have a dynamic IP? I can update it through our registrar (namecheap) automatically, but what happens to the mail that's sent our way in the few minutes where the IP has changed but namecheap hasn't processed the change yet?
you need a static IP to provide reliable email services… DNS changes dont propagate very fast worldwide, your just asking for problems.
Re:Originally posted by: guy
Not to get too far off the original topic here, but you can actually have another DC on SBS, you just can't have two SBS servers.
cheers for clarifying i was told "incorrectly" that it was 1 box this was by a MS sales rep!!! obviously needed to get his quota up that month 
Re:Not to get too far off the original topic here, but you can actually have another DC on SBS, you just can't have two SBS servers.
Re:Well, I'm probably just going to end up formatting the ext3 drive and installing SBS. Maybe down the road I can think about re-adding a linux box as a fileserver…any opinions on SBS stability versus linux?
Re:sbs will only allow 1 domain controller per domain thats all you get is the one machine that it is installed on. you cant add subdomains or extra servers to the domain. this is why is sbs is a "cheap" option becasue you cant create a forest with it. you need a standalone copy of 2k server and above for that.
so there is no point it install sbs on both the new box and the linux box as it work
if it did you could have had 2 servers in the domain and setup dfs, secondary dns, remote storage etc.
i dont know how samba 3 will work with sbs it may be able to jon the domain as a server maybe someone who has tried can help there?
Re:thanks for the helpful comments. What do you mean by "sbs will only allow 1 server in a domain according the sbs license so there is not a lot of point moving the linux box to sbs and then using it as a member server"? Are you saying it doesn't make sense to install SBS on a box and have a linux box as a member of that SBS domain?
Think I'm going to make the plunge this week…
Re:short of using the linux server for backup i see no real reason to keep it. you could of course use it as a firewall but in a business environment you wouldnt want to use it as a backup store in that instance.
also remebr that sbs will only allow 1 server in a domain according the sbs license so there is not a lot of point moving the linux box to sbs and then using it as a member server.
although if in the futrue you wish to setup a VPN i found linux to be far faster than windows for a few clients cpu usage tends to get a bit high on windows once you start putting vpn clients in to the mix. however linux seems to handle it much better and faster in my experience. this is using win2k i have yet to setup a vpn with 2k3 as the server.
you could also use the linux box as an smtp gaeway to your exchange server for free spam filtering and antivirus. clean the mail on the linux box then forward it into exchange this is a very common setup. becasue the tools for it a open source and free. to do the same on a windows box can cost alot of wonga.
thats really all i can come up with at the mo
Re:well, i'm not concerned about our web — we're only hosting some basic info on that site (about us, etc). if it's a problem, i can always throw it on one of my reseller accounts. we rarely send out large emails, but occasionally we will send out low-fi MP3s (~1.5 MB each).
we keep a large database of WAV files on our local linux fileserver and i've also got them mirrored as low quality MP3s for emailing. i'd eventually like to take advantage of some of SBS 2003's remote workplace capabilities and allow our employees access to the MP3s (not the WAVs obviously) by moving all of our files over to this SBS box. will that be pushing it too hard?
…i'm trying to come up with a good reason to hold on to our linux box (in lieu of formatting and installing SBS), but i haven't really found a very good one yet that would justify buying another server to install SBS 2003. it seems consolidating is both cost-effective and fairly reasonable in terms of the processor/DSL usage. thoughts?
Re:the only thing i would be wary about is if you do intend to serve web pages in house. 256k may be very insufficient for serving lots of pages if the website gets that much traffic. it definitally will get eaten up quickly if you do any file serving over that connection.
for email it should suffice, but there woudl be problems if you do send out large(real big) emails often and in abundance.
Re:thanks for the replies. I think I'm going to have a go at setting it all up this week. What about the fact that we have a dynamic IP? I can update it through our registrar (namecheap) automatically, but what happens to the mail that's sent our way in the few minutes where the IP has changed but namecheap hasn't processed the change yet?
Re:Originally posted by: guy
So I've recently come into posession of one of the Small Business Server 2003 packages that were sent out and I'm anxious to try it out for my office. I've been wanting to implement Exchange for our email, but it was always too expensive until now
. So the simple question is: Is a standard 1.5/256 ADSL connection enough to reliably run Windows Server/Exchange Server as a mail server that will be used by about 4 clients both locally and remotely?
I'd also like to look into utilizing other features, such as SharePoint services and possibly moving our web hosting in-house. Is our slow ADSL connection good enough for this? And while I'm on the topic, does anyone have any good arguments against getting rid of our Linux fileserver entirely (I'm throwing around the idea of putting everything on this Windows SBS box).
it will fine for that size of organization it will run with no effortless off a line that speed. it simply boils down to the fact of are you sending large attachments if the answer is no or rarely a 256k upstream would do handle 500 – 1000 users easily for simple email services. of course using web based access will limit you clients but 256k for 4 users the thing wouldnt even break sweat just restirct attachmentssizes and youll be fine. personllay i host my companys domain on a linux server running postifx with around 20 users both local and remote. the bandwidth usage is so small its not even noticeable. i restirict attachments to 5mb. i have a 1mbit/256k line btw.
Re:Yes, it is at least adequate. I ran exchange for a 25 person company when we only had a 256k/256k DSL line for a couple years before we went to a T1. In fact, Exchange will run on a dialup connection, it just means really large messages take a long time to send and recieve messages with large enclosures.
As for a web, it depends on how much traffice you expect to have and what quality of service you want to provicde. If you are using a service for web hosting now, you should be able to get from them the statistics on the usage of your website. Those statistics should be able to show you if you ADSL connection would be adequate. At 256k it could easily go either way, just depends on your web traffic…
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