SBS 2011 introduces an interesting challenge for those looking to install it. A lot of companies purchased SBS 2008 in the last year or so and purchased a new, 64-bit server to support it. The rub here is that in order to do an upgrade install of SBS 2011, you cannot simply run an upgrade directly on the SBS 2008 server;  the only supported upgrade to SBS 2011 is that you must migrate to a new server.
How does one accomplish this, especially those who have just bought their SBS 2008 hardware and do not need a new server? The answer is virtualization!

Vsphere, a virtualization product by VMWare, only costs $349 for a 3 server virtualization license. With this software in hand, you can virtualize your current SBS 2008 server, then start a virtual migration to your SBS 2011 server. You can take a snapshot of your SBS 2008 setup, should you need to revert in case of a migration error. Once the migration is done and validated, simply shut down your virtualized SBS 2008 server and bask in the glory of a successful SBS 2011 migration!

As an added bonus, your server is now virtualized, which will allow you to run multiple servers if necessary on the same server box. Now you are getting your money’s worth out of that server!

In November, I attended a Microsoft session where I was given the impression that you could simply upgrade your SBS 2008 box to SBS 2011 by simply clicking an upgrade button using the SBS 2011 CD. Wrong! The only way to upgrade from any SBS to 2011 is a migration install. Luckily for me, I had already virtualized the SBS 2008 server using VMWare VSphere so I didn’t need to get another computer box to perform the migration.

The premigration check told me that Exchange 2007 Service Pack 3 needed to be installed (this takes about 2 hours). You would hope that the pre migration check would catch issues that would cause problems, but the checker missed that a very important service that was not running properly (NTFRS, it seems when you migrate SBS 2008 into a VMWare environment, NTFRS needs a little TLC).  As a result, the first migration did not succeed.

You will need to create an answer file for the new server to go into migration mode. Make sure you get the day / time settings correct as this can really bugger up the new server if done wrong. After a few hours setup will complete and you should hopefully get a message the migration was successful. If not, examine the setup logs to see why and START OVER :(

Once you have SBS 2011 running, you should start the migration wizard. I found the instructions were sparse, sometimes pointing to web documents relating to SBS 2003 instead of 2008. Moving of the Exchange mailboxes needs to be initiated from the Exchange Management Console in SBS 2011, not on the 2008 box; you will get bizarre error messages if you try to move the mailboxes the other way. You can accept 25 corrupted emails per mailbox without an error that aborts the process. Also note that you need to upgrade your mail enabled distribution lists, otherwise the mail will be delivered to oblivion. Triple check that all your mailboxes have been moved over before decommissioning the old server

Blackberry Server Express is FREE software that lets an unlimited amount of users get their Blackberry synced over the air! That's right, if you are using Microsoft Exchange at your office, you can get this software for FREE and have your Blackberry and Outlook synced without ever plugging your Blackberry into a PC again! Look ma, no wires! Contact us and get your Blackberries working the way they should; over the air.

Office 2010 is now out for general release to the public, and boy did Microsoft get it right! Let start off with the big wows:

*Office Starter 2010 is FREE! It comes with Word and Excel 2010, and ads.

*With Office Web Apps (which is FREE!), you can easily publish and share your Office files on the web

*Microsoft dropped the 20 different versions (slight exaggeration) of Office down to four: Home and Student, Home and Business, Office Professional and Office Professional Plus

*Professional Plus 2010 comes with Sharepoint Workspace 2010, which facilitates file sharing and collaboration across the globe

And now a few notes from my experience with it:

*Outlook 2010 allows you to organize emails by conversation, meaning that you can see the email trail of a multi email discussion you had with someone

*Outlook can sense if the person you are sending an email to is Out of Office before you send the email!

*You can quickly send an email to your team or your manager with a click of a quick step button

Contact us to see how you can get Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 for $130 / year!

Why is Sharepod the greatest you ask? It allows you to backup your iPod or iPhone to your PC, that's why!

Apple's decision to marry your iDevice to one PC has always ruffled my feathers; if your computer dies, iTunes wants you to wipe your device in order to resync to your new PC. Annoying!

Sharepod gets around this and allows you to backup your music to your PC, saving you countless hours trying to get your mojo back. Bravo! Check them out at www.getsharepod.com