First, let me explain why Windows SBS doesn’t deliver much value. Really its used for a few things - domain controller, file storage/sharing, hopefully backup, and sometimes Exchange and Remote Web Workplace. Domain controllers are nice to have, but not critical for small businesses. File storage/sharing can be accomplished by a NAS for far less than a server. Windows SBS’s built in backup is pretty subpar and doesn’t include the expensive hardware needed to backup. Exchange is useful for some, but is expensive, risky to maintain in house, and requires integration with third party antivirus/antispam - hosted Zimbra or Gmail for Domains is a far better value for most. Remote Web Workplace is cool, but rarely used and the same thing can be accomplished by an Untangle Firewall.

So if you’re looking for a small business server which actually works out of the box and includes really valuable tools to help you run your business - Windows SBS isn’t the product. This is why Lotus Foundations excites me so much - it takes everything a Windows SBS box does but integrates killer backup, security, and useful business applications in a far easier to manage package.

The great thing is while IBM Lotus Foundations is new, its also built on well established products. IBM bought Nitix earlier in the year, which made Linux-based small business servers for the past eight years. IBM improved the product, integrated Lotus Notes Domino 8, and made Lotus Foundations.

I’ve had a chance to talk to some IBM folks and they’re dead serious about taking on Windows Small Business Server and providing a better experience for small business. With the application platform they’re building and the marketing power of IBM, I can guarantee you’ll hear a lot about IBM Lotus Foundations in the next year.

This of course leads me to wonder if Comcast is trying to “wow” new customers with blistering speed, only to bring it back down to the service level’s speed with time. It might sound farfetched, but keep in mind Comcast has been intentionally slowing Bittorrent user’s connections - why not this too?

While its understandable small businesses sometimes find skirting the rules to be more palatable than forking over thousands for more software, the true costs of piracy can be far greater.

The Business Software Alliance has been cracking down more on small businesses, particularly those in the 10-100 employee range. And the penalties can be quite stiff - six figure penalties plus having to buy the software at full price.

Software licensing is one of the great reasons to look at open source or managed systems with clearer, more reasonable pricing models. Rather than spending tens of thousands on Exchange and Office; alternatives like NitixBlue, Zimbra, OpenOffice, etc reduce TCO and reduce or eliminate licensing concerns.

Unlike other small business servers which make you pick the pieces and integrate them yourself, NitixBlue bundles one of the strongest sets of antispam tools around. NitixBlue has for years integrated the Vircom content scanning, but to better fight the growth of spam they’ve now added Engate’s network-level scanning.

Engate’s MailSentinel catches spam by evaluating profiling the network properties of a message. For example lets say you get a message from accounts@paypal.com, Engate will see if that message originated from a Paypal server or spoofed the data - then tosses out the illegitimate emails.

The results? By combining both industry leading network and content level antispam, small businesses can get 99% or greater effectiveness from their antispam protection. Unlike other solutions this doesn’t require an expensive additional filtering box, no complex setup, and simple inexpensive licensing.

1) Groupware flexibility - Microsoft Exchange only supports Outlook and Entourage for groupware (email, calendaring, etc). With NitixBlue Outlook users can continue to use Outlook and won’t notice the difference - and there is cross platform support by using the bundled Notes for Windows, Linux, and Mac.

2) Webmail for everyone - Microsoft’s Exchange webmail works great…on Internet Explorer 6 for Windows. NitixBlue’s webmail works not just on Internet Explorer but Mozilla’s Firefox - which is free and runs on every major platform.

3) Security - NitixBlue is secure out of the box, unlike Windows Small Business Server. Company emails can be encrypted with no additional setup, all email server communication is encrypted, every message can be logged, and antivirus and antispam come ready out of the box.

4) Backup - anyone who’s ever had an Exchange Server crash will tell you its a painful system to recover from backup. Unlike Windows Small Business Server, NitixBlue comes out of the box with a fully equipped backup hardware/software solution. Furthermore NitixBlue’s backup can take snapshots of your email system as often as every hour - narrowing the window of data loss. Furthermore NitixBlue’s recovery is fast - we average two hours for a “bare metal” recovery.

