BMS Blog: SBS Consulting in the UK

EBS is dead. I’m sure you’ve all heard the news announced on the 5th March and seen the EBS blog.

To be honest it isn’t a big surprise to me and I can’t say I’m going to morn the loss for very long. We put a reasonable amount of time and effort in to incorporating it in to our portfolio of products but it never took off for us, or for Microsoft it would seem. Don’t get me wrong I think it was a good product but it was a victim of the change in the way we think about providing software and services these days.

One thing is for sure. If you doubted Microsoft’s commitment to cloud computing before, the culling of EBS should convince you they are deadly serious. For MS to take such a radical decision proves without a shadow of doubt that cloud computing is where they see the future.

The decision to kill off EBS comes just after Steve Ballmer’s speech on Microsoft’s cloud computing strategy at the University of Washington and for partners at least this has really driven the message home. Get with the cloud or go do something else.

The question being asked now of course is, “what about the future of SBS?” Well, I’ve been involved in some of the discussions with the SBS development team at Microsoft as to the route the development will take and although I can’t be specific as I’m under NDA I think it is safe to assume that SBS will be around for a while longer. The reason I’m confident of that is I suspect SBS will evolve to embrace the cloud rather than fighting against it which should help to secure its future in one way or another. Time will tell.

To coincide with the free exam vouchers which were available recently Andy Trish, my fellow Microsoft PAL as of July 2009 is running some live meeting events to help ensure you get the best possible chance of passing the exam.

The live meetings will be intensive so be prepared to answer questions thrown at you and you’ll be given homework to prepare for the next one with the intention of all candidates being able to complete the live meetings and take their exams prior to the end of June.  The cost of attendance is free however if you don’t have a voucher the exam cost will need to be funded by yourself… but as Andy says, this is a great investment you are making in your future both for you and your customers.

Exam 70-653 will be one of a choice of exams required to be SBSC in the upcoming changes Microsoft are making in the Partner Community so get out your notepads and join in. The first event is Thursday 28^th of May at 3:30pm and is due to last 1.5 hours

The registration link is https://www.livemeeting.com/lrs/0000000379_116/Registration.aspx?pageName=9jp66cq70v4t53q2

So we now have “official” confirmation of what to do with our SBS 2008 CAL’s, but I still don’t agree with it. I know I’ve ranted blogged about this before but…

How can a company like Microsoft who’s business model revolves around licensing get this so wrong? How hard can it be for them to write a proper licensing system that checks how many users are logged on against the number of installed licenses?

Microsoft, for the sake of your customers AND your partners, please come up with a SIMPLE, easy to understand licensing model with 1 CAL that covers premium and 1 that covers standard and then give us an automated method of checking how many uses are logged on compared to installed CAL’s. While you’re at it why not get it to send an email to the administrator stating how many CAL’s are in use. Most customers want to be legal, the least you can do is help them (and us) along the way!

Thinking of installing the Live OneCare trial that comes as part of SBS 2008? Don’t bother!

This "corporate" announcement basically says Microsoft are dropping Live OneCare so if you install the trial on SBS 2008 you’ll only end up putting something else on after the trial - and probably at your own expense as labour charges go as the customer isn’t going to want to pay for your labour to remove something you recommended in the first place!

Even more reason in my opinion not to install Live OneCare or for that matter the trial of Forefront for Exchange.

Following on from my previous post about our first production SBS 2008 installation we’ve just come across another gotcha regarding the installation of Sophos SBE for SBS server.

It seems that the Sophos Control Centre will not install on a 64bit O/S! That means we have to install it on a management workstation instead, which isn’t the end of the world but it would be much nicer/easier if was on the server.

Once again this points to software vendors that are slow off the mark when it comes to updating their applications to run on the latest O/S’s. Sophos along with everyone else has known about SBS 2008 for over 12 months, so why the delay in releasing a 64bit version of the control centre?

So today we are performing our first SBS 2008 production installation. I’d like to say this has gone smoothly without any glitches and for the most part so far it has.

