Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 (SBS2003) Alternative??

deepspeed

Hi,

What kind of alternatives are out there for Microsoft Small Business Server 2003??

I dont really care what drives the system, be it linux/windows, but what Im looking for would ideally have all the functionality that ms sbs 2003 provides - shared calendar/contacts/public folders, remote email access similar to Outlook Web Access.

Im running sbs 2000 at the moment and im considering upgrading to 2003, ive seen it in action and im quite impressed, but id like to know what the alternatives using linux etc are.

Any help or thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Red Alert

This looks like you're wanting a "groupware" system as opposed to a file server, although both could be done.

Novell do a system called OpenExchange which can do all mail/calendaring etc. which they sell as a boxed product. You can also download this yourself onto your own linux distribution although you'll have to do a lot of integration.

A few bits of info would help a lot:
* Is this system a "mail-only" job?
* Do you need an out of the box product?
* Is this system expected to be a domain-controller (like SBS can)?

ressem

www.horde.org
is one

The horde framework + plugins imp, kronolith, turba is one option.
PHP based, so will run off IIS, Apache or many other web servers.
Add an imap, ldap / sql backend. (cyrus, mysql)

As easy to set up and run as SBS? Not by a long shot.
Havn't tried kolab.org yet myself.

Capt'n Midnight

You mention windows so I'm assuming you are not a Linux Guru
in which case MDaemon from Alt-N is yer only man
it's not free
it's not opensource
but costs a lot less than exchange and offers webmail etc.etc
30 day evaluation etc.
you can run it on a windows workstation (NT or better)
Unless you have a very big organisation the cost of learning linux / getting third party support would prove more expensive and it's so easy to use / configure

I'd be interested in seeing what opensource products are out there , but MDaemon is hard to beat especially since I've seen various versions of it running happily for many years now.

deepspeed

Red Alert wrote:

This looks like you're wanting a "groupware" system as opposed to a file server, although both could be done.

Novell do a system called OpenExchange which can do all mail/calendaring etc. which they sell as a boxed product. You can also download this yourself onto your own linux distribution although you'll have to do a lot of integration.

A few bits of info would help a lot:
* Is this system a "mail-only" job?
* Do you need an out of the box product?
* Is this system expected to be a domain-controller (like SBS can)?

* Is this system a "mail-only" job?
-> The idea of the system would be to facilitate remote workers who upload their work to a "Public Folders" type scenario every evening, which is then backed up that night. Other than that, email (and perhaps website) would be the main function.
* Do you need an out of the box product?
-> Not particularly
* Is this system expected to be a domain-controller (like SBS can)?
-> Not sure of the advantages/need for a domain-controller (group policy seems to me to be the only advantage), so dont think I would need domain-controller functionality, is there a linux-based DC emulator type thingy similar to SAMBA?

You mention windows so I'm assuming you are not a Linux Guru
in which case MDaemon from Alt-N is yer only man
it's not free
it's not opensource
but costs a lot less than exchange and offers webmail etc.etc
30 day evaluation etc.
you can run it on a windows workstation (NT or better)
Unless you have a very big organisation the cost of learning linux / getting third party support would prove more expensive and it's so easy to use / configure

I'd be interested in seeing what opensource products are out there , but MDaemon is hard to beat especially since I've seen various versions of it running happily for many years now

Valid Point, I will consider this also!

Thanks!

Capt'n Midnight

another option is a LAMPS server
LAMPS (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP3, SSL)
not what you want but it replaces the IIS parts and you can also use MySQL

for logins and passwords and shared folders for files - you could use samba

for printing get a printer with a network card or a network printer box and then the windows clients NT/2K/XP can print directly to the IP port - if numbers are less than 10 then you can share from a windows workstation

BTW: forget outlook as an imap client, microsoft make a few shillings selling Exchange so that's what outlook is designed for, conversly if you have exchange then outlook is yer only man.

zod

I'll be installing MS SBS 2003 for a small business soon and tbh its hard to beat that €499 price for what you get bundled. Thats not to say this is not a valid question!

Capt'n Midnight

zod wrote:

I'll be installing MS SBS 2003 for a small business soon and tbh its hard to beat that €499 price for what you get bundled. Thats not to say this is not a valid question!

But what is the cost to add ONE extra user over the limit ??????

zod

its an extra €500 for 5 more users ... not sure how much individually?

Capt'n Midnight

zod wrote:

its an extra €500 for 5 more users ... not sure how much individually?

No.
I mean how much is it for the first user after the maximum number of users when you have to move from SBS to the standalone products, including the seperate CALS's - only when you have that figure in front of you or when you can guarantee that you will never under any circumstances need more than the maximum number of users can you consider taking the low entry cost bait that is SBS.

zod

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

No.
I mean how much is it for the first user after the maximum number of users when you have to move from SBS to the standalone products, including the seperate CALS's.

Found the answer - and its not cheap and typically convoluted ..

Q. What is the Windows Small Business Server 2003 Transition Pack?

A. The Windows Small Business Server 2003 Transition Pack provides a way for customers to grow out of Windows Small Business Server 2003 into the standard line of server products. The transition pack contains both technology and licensing components.

Q. Why would I buy the Windows Small Business Server 2003 Transition Pack?

A. You would purchase the transition pack for the following reasons:

• You need more than 75 users or devices

• You want to separate the Windows Small Business Server components (for example, Windows Server 2003, Exchange Server 2003, or SQL Server) onto separate server machines.

• You want features available only in the enterprise editions of Windows Server System, such as SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition or Exchange Server 2003 Enterprise Edition.


Q. How much does the Windows Small Business Server 2003 Transition Pack cost?

A. It depends on which version of Windows Small Business Server 2003 you have, and how many Windows Small Business Server 2003 CALs you are licensed for. The transition pack includes several SKUs, one for each edition of Windows Small Business Server 2003 (standard or premium), and transition CALs to transition the number of Windows Small Business Server CALs for which you are licensed. The pricing has been designed so that you are not penalized for starting with Windows Small Business Server 2003. For example, the pricing for the Windows Small Business Server 2003 Standard Edition Transition Pack is $1,769 US. For each of the transition pack SKUs, this is calculated based on the cost of what you transition to, minus what you have paid for Windows Small Business Server licenses.

taken from : http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/sbs/techinfo/overview/licensingfaq.mspx


To be honest though if I was configuring a site with more than 30 users on it I probably wouldn't START with SBS - just the standard version of Each product and on different servers for redundancy/performance. I agree with you though and I think most people in the industry would - MS screw you on licencing costs and you need a degree in licencing to figure out which barrel they have you over!.

My first assertion though I think is valid for a (very) small company thats not likely to grow significantly user wise, SBS 2003 represents one of the better value for money products that MS have produced.

/puts head down and waits for abuse.

Capt'n Midnight

SBS first 45 users cost €4,457 (SBS + two 20 Licenses)
To be able to add user 76 costs $4,291 (SBS upgrade and 75 Licenses)
you then also have to buy separate Server and Exchange CAL's for that user.

For Premium the first 75 users cost $7,286 but user 76 is a snip at $6,044 + CAL's for server, exchange AND SQL (and ISA ?)

Also it doesn't say that you get terminal services licenses in the Transition packs so probably another Gotcha ! there.

When SBS came out first you only got 20-25 licenses, in 2000 it was 50 and now it's 75, small businesses must have been staying away in droves.

AFAIK with apple you only need to pay for the first 10 client licenses for the server and then you can have extra clients for no extra cost. In the microsoft word there is another price hike when you decide to get redundancy or more than 16GB of email storage, it's called enterprise...