Thanks everyone for a fantastic SMB Nation Fall 2009…

At the start of this year, nine months ago, I was like many small business owners thinking that “even” is the new up. Let’s just get through 2009 baby!

So “even” I was surprised with how well received the SMB Nation 2009 fall conference was this past weekend in Las Vegas. At our 7th annual show, we continued to attract SMB consultants into our show how had now attended before and met Susan, Wayne, Dana, Jeff and other MVPs/Gurus for the first time. Old timers, including 10+ who have attended every SMB Nation event since inception, were happy to see each other again ala an “annual convention” mindset.

But what I really want to talk about is amazing feedback we received in-person, in-passing and in the Town Hall Meeting at the end of the show. Folks consistently commented that the technical content was the best ever (Thanks WAYNE SMALL AND SUSAN BRADLEY for assisting). The next compliment focused on the management and logistics of the actual event (THANKS to Jenny, Cyndi, Patti, David, Chris, Dana, Julie, Mom, Jessie, et al).

So I write this, minutes before I lead the annual SMB Nation bike ride (a ride in Red Rock Park in Las Vegas), thinking that it really was an UP year after all.

THANKS EVERYONE FOR ATTENDING!

cheers….harrybbbbb

SMB Nation Fall 2009 – Conference Update on Venue (Video)

Hi there everyone – I am delighted to share this update, via video, about the SMB Nation Fall 2009 conference in Las Vegas (Oct 2-4). In this video, the first I have posted for the small and medium business channel partner/consulting technology event, I am commenting on our new venue in Las Vegas – the Riveria hotel on the STRIP!

Watch the video HERE!

Look here for other updates soon. We will be releasing content session, speaker names, etc.

Thanks!

cheers….harrybbbb

Harry Brelsford, CEO at SMB Nation

MBA, MCSE, CNE, CLSE, CNP, MCP, MCT, SBSC (Microsoft Small Business Specialist)

PS – my Small Business Server 2008 (SBS 2008) book is now here! J

PPS – my fall show, SMB Nation Fall 2009, is in Las Vegas on October 2-4, 2009.

SBS 2003 To Do List Explored! [Windows Small Business Server 2003 Best Practices book excerpt]

howdy – i am harry brelsford (ceo, smb nation at www.smbnation.com) and I am the author of the infamous SBS 2003 purple book. I am posting up a few pages per day until the SBS 2008 product ships – so enjoy in good health.

Today we start our journey to look at the famous To Do List in SBS 2003 and review the Security Best Practices link.

cheers…harrybbbbb

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To Do List: In Order!

So with the finer points of Server Management console behind us, it’s time to get down tonight! Let’s start by planning the SBS 2003 Methodology ballad. Few things in the deployment of SBS exemplify the notion that SBS is a ready-made network in a box (or SMB consulting practice in a box for us consultants) than the existence and brilliance of the To Do List. We’ll spend tons of time walking through the To Do List here.

But back to the brilliance part. The To Do List has been engineered to be your deployment approach for all of the SBS servers you’ll ever install. You start at the top and work your way to the bottom. This structured approach, whether you install one or 1000 SBS server machines, should be honored. Don’t be like a Boeing IT employee here in Seattle who likes to say, while installing SBS 2003 at her church over a weekend, “I don’t use the To Do List or the Server Management console at Boeing, so we’re not going to use it here on this holy site!” Such pompous thinking is truly short-sighted in successfully deploying SBS 2003 and can result in an unsatisfactory outcome. But BY FOLLOWING THE TO DO LIST, you can be assured of a positive outcome each and every time when you set up SBS 2003. You heard this breaking news here first!

So that said, let’s start at the top and work down the To Do List. You’ll start by noticing the To Do List is divided into Network Tasks and Management Tasks. That’s because the SBS development team, in its wisdom, determined that folks wanted to see it play out that way with task sets divided between network and management.

BEST PRACTICE: Note that you and I will indeed complete the To Do List in order as part of the SPRINGERS methodology. You would expect this. However, I don’t have to walk through the entire To Do List in this chapter; instead, I’ll take you through the first seven links. I leave the Configure Fax, Configure Monitoring, and Configure Backup links to be completed in order in later chapters.

Remember the mantra, mates: Always complete the To Do List in order!

Network Tasks

There are five items under Network Tasks on the To Do List that we’ll walk through right now.

View Security Best Practices

Talk about a future book! You could clearly write a thick tome on security on small business networks, but I’ll leave that for another day. Rather, I point you to this link as a “primer” on top-of-mind security best practices to consider as you move forth in deploying your SBS network. In fact, it’d be good to visit this link with each SBS server you deploy so that you don’t overlook a security best practice. When you select View Security Best Practices, you’ll read details on the following 16 topics:

1. Protecting your network from the Internet by using a firewall

2. Configuring password policies

3. Configuring secure remote access to the network

4. Renaming the Administrator account

5. Implementing an antivirus solution

6. Managing backups

7. Updating your software

8. Running security tools

9. Granting access permissions

10. Educating users

11. Not using your Windows Small Business Server as a workstation

12. Physically securing the server

13. Limiting user disk space

14. Keeping up-to-date on security information

15. Auditing failed logon events and account lockouts

16. Using monitoring tools

 

BEST PRACTICE: Regarding item #13 above, you would want to know that SBS 2003 implements a disk quota for users in the Add User Wizard. Specifically, for a user the disk space is limited to 1024 MB and a warning is sent at 900 MB. This can be manually modified later.

