What is a Microsoft Small Business Server?

Larger companies have many servers that have different technical roles. For the sake of an example let’s pretend “some big company” has larger companies such as fortune 500 or fortune 100 companies have many servers that do different things. Examples are:

Multiple Domain controllers / file sharing role Multiple SQL / databases Multiple Exchange servers And so forth…

best online Microsoft MCTS Training, Microsoft MCITP Certification login in to Certkingdom.com

Let’s pretend that this organization has 50 servers and each one has its own role to do something specific for the computer network. In theory this would mean that this company has 50 separate physical nodes setup in a computer room to control the computers for this company. In today’s world this would be consolidated using computer virtualization but that is getting off topic so I’m not going to get into that in this article and will discuss virtualization in another article later on.

Now let’s pretend you are a small business owner and you need to share files, share a database and share calendars or whatever other roles you may want or need.

This means you would have 3 physical servers and 3 different server operating systems.

Now with a Microsoft Small Business Server Operating System you get 1 computer server that has multiple roles built into 1 nice neat package. So you can have that file server and that database server and an exchange server all combined into 1 neat little package. This saves the small business owner money.

Microsoft states the SBS – small business server will support up to 75 computer users / workstation computers. In theory it will but in the real world if you have 75 computers connected to a SBS server you can expect very poor performance.

From my experience I will say that Microsoft SBS servers are pretty cool IF they are properly configured with the right hardware and software. I have seen many small businesses have an SBS server that were NEVER configured correctly or are just being used as a simple file server. In such a case the SBS server isn’t necessary and is a waste of money for the business owner.

So without getting into technical details this concludes what a Microsoft Small Business Server does.

If you are thinking about purchasing a new server for your business get to know a computer consultant and find out if a Small Business Server will benefit your organization.

Thank you for reading my article and I hope it helps you have a better understanding of what a Microsoft SBS – AKA Small Business Server is.