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Windows SBS 2003 Upgrade Strategy

Tags:
  • Server 2012
  • SBS 2003
  • Business Computing
  • Exchange
Last response: in Business Computing
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June 9, 2014 5:33:58 AM


I’m running a SBS 2003 with Active Dir, Exchange and some Sage applications (SQL). We have 7 users on the network, 2 of them spend 3 days of the week at a remote office where they VPN onto our internal LAN and then RDP to their own machine. The server has become unreliable and I need to start thinking about moving to a new machine.
I haven’t done a migration like this in 6 years so I’m a bit out of touch and could do with some pointers.
I want to keep Exchange onsite as we don’t have a great broadband connection. What version of Windows Server should I go with?
Anyone recommend a good server machine?

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June 10, 2014 4:26:27 AM

i think you missed the train on this one.
Microsoft killed the sbs program , i don't know if you can still buy sbs 2011. The ms idea is moving sbs to cloud services.
still if you manage get sbs 2011 i recommend you get a solid server hardware like hp,dell,ibm.
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June 17, 2014 5:13:37 PM

The current upgrade path from Windows Server 2003 SBS is to Windows Server 2012 Essentials. There is an option for doing a migration, where the data and AD information is migrated from the 2003 server to the 2012 server, but the last time I tried it the migration failed and I ended up doing a clean install of 2012 and migrating everything manually.

Server 2012 Essentials is not a direct replacement, as there are several features that are missing. One is the SharePoint site, which is now sold as a cloud-based subscription. The big one is that there is no Exchange included - that is now sold as a cloud-based subscription as well.

If you're looking to keep Exchange onsite then you'll either have to find a place that is still selling SBS 2011 or purchase a full version of Exchange to run on a separate server (either physical or virtual). I've seen SBS 2011 available for sale recently, so you can probably still find it. That will be your most cost-effective upgrade path.
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