When you complete reading this list, please close the Small Business Server Help and Information screen that is open and return to the To Do List. Check

Visit http://www.microsoft.com/technet for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.

the Done box next to View Security Best Practices (you check off each To Do List item as its completed, which is a nice touch!).

SBS 2003 Setup Wizard – excerpt from Windows Small Business Server 2003 Best Practices book

hello – I am harry brelsford, author of the Windows Small Business SErver 2003 Best PRactices book and I am posting up my book a few pages per day for your consumption. Hope to have it all posted by the time SBS 2008 ship 🙂

harrybbbb

Harry Brelsford, CEO of SMB Nation, www.smbnation.com

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15.       Additional computer files are copied and installed and more configu­ration activity occurs. The installation is “finalized” as shown in a bullet point on the left in Figure 3-9.

Figure 3-9

The underlying Windows Server 2003 installation autopilots at this points and completes the operating system installation.

16.       You are instructed to press Ctrl-Alt-Delete at the Welcome to Win­dows dialog box. The Log On to Windows dialog box appears. After you log on as Administrator (remember the password is Husky9999!), a dialog box will appear advising you that setup files are being copied to a temporary directory, followed by another dialog box communicat­ing that 40 separate installation components are being loaded. A few minutes later, you are greeted by the initial SBS setup screen that is titled Continuing Microsoft Small Business Server Setup, Click Next (but first read and honor the next two BEST PRACTICES).

Figure 3-10

The SBS 2003 installation continues.

BEST PRACTICE: Depending on the hardware you have installed on your system, such as a USB device, plug-and-play device, or PCI-based device, you might see the Add New Hardware Wizard. If such is the case, complete the wizard and return to the screen in Figure 3-10.

BEST PRACTICE: You now need to configure the second drive area (Drive D) for storing data. In order to do this, click Start, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, expand Storage, and click Disk Management. Right click on the D: volume and select Format. The Format D: dialog box appears. Name the volume DATA in the Volume Label field, confirm NTFS as the default file system, keep the Allocation unit size as Default and select Perform

a quick format. Click OK. Click OK on the warning notice you receive. Take a few deep breathes while the formatting completes and then close the Computer Management window.

An interesting historical note for you: In SBS 2000, you had to format Drive D no later than this point (you could have also formatted it back in the character-based phase at the partition screens). But SBS 2003 is more forgiving! I’ve found that you can configure Drive D as late as after the reboot after the Windows Configuration stage (in several steps) and have it be recognized by the Microsoft Windows Small Business Server Setup wizard. That improvement reflects the fact the setup wizard remains much more dynamic (and less static or fixed) in SBS 2003 compared to the predecessor SBS 2000 version. Jolly good show!

So perhaps you’re feeling unwelcome in SBS 2003 at this point. In the step

above in SBS 2000, you received a “Welcome” notice instead of the word “Continuing.” So perhaps SBS 2003 isn’t as warm and fuzzy during setup, but don’t let that prevent you from marching forward! OK—when you see the belated SBS 2003 “Welcome” message, click Next.

Notes:

BEST PRACTICE: At this point, you might well receive an informational, warning, or a blocking message on the Setup Requirements page (Figure 3-11) indicating your machine doesn’t satisfy some SBS setup requirement. First and foremost, understand that such messages appear depending on machine settings, so one SBS setup on a specific machine might vary from another SBS setup on another machine (the point being you might receive a warning or blocking message on one machine and not the other).

Figure 3-11

Messages are displayed which must be addressed.

As a general rule, a warning message does not stop the SBS setup routine and can be cured immediately. A blocking message is typically more severe and will require more extensive remedial action on your behalf. In Figure 3-11, a network adapter isn’t present and the installation can not continue. This must be fixed.

Just for giggles, I show another Setup Requirements screen I encountered that relates to supported processors in SBS 2003 (Figure 3-12). You will recall that SBS 2003 supports two physical processors and that is the configuration on the HP/Compaq ML-350 at SPRINGERS. But the ML-350 server machine also supports hyper-threading, defined in the next paragraph.

Figure 3-12

A warning message communicates to you that only two processors are supported.

Hyper-threading allows a single processor to act as two processors. When you install SBS 2003 on a machine with two physical processors that support hyper-threading (in effect telling the operating system you have four processors), you’ll receive the error message in 3-12. This is unique to SBS 2003 because it uses the standard version of Windows Server 2003 (which natively supports four processors), but then caps the processor support at two. The hyper-threading issue kinda throws SBS 2003 into a mild tizzy and it generates the two processor warning message.

But, just to add fuel to the fire, even though you received a warning message on a two processor machine using hyper-threading (causing SBS 2003 to believe you have more physical processors), SBS 2003 will actually exploit and use the two physical processors and the two “virtual” processors. I prove this by showing you Figure 3-13 where all “four” processors are active.

Figure 3-13

The Performance tab on Windows Task Manager (select from right-clicking Start task bar) shows four busy processors on the SPRINGERS SBS 2003 server machine.

Finally, SBS 2003 has a warning message if you only have one network adapter card installed. That is because Microsoft, in its endeavor to promote security best practices everywhere, wants you to have two network adapter cards to take advantage of the basic firewall capabilities included in SBS 2003. More on that topic in Chapter 5.

And, of course, if you did not receive a warning or blocking message, you will proceed with the setup.