5) Less maintenance - ever seem like your Exchange server needs an expert babysitter? NitixBlue is smart enough to self-manage most tasks and delivers only the options small businesses need - most of our clients actually handle adding and changing users themselves!

One thing to look out for is auto renewing contracts which at the end of the contract will renew without notice for the same duration and price! Most customers don’t keep track of their T1 contract termination dates, so they can get perpetually locked into outdated, higher pricing.

The other interesting note is recovery fees. Recovery fees are surcharges which should go towards government mandated improvements - interconnect costs, number portability, E911, etc. But don’t confuse these for regulated taxes, they’re more like shipping fuel surcharges. Some companies use recovery fees as a way to line their pockets - this vendor was charging nearly twice as much as we do!

Bottom line was they were paying $923 for their T1 with surcharges, we offered them a superior T1 for $602. That’s nearly $12k savings in the next three years - not a bad reason to switch!

1) The de-facto standard implementation
In the technology business certain products and techniques have reached de-facto standard status. However the question is who’s setting the standard? The tech industry as a whole is only discovering the tremendous opportunity and need for small business technologies, most of their focus has been largely
on bigger business or consumers.

As the “small business” technology market emerges I’m seeing many enterprise products repackaged and claiming to be designed for small businesses. While its great to have the same power as big business - those businesses also keep full time staff to maintain these systems. Some people dedicate their careers to just one component of a computer network (exchange, firewall, backup, etc). But small businesses can’t afford full time staff or specialists for each component of their systems…which often leads to option two…

2) Blow it
Its not a technology option we consciously choose, but sometimes by under or overdeveloping our systems we end up putting ourselves at risk. Too simple of systems leave us open to being hacked, wasting time, or losing data and too complex of systems put us at risk of having what one can only call a boondoggle. If only there was something just right…

3) Pick a simpler system
Ask yourself “what do I really need out of technology” and use the products that provide just what you need without the frills. Ultimately a limited, simpler system that always does what its supposed to is far better than a system that can do anything but can’t seem to do anything easily or reliably. A few technology companies have dedicated themselves to making products specifically for small businesses - and those products really work better and cost less.

4) Use managed/hosted services
Instead of investing in equipment, let external services “host” the functionality you need. In other terms if owning your own equipment is like having a kitchen and cooking dinner, hosted services are like dinner delivery. This is particularly appealing for services that require a significant amount of regular tweaking, monitoring, or maintenance - like spam filters. Hosted services sometimes can save money, but sometimes can cost a lot more - if you need more bandwidth (internet speed) to utilize hosted services the TCO will be higher than in-house options as serious bandwidth costs serious money (though selling it makes me seriously happy).

For most small businesses the best options usually are simpler systems and managed/hosted services as these will provide the necessary functionality with the lowest total cost of ownership. These two fields will increasingly be our focus this year as I think the greatest value we can offer small businesses are unique, smarter options for their technology needs.

4) Cable has no promise of uptime or repair time. If you depend on your internet connection for business not having these guarantees makes cable unusable.

3) Cable’s performance is not guaranteed. Your real world upload and download rate is “best effort” and while cable often does a good job meeting their advertised speed, their latency is a mixed bag, making things like remote desktop difficult.

2) Cost - business cable generally starts around $100/month. Its actually no better deal than DSL, some of which can offer SLAs. And a T1 can provide voice and data with guarantees for often not much more.

1) Support - cable companies aren’t used to providing business class support in a timely manner. Just ask yourself if the cable company is great to work with at your home - and that’s not even mission critical!

For homes and some types of small businesses cable internet is a great service where available, but don’t jump on the bandwagon without knowing your uptime and upload requirements.

Using Windows SBS is basically a guarantee that things won’t be done right or will blow the budget, neither of which was my goal as a computer consultant. So I went looking for an alternative which “just does the right thing” - and I found Nitix. Nitix is a autonomic Linux derived server designed from the ground up for small business.

