SBS 2008 General Facts 1

[ShackDaddy]

Best current guess for the release date is September 2008.

SBS 2008 is ONLY available on 64-bit hardware.

There is no direct upgrade path from SBS 2003, due to the hardware issues.

SBS 2008 can take advantage of LARGE amounts of RAM... 4gb to 24gb won't be unusual over the next few years.

Exchange 2007 will be happy to use plenty of that RAM.

ISA is not a part of SBS 2008, not even in the Premium edition, and that makes me VERY happy. I like to see firewall functionality split off from the OS for easier management/troubleshooting.

SBS 2008 Premium includes a license for an additional server and support for that server running virtually on the same host hardware, which creates all sorts of new possibilities for remote workers and LOB apps that you don't want running on your DC.

Backup to tape isn't supported anymore (yay!) and backup to disk is the default backup mode. Backups are snapshot-based.

Dave Shackelford
Shackelford Consulting

 

[noveyron]

Thanks For that Dave

Do you know if there are any beta/evaluations available so that we can get up to speed before RTM?

 

[ShackDaddy]

My guess would be that we'd be seeing open betas (RTM candidates, really) in June or July, but these sorts of things change.

If you want to keep track yourself, you can register your Windows Live account at connect.microsoft.com and request to be in the beta. Right now it's probably invitation-only, but it might have changed. It's hard for me to tell what the status is since I'm already in the beta.

Dave Shackelford
Shackelford Consulting

 

[noveyron]

Cheers, thanks

 

[ShackDaddy]

I believe the betas are open now for SBS 2008, since RTM 0 has been released. Also, from what I can guess, the release date will probably be later than I thought earlier, definitely mid Q4.

I know a whole lot more about the product now than I did in March, so feel free to ask pretty specific questions.

Dave Shackelford
Shackelford Consulting

 

[ShackDaddy]

The official release date is going to be November 1st, 2008.

Dave Shackelford
Shackelford Consulting

 

[Ogi]

Does anyone know if the 75Gb limit for Exchange has been removed?

Cheers,
Carl.

 

[ShackDaddy]

There is no limit now. You are limited to 4 mailbox databases, and you don't want to make them so big that it takes forever to restore/backup them.

Release date is now early October, I believe.

Dave Shackelford
Shackelford Consulting