Overview of Windows 2008 EBS
Microsoft has finally come up with a product that helps small to medium companies that has more than the 75 user count limitation of Microsoft Small Business Server.
As with SBS EBS will be available in 2 editions namely standard and premium. Only differences between standard edition and premium edition is you get SQL 2008 with premium edition. The biggest difference between SBS and EBS is that were SBS runs everything on one server EBS splits it across 3 severs (For standard ed.). The licensing of Essential Business Server will work very similar
In part one I will be going through the setup of the management server which is the first server that you install for EBS.
The order of the Installation is:
- Management Server
- Security Server
- Messaging Server
Installing the management server
As the name suggest the management server is there to manage your environment. It is the primary Domain controller for the domain as the messaging server will be the backup domain controller as well as backup DNS.
The management server includes System center essentials and the EBS Management Console.
So here I go and starting the install:
Does this screen not look familiar (it's the normal 2008 setup screen)
After watching paint dry and a reboot later we see some life:
The sever does an automated logon and starts the setup wizard as shown below:
One thing i must mention is that if you want to do changes to the Windows 2008 OS use control alt del keys to bring up Task manager and use new tasks to change settings.
Do not cancel this wizard you will have to restart from the beginning (deleting the disk partition and redoing it )
Found it out the hard way.I would think that Microsoft would give the option to cancel the wizard. so that you can to some optimization changes to the OS. This one thing I would change. all though I understand why Microsoft has done this.
The next following screens is to setup the network adapter. The wizard gives you and option to use an exiting DHCP server to assign a temporary ip address or a manual ip address:
I have chose the manual option due that I did not have a DHCP server configured at the time. The wizard is very migration focused as well if you look at the next screen shot it gives you the option to join an exiting domain or creating a new one.
In this portion of the install the wizard asks you what the server names are going to be for the 3 servers:
As like the Screen shot above the next screen is configure the IP addresses for the servers. It automatic inserts the IP addresses for the management server and Security server. The only one you have to add is the messaging server.
On the DHCP Scope option it kept giving an error if a made my scope and it included the server IP's which to me is a pain since the next screen tells you to create you exclusion range. After that is done you will able to select were you will be storing data like the Sql database for system center essentials.
The next screen is where you would add the root ca information and then you can Rename the Admin Account from here
On the reporting side I just chose the default options. The next screen I think is very imported: it is the review screen. Though if you want to change anything you can still go back and make the changes.
Finally we can now click install. and watch paint dry as it is busy...
And there is our management server installed .
I will be doing the Security server next in the install process of getting EBS up and running. This will happen in the next 3 weeks or so due that i am going to Chile for 2 weeks.