Blogs

SQL Server 2008 Solutions – Your Data, Any Place, Any Time SQL Server 2008, the next release of Microsoft SQL Server, will provide a comprehensive data platform that is more secure, reliable, manageable and scalable for your mission critical applications, while enabling developers to create new applications that can store and consume any type of data on any device, and enabling all your users to make informed decisions with relevant insights. http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/futureversion/default.mspx http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/futureversion/bi/default.mspx SQL Server 2008 Books Online – Overview (SQL Server 2008) Microsoft SQL Server is a database platform for large-scale online transaction processing (OLTP), data warehousing, and e-commerce applications; it is also a business intelligence platform for data integration, analysis, and reporting solutions. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms166352(SQL.100).aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb510421(SQL.100).aspx Online Transaction...

Sometimes it is possible to do some really, really stupid things. I thought I would share it with you all as 1) you may have noticed a little less availability to the site and 2) this is just to prove that I am human too What did I do, well, I was playing with ISA 2004 on the SBS system that this site runs on and changing the rules. It was late at night and my timetable has been busy to say the least recently, so I decided to fiddle with http headers in SBS. The problem was that I changed the headers to be blocked, rather than the headers to use, so the site was passing all content for uksbsguy.com through, but blocking any headers from that site .. major badness ANyway, this is fixed, when looking at it in the cold light of day, and you should see the site be 100% available again. Oh, now where did I put my halo..... ttfn David

Do you find yourself struggling to fix SMTP issues with your Exchange set up? If so, give this tool a try and things might look much better for you. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=BC1881C7-925D-4A29-BD42-71E8563C80A9&displaylang=en ttfn David

Microsoft Financing - commit £1 only! I recently met Nohra Currie who works in the Microsoft Financing team. The service launched just over a year ago and it's proving highly popular with customers. I asked Nohra to explain what it is and how partners can get involved... You're fairly new to Microsoft - what's your initial impression? I have been here for 4 months now! My impressions? Great people, great partners, great customers but how complicated is this organisation! I know why you ask now, it's because you will only get a glowing response during the 'honeymoon period' ask me again in 7 years. What do you add to Microsoft Financing? (i.e. what's your role) I am the Programme Manager for Microsoft Financing, my role is to ensure that we help customers to buy the IT solution they need. Microsoft Financing provides Financing for software, hardware and Partner services. We work together with partners to offer the solutions. Source: Partner Perspectives : Microsoft Financing - commit £1 only!

I did promise to post the IDC whitepapers URL and find the Toolkit URL. They are both currently in the global SBS site, but will be moving to the UK SBSC site soon. I have posted the links in tge SBSC forum so people can share experiences on them. ttfn David

It does seem that from being SBS based, then into Small Business partners that the blog has finally morphed into the Vista blog. This is not the case, but I am responding to the needs and requests of the Microsoft partners. SBS 2003 still does an amazing job and should be part of almost any customer request where they have more than 5 PCs (IMHO). However, you know all about SBS, don't you? However I suspect that Office 2007 and Windows Vista are a little bit stranger, so hence the focus. Don't worry - SBS will become more prominent very soon :-) Every dog has its day and this is Vista's and Office's. Give it a week or so and it will be back to the whole ecosystem of Windows Client, Windows Server (or SBS), Office and Windows Mobile. ttfn David

I was asked this in the forums, but I felt it was important enough to write about it both here and in the forum. Patch Management should be a key part of what you do. Patching is like car servicing - it can sometimes be put off a little bit, but failure to keep the oil and water up todate and without a regular service, things go horribly wrong. You MUST tell your customers this so they can choose how to pay you for this service. (they can always just call you in when things go wrong, but it will take longer and cost them more). Obviously patching is just one tool in yout kitbag for keeping systems secure - local and perimeter firewalls and anti-spyware and anti-virus software is also needed, as is good password and administrator policy. The best person to talk about patching is the now famous Susan Bradly, who is a SBS MVP and known as a Diva. Before I point you off to some of her blogs on it, I thought I would answer some questions often asked in this area: 1) How do you decide whether to patch or hold off? You...

While I was at AMD yesterday I heard a term that is very useful to describe a really bad piece of hardware used to build a server - DUD - dressed up desktops. You know what they are - PCs that are desktops without any of that key server tech - do you know of one - let me know. As a minimum I would want to see the following in a decent SBS server: x64 CPU to enable migration to SBS Longhorn edition RAID disks to survive a disk failure - I'm not going to ret religious if they are SCSI or not, but remember that Domain Controllers turn off disk caching unless you have a SCSI like controller, so can have a big impact on performance 2GB of memory min - this is just me, but why skimp at the outset - if you are not going to start at 2GB, then please make sure there are free slots for an upgrade Descent power and cooling Backup capability of some form 2 NICs (even if you only use one - the option is there) Quality brands - don't save £5 and spend the next 3 years regretting it AMD do a great line in quality parts and have...

We have had problems both with our own Exchange server and with another client’s this morning. Sophos released a Support Advisory last night and the KB article is here: http://www.sophos.com/support/knowledgebase/article/42245.html To resolve the problem we tried restarting the PureMessage services, the Sophos Services and the Exchange Services but the only thing that really seems to have solved it is rebooting the SBS box...... Hope that might help someone else.....

Just been trying to install SRS on my replacement desktop and was getting an error about SetDialogs and Error 1603. I've installed SRS on an XP SP2 box before with no problems, so a bit puzzled. A hunt around found me this thread: http://sqlforums.windowsitpro.com/web/forum/messageview.aspx?catid=92&threadid=34274&enterthread=y and running aspnet_regiis -i from the %windir%\Microsoft.Net\Framework\v1.1.4322 folder seems to have done the trick. Good old Google The reason I think I had problems this time was because I had IIS installed on this machine so I can run Virtual Server. Previously IIS wasn't installed. Hope this helps someone else.......

Well folks, I could not tell you this was coming (and only knew about the price change in Virtual Server), but it is quite a day for news. VS becoming free means that all you who wanted to look at it for Swing Migrations, or small projects can now do so, although check the requirements for licesnes inside the VMs. Anyway, the two News items are: April 3, 2006 • Microsoft Agrees to Acquire ProClarity, Enhancing Business Intelligence Offering Leader in advanced analytics adds to Microsoft’s comprehensive BI capabilities. • Q&A: Bringing the Benefits of Virtualization Technology to the Mainstream Microsoft delivers Linux support and makes Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 available to customers at no charge as part of its ongoing effort to radically simplify IT management. ttfn David

One of the benefits of SBSC membership is the regular livemeetings with Microsoft and the ability to ask us questions. On Monday we have one for SBS 2003 R2. For more info on these go to http://www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/sbsc - you need to have passed the exams to see the exclusive content. ttfn David