We were all prepared to complete a migration using the technet provided resources but unfortunately the clients already flaky server decided to give up the ghost  completely so we have had to resort to a brand new install. We were able to get all the clients data off a current backup including their Exchange data so after importing all the data and running through the to-do list we were ready to install the Client Access Licences (CALs)

After 20 minutes of 4 of us searching trying to find some kind of licensing console and doing some searching on the ‘net it finally dawned on us that there is in fact no licensing console and no licensing enforcement - yep, you heard that right - NO LICENSING CONSOLE AND NO LICENSING ENFORCEMENT!!!

So what does this say about Microsoft? Other software vendors are able (and do) lock out users of their software if the number of licences is exceeded - so why don’t Microsoft? In SBS 2003 via the licensing console we had a basic way of telling how many licences were installed and the maximum usage of those licences since the last reboot - admittedly this wasn’t foolproof but it was better than nothing! Now not only do we have to change our policies to record how many licences a client has, but it is also harder to track how many users/devices they have connected to their server - that’s what I call a huge step backwards!

I would really love someone from Microsoft to provide a single good reason for removing licence enforcement, I really would. In one fell swoop not only have MS made our lives more difficult from a technical/admin point of view, they’ve also made it (even) easier for unscrupulous partners and customers to ignore licensing issues - Come on Microsoft, you need to be sharper than this!

Only one week to go to the most important event of the year for SBSC’s - the official launch of SBS/EBS 2008 at the Midlands SBS user group meeting held at the Arden Hotel in Coventry.

This will be a great opportunity to find out all about SBS/EBS 2008 and network with other like minded Microsoft partners and members of the Midlands SBS user group. You can find out more about the Midlands SBS user group at our website. If you’re a Microsoft partner why not come along - the event is free to attend and promises to be a good one!

The agenda includes:

5:30-6:30
Product launch overview

6:30-7:30
Marketing 101

7:30-8:00
Refreshments

8:00-8:30
SBSC Programme

8:30-9:00
Q&A

9:00 onwards
Retire to the bar for refreshments and networking with your peers.

Come along and introduce yourself.

Microsoft in collaboration with the SBSC User groups have decided to take the SBS/EBS 2008 partner launch events to the community!

This is a fantastic opportunity for MS partners in the Midlands and beyond to come along to the launch event hosted by  Microsoft and AMITPRO on Wed 12th November at 5:30pm. There will be similar events at the other SBSC groups around the country in October and November.

Rather than have one launch event down at Reading it was decided to regionalize the events as this will provide much better partner engagement and will help re-ignite the SBSC program. All Microsoft partner are welcome at the event - the more the merrier - this is THE BIG EVENT of the year if you sell and support SBS and is your chance to engage with Microsoft’s Emily Lambert and Gareth Hall as well as other like minded partners.

Provisional agenda is as follows:

5:30-6:30
Product launch overview

6:30-7:30
Marketing 101

7:30-8:00
Refreshments

8:00-8:30
SBSC Programme

8:30-9:00
Q&A

9:00 onwards
Retire to the bar for refreshments and networking with your peers.

As announced by Eric Ligman. SBS 2008 is launching on 12th November 2008!

From Eric’s MS smallbiz blog:

Getting ready for these new solutions is a very important step, so we are making a big investment in training and programs to help partners take advantage of the solutions. We are planning to train more than 25,000 partners through events and online tools in the next year and at WPC we expect to educate more than 2,000 partners. As should not be any surprise, Small Business Server 2008 and Essential Business Server 2008 are an important part of the current and future Microsoft Partner Program offerings.

If you have not seen these yet, the editions, pricing, beta, and more information on SBS 2008 & EBS 2008 were released previously.  Prior to the launch date, those customers purchasing SBS 2003 R2 with Software Assurance will receive the 2008 version of SBS included in their Software Assurance coverage.  When acquiring your SBS Software Assurance, be sure to use the Open Value or Open Value Subscription programs.

In addition to the announcement of the official launch date for these solutions, we are also announcing that both Solutions are reaching the Release Candidate 1 milestone, another step toward final release. Pre-release versions of Small Business Server 2008 and Essential Business Server 2008 are available for download and evaluation now through www.multiplyyourpower.com.

Bring it on!

From the The WSSG Community Lead Blog :

“The SBS Community Survey is floundering with very few responses.”

So if you haven’t already, get on over there and fill out that survey! How can we expect to be taken seriously if we don’t provide timely and concise feedback?

SBS WW Community Survey 2008