Here’s how Nitix handles the “core functionality” small businesses need:

File Storage and Sharing
Though Nitix is a form of Linux, its able to transparently network with both Macs and Windows PCs. Unlike Windows SBS, when you setup a user or group in Nitix, it automatically creates a directory, sets up proper permissions, and can setup mapping the share on login. That last bit is very important - mapping drives makes it easier for users to put their data on the server where its backed up.

Backup
Nitix comes bundled with Intelligent Disk Backup, better known as IDB. IDB automatically backs up your data to reliable and inexpensive hard drive cartridges in increments as often as 15 minutes. IDB eliminates nearly all user intervention - all that needs to be done is to hot-swap IDB cartridges once a week. But here’s the killer, IDB actually backs up everything by default - and I mean everything. If your system crashes IDB is able to restore the system to exactly the way it was in just an hour or two - instead of days or weeks with Windows SBS.

User Login Authentication
Nitix integrates smoothly with Windows desktops, so when the computers startup they are prompted for a username and password which validates with the server. This helps keep control over who can access network resources - Nitix makes this extremely quick and foolproof.

Calendar Sharing and Email
Though Nitix’s calendaring and email isn’t quite as advanced as Windows SBS, it does a great job. The nice thing is Nitix doesn’t have the history of security problems like Exchange and comes integrated with Vircom Antispam and Kaspersky Antivirus (optional, but we always include it). Windows SBS’s Exchange is so complex careers and magazines are dedicated to just this topic - Nitix’s email and calendars just works right out of the box.

Firewall/Remote Access
Nitix actually started out as a firewall product which grew into being a full fledged small business server. Without question its a secure product - the firewall self configures, is ICSA compliant, self defends, and its built on a hardened Linux core. By self configuring and self defending it eliminates the concern of technician error and need for constant oversight.

Nitix’s remote access is a cinch to setup, enabling the a remote user VPN is just two clicks. Easy, secure, reliable - no question Nitix wins here hands down.

No Integration Problem
One of the other joys of a Nitix Server is it comes from the box complete, tested, and ready to go - no need to install a tape drive, antispam, etc because its all integrated. Furthermore one company tests the whole package - meaning no concerns that an update to one component will interfere with another. Best of all Nitix supports the whole package - no blame game where vendors start pointing fingers - the rare problems with Nitix are easily solved.

Nitix also gives us more power when solving problems. Sometimes to solve problems efficiently we need to get the vendors involved - Nitix actually gives us personal attention from a dedicated support team included with your server. Small businesses simply couldn’t afford that kind of attention from Microsoft.

The Real World
Superiority really means nothing if normal companies can’t use this system effectively. In the last three years we’ve installed Nitix in a variety of firms - consultants, lawyers, mortgage, real estate, contractors, non-profits - and its worked great. Not only has it been able to fulfill their needs, the Nitix systems have required nearly no maintenance - meaning a low total cost of ownership and happy customers.

The first question any small business should ask themselves when looking at a server is what functionality are you seeking? The reality is most small businesses use their servers for a few simple tasks - file storage and sharing, backup, user login authentication, calendar sharing, maybe email (often they use the webhost), and firewall/remote access. Lets look to see if Windows SBS actually fulfills these needs efficiently.

File Storage and Sharing
Windows SBS does a fine job of serving up files, but is lacking in ease of setup. It seems obvious that if you add a user you’d want to give that user straightforward access to their file share, Windows desktop does that by mapping the drive - but Windows SBS doesn’t make that a simple option! The same goes for groups to share data. Making using the server more difficult to the end user leads to people not storing data on the server but rather their desktop - meaning its probably not being backed up.

Backup
Windows SBS backup is largely worthless. I’ll give one simple example - Windows SBS backup can’t even backup Exchange data properly - and Exchange is integrated in the system! Don’t even get me started on SQL, open files, etc. Realistically recovery from a hard drive crash is days of work and thousands of dollars. Of course this can be solved by integrating third party hardware and software, at additional cost.

User Login Authentication
Windows does fine here, Active Directory is certainly complex and overkill, but not too difficult to manage or full of pitfalls.

