Questions[windows-sbs](server)

I help run three businesses, and we use two Exchange servers (Windows SBS) for basic email and file sharing. These seem to take up a lot of admin time when contrasted with the linux file server we have, which basically "just works". Is this because I'm inefficient, or because Windows SBS inherently requires a lot of admin time?

I'd estimate I spend two man-weeks per year, per server to admin these boxes, and we have fairly minimal requirements - around 20 staff in total. Based only on the time I spend, the 20 workers, and the two servers, is this 160 man hours per annum a reasonable amount of time?

I do all the admin such as adding and removing maybe 4 users per year, emptying out log files clogging the server, installing updates, resetting passwords when needed, setting up spf/dkim/transport, spam filtering etc rules. 90% of it is down to email/exchange admin.

I'm being placed under quite a lot of pressure from senior management over a relatively trivial issue. Basically the vast majority of users are complaining that they receive not read notifications (NRNs) for old emails and meeting requests in large numbers multiple times a day. I know something strange is happening because some are delivered at silly times in the morning (i.e 3AM or 4AM).

The problem I have is that these some of these NRNs are from meeting requests and messages that are 120 days old, so some users have deleted the original message so I don’t actually know if the NRN is from an email or meeting request.

This is typical of what users receive as a NRN:

From: Sender 
Sent: 23 March 2012 04:16
To: Recepient
Subject: Not read: Accepted: Status update

Your message 

   To: Sender 
   Subject: Accepted: Status update
   Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2011 8:59:00 AM (UTC) Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London

 was deleted without being read on Friday, March 23, 2012 4:15:32 AM (UTC) Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London.

...

From: Sender 
Sent: 18 March 2012 01:13
To: Recepient
Subject: Not read: Gold delivery - Sourcing module


Your message 

   To: Sender
   Subject: Gold delivery - Sourcing module 
   Sent: Friday, November 18, 2011 9:37:58 AM (UTC) Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London

 was deleted without being read on Sunday, March 18, 2012 1:12:37 AM (UTC) Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London.

I have done a search and found the following:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2544246

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2471964

But we already installed 'Update Rollup 6 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1' back in December, so I am not sure what we can do to fix this?

BTW we are running Windows Small Business Server 2011

Currently the small business has about 10 computers 1 FreeNas Server and 10 employees.

Until their recent move into a new office they have each had their own computer with local accounts.

However now they will start having employees use different computers at different times of the day.

This is where the need for Active Directory comes in.

What kind of server hardware would you suggest to fill this need. Additionally what kind of server software should I use. I was thinking Microsoft Small Business Server Standard 2011.

EDIT: The business is a simple service business which simply uses Microsoft Word, Excel, Publisher. They also use the Google Apps for Business, and one other online application (that is hosted somewhere else) So the hardware needs are minimal.

EDIT 2: The business is a non-profit so costs for software are very low thanks to http://techsoup.org so I'm mostly wondering what server software would be best for my needs without too much included that I won't be using.

I'm trying to figure out what to do for a small business that has been plagued by ridiculous hardware problems. Right now, this business runs on five or six desktop machines; no server infrastructure is in place. On top of that, and I'm not embellishing this, they have seen four hardware failures this year to date, and it's got them bordering on madness.

I've already discussed with them the notion of putting a Small Business Server in place (they're a microsoft shop), and they're receptive to the idea. I also plan on getting my feet wet with System Center Essentials to keep on eye on things. The focus then becomes ensuring that this server remains available.

Also, I've just read through this other high availability thread. Much like the guy in that thread, I'm very new to IT, coming from a programming background instead.

Some ideas come to mind:

• Simple raid-5 with hot-swap edit: and hot-spare
• Get two cheaper server machines, configure to run one virtualized server with hot-migration (I've done some reading but sadly I can't tell if SBS Standard and SCE will support this)
• Failover clustering? I got this term from the other thread but haven't been exposed to it in the past.

Is there a best practice when it comes to this? The business owner is willing to dig into his pockets a little for this because he's becoming terrified of downtime, but I've got no experience with these to lead me in one direction over the other.

I'd appreciate your wisdom!

edit: To provide some addtional detail on the problems they've experienced, it's been a weird mix of inexplicable failures.

• switch on chassis fails to power on the system: motherboard had onboard switch, which provided a stop-gap solution, however switching out the case didn't fix the problem. Later, switching out the motherboard didn't fix the problem either.
• Two identical machines have both suffered drive failures in their raid-1 arrays, and both machines were assembled no more than 5 months ago.
• Boot failure issues: one system in raid-1 fails to boot at all. Unfortunately I didn't write down the original error message, but in my notes I have that "Failed to save startup options" in Windows Repair & Recovery led me to this thread which supported my suspicions that it was a hardware-related issue.

edit: Also, the machines are running in a collection of home offices, so residential-grade electrical is at play. I guess this may be more of a contributing factor than I'd given it credit for. However, the machines are all run on desks (literally desktops!) and not on the floor; I don't believe dustiness is involved.

This case scenario started me wondering about the limitations of Small Business Server:

I have a client who came to us initially regading building them an intranet for managing staff training and document sharing etc. but as they use two other software packages (one for POS & one for inventory [they are not linked >< ]) I have advised them to start with looking at their overall I.T. infrastructure.

Bear in mind they don't have a dedicated I.T. staff member and their overall turnover I would guesstimate at a conservative AU $16M /year between 8 stores.

Infrastructure overview (as I understand it):

• One server ( I don't know the specs) hosted at main office running Small Business Server.
• Only one of the stores currently connecting via VPN to that server and the Inventory software running on it.
• Seven other existing stores to eventually connect to the server.
• Currently several hundred employees
• Company wants to double to sixteen stores within next 3 years.
• Probably ~20 (two/three per store) POS machines sending data to the server.
• Probably ~8-10 Desktop machines connecting to the server for Inventory/Backend

I found some links but would like to hear some real world experiences

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/sbs/default.mspx
http://www.sbslinks.com/Us_v_them.htm
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/platform-small-business-server-2003,1151.html