Windows Home Server and SBS Standard Are Dead

There will not be a Windows Home Server 2012 or a Windows Small business Server 2012 Standard (the one that comes with on premises Exchange Server).

http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-goes-public-with-windows-server-2012-versions-licensing-7000000341/

We were looking at upgrading our SBS and moving Exchange to the cloud via SBS Essentials or a 3rd party Exchange host, but had some reservations about not having an on premises Exchange server. I guess our decision has now been narrowed.

And so the move to the cloud has begun. I can't wait for SQL server cloud only.

14 hours ago, DCMonkey wrote

I guess our decision has now been narrowed. 

Yeah, with a stick. After all, all the data in the world should be centralized only on as few places as possible. After all, that'ts what the internet was designed for in the first place.. oh wait.

And I thought only Windows 8 would suck.

Can you even install the full blown Exchange on the foundation SKU (to replicate classical SBS functionality) or do you need standard edition for that? If you need standard, then there is also a hefty price increase. (SBS -> $, Server Standard + Exchange -> $$$)

edit: At least for now it looks like a hefty price increase!
http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/en-us/system-requirements.aspx

No word about the Foundation SKU. Wonder if that changes with Exchange 2012, but given the trend set with Windows 8 and friends...

No loss. Those were both terrible products.   

@DCMonkey: I think this is a good thing: Microsoft needs to keep cleaning up its offer. This will be good for consumers and Microsoft itself.

Concerning the Home Server, that is a little bit of a pity, but you can't find any good harware running it and I think that an online solution makes more sense (why on earth no one has come up with the equivalent of Apple Time Capsule for the Home Server? Was it really that hard? Most of the pieces were in the Windows Home Server. People did not want another box in their closet). I think a combinaiton of cloud storage, cloud backup and DLNA (XBox or similar) is probably a better option.

Concerning the Small Business Server standard, I am really happy that it went away. I ended up buying an SBS Standard for my office because I wanted a rack form factor and I could not find the Essential version on it. SBS Standard is frankly not a good solution for small businesses particularly when you have compelling offers such as Office 365 or Google Apps. And if you really need on premise Exchange, SQL or other, you can always run it on a separate server.

The only thing I hope for the new Windows Server Essentials is that it should be extrememly easy to set up in a virtual machine. With the possibility of live migrating it, it would make perfect sense to have two similar servers and then migrate the virtual machine from one to another in case of hardware faillure (currently SBS supports only one NIC and this is an important limitation for a physical server).

17 hours ago, DCMonkey wrote

We were looking at upgrading our SBS and moving Exchange to the cloud via SBS Essentials or a 3rd party Exchange host, but had some reservations about not having an on premises Exchange server. I guess our decision has now been narrowed.

Or maybe you should look at Exchange alternatives like Kerio. Unless "we" means large business , something like Kerio Connect should be sufficent for many cases.

You would also slow down (forced) cloudification, which is a good thing.

Boo, I was planning on building a WHS box next year. The automatic, centralized backup was appealing.

Any alternatives? Even if I max out my Skydrive at 125GB for $50/year, I still don't have nearly enough space.

@spivonious: For local backups I would look at Windows Server 2012 Foundation. Otherwise any Windows 8 with Storage Spaces should be a good option.

I think WHS was based on thinking there was a retail market for people who watch Revision 3 and hak5 using Linux servers at home.

They confused the interest in hobby hacking as a profitable market they could exploit.

I was playing around with an Azure VM built with a Windows Server 2012 image, and it had this feature called "Storage Spaces". It looked to be exactly like the old "drive extender" feature in WHS.

As for SBS and local Exchange, Microsoft is making it almost a no-brainer to use Office 365. $6 per user per month without having to pay for the server, CALs, the hardware to host it, and a person to administer it.

@1001001:

++

From their marketing it seems like they were trying to convince non-nerds to buy it.

@Bass: What marketing was that?

@Ray7:

Dahat's Bob Dole posts on Channel9 ?

BTW, it seems that his job is now obsolete. Something to think about.

@dahat:

I've noticed that the instant someone from C9 gets a job at Microsoft (seems to be a common occurrence) they go from sometimes totally prolific (littleguru for example) to dead silent here. I find that kind of strange. How is the work/life balance over there? Do you guys have 40 hour work weeks? Or it just that your management discourages you to post here?

@Bass: Not necessarily. It could be that between work, socialising and sports, folk have better stuff to do.

@dahat:

2 short phrases, and so much unrelated spewing response.

At any rate, it's clearly too late to reverse the spell that cast your out of your cubicle and shove you back into the cube, so I can only ask:

You keep hoping that an odd passerby will take you up on your million dollar bet and by some miracle, you'd be right.

It sounds like you want to take me up on this bet? Maybe build a pool of funds with your coworkers and call me on my claim?