Calendar Sharing and Email
This falls under the loved and hated Exchange component of SBS. Exchange is both powerful and complex, so much so that some people’s careers are dedicated to just Exchange administration and multiple magazines focus solely on this component. My favorite example of the difficulties of Exchange is the article “My Thirteen Days in Exchange Hell” detailing Outlook Power Magazine’s own experience in restoring their backups after their Exchange server crashed. If a magazine dedicated to Exchange power users can’t prevent or recover from a crash in a timely manner - what chance does an average small business have?

Of course no email system is complete without antivirus and antispam, which means more third party integration.

Firewall/Remote Access
Windows SBS Standard doesn’t include a firewall and while Premium does, I wouldn’t recommend trusting any security issue to Windows given the poor security history of the product. In which case if you use a third party hardware firewall, most include great VPN remote access capabilities - so while Windows SBS does include VPN remote access its best left to the firewall.

The Integration Problem
In cases of backup, antivirus and antispam, and firewall you’ll need to integrate third party systems to make everything work - thats where the costs and risks multiply. Third party solutions mean more setup time, more testing time, and a greater risk of conflicts. No longer is Windows SBS an off the shelf solution but instead a do-it-yourself project. Since no one vendor is testing the whole custom package, you end up paying your consultants to do this work.

The Real World
What we see in the real world is most Windows SBS installations have serious problems. In most cases they start out with the best intent, but the project snowballs and gets cut off, because unfortunately few consultants really know how to do Windows SBS right (or quote accurately) and fewer companies know what to expect or desire to pay so much to get it done right.

The often humorous oversights, lack of valuable integration, and overwhelming ability to do things wrong with Windows SBS makes it truly impractical for most small businesses. Windows SBS gives you nearly unlimited ability but at high cost and risk - ultimately limited ability that small businesses truly need in a secure and integrated package is far more desirable.

What makes this oftentimes more complex is the companies selling internet service (phone companies and cable TV companies) usually don’t have salespeople that understand computer networks.

Here’s a few issues in picking a provider:

SLA
An SLA or service line agreement is a promise the ISP makes regarding uptime, performance, and repair times. Not all services have SLAs and your company may not need it - but its a consideration. Any service without an SLA is “best effort” and their definition of “best” and “effort” may not be yours.

Support
Support varies incredibly, some companies a large, well trained staff available 24/7 and others will get back to you in a few hours or days. I’ve even had the case where the one guy who could handle hosting issues was out for a week, so email couldn’t get setup! Ask some serious questions here and even call the support line to see if you get a menu, human, or voicemail.

Network
Not all networks are built the same - some have better equipment, better backbones, lower utilization, etc. Even who’s on their network can matter - for example if your business service runs on the same network as residential service you may see slowdowns in the afternoons as kids get home from school.

Features
Issues like dynamic or static IPs, bridged or routed mode, etc are very important and not all providers support all options (or charge excessively for them).

Speed
Speed is the issue most advertised, but while its an issue, its often misrepresented. For example yes, Cable has a much faster theoretical download speed than a T1, but no guarantees. Plus a T1 delivers significantly greater upload speeds which is important for VPNs, mail servers, and any business sending out files. Not to mention the latency issues when running VPNs or RDC.

Once you pick a service and provider, you may need to change quite a bit - and chances are your new ISP won’t help.

Firewall
If you use static IPs, you’ll need to have someone on hand to reconfigure the firewall.

DNS/Hosting
If you’re switching your web hosting to the new ISP, you’ll need to migrate hosting and change DNS settings with your registrar.

MX Records
If you run a mailserver, you’ll need to change your MX records with the webhost to continue to receive mail. Ideally you have both the old and new MX IPs in the DNS during the change to make the change smoother.

Reverse DNS
If you run a mailserver, you’ll also want to request a reverse DNS entry from the ISP to help your mail be properly identified as legit instead of spam.

External Access
If you access the network externally by IP instead of domain name, you’ll need to change all those settings to once again connect. This most likely will affect VPN users.

Its not to say the companies selling internet service are bad for not helping - this is highly complex stuff which varies by each network, making it best left to your own IT staff or consultants. Obviously since we sell phone and internet service we provide this service to our clients often at no charge, but we’re rare in doing this.