Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2008 review

With Small Business Server (SBS) 2008, Microsoft has updated all the core components to their latest versions: Microsoft Exchange 2007, SharePoint Services 3.0 and the Windows Server 2008 operating system.

The latter, as you'd expect, is basically Windows Vista without the fancy Aero interface.

Microsoft has also improved Active Directory (AD). New auditing features allow you to be far more precise about which objects you audit and what information you collect, so you won't have to wade through security logs overflowing with useless information. If you have a remote office, you can minimise the security risks involved in giving it access to the domain by implementing a Read-Only Domain Controller. With this in place, a hacker can't change any of the Active Directory values, even if he compromises the server. Handily, you can now stop and restart the AD service without restarting the server itself, so AD maintenance doesn't require a reboot.

The new Windows SBS Console will have the biggest impact on users' day-to-day experience. In previous editions of SBS, the Server Management Console provided links to relatively simple wizards for configuring some of the more complex aspects of server and domain management. Any customisation, however, meant the user had to get to grips with the intricacies of various system tools.

The Windows SBS Console does away with much of this rigmarole. Instead of a tree of expandable objects, it's organised as a collection of themed tabs, making all the key functions much easier to find. You can edit the permissions applied to objects, such as websites and shares, from within the console without having to drill down through the normal Access Control List screen. Bringing all the core setup routines together in one tool, and giving that tool a unifiedlook and feel across all the different components, makes life much easier.

The new backup feature is also configured using the Windows SBS Console. Like the backup feature in Windows Vista, this allows you to back up specific files or your entire operating system. You can't configure this feature until a compatible external storage drive is attached. The new operating system doesn't support tape backup, so unless your backup vendor has produced its own Server 2008-compatible backup program, you'll have to upgrade.

This lack of support for tape backup isn't the only aspect of SBS 2008 that could make the upgrade expensive for some users. The software itself costs around £250-£300 more than its predecessors. The premium version of SBS no longer comes with the Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) server firewall. You will have to buy a hardware firewall instead, which could cost anything from £200 to £1,000 (we installed a Netgear FVS336G, a standalone firewall device that worked alongside our existing router). What's more, the operating system's minimum specs have shot up: you need a 64-bit processor and at least 4GB of RAM. Thankfully, RAM is cheap, but anyone who has a 32-bit processor will probably have to buy a new server.

To compensate for the lack of ISA, Microsoft has included its anti-virus and anti-malware program Live OneCare for Server, and its email security and anti-malware program Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange Server. This might be some compensation if these products weren't time-limited trials. OneCare is being discontinued anyway.

Happily, security software from other vendors can also integrate with the SBS console's security alerts feature, so you can stick with your preferred security option and still take advantage of the new features. Users of the Premium version also get a second installation of SBS 2008 and the latest edition of SQL Server, enabling them to run a second server for their database and business applications.