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Dynamic
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  #1676510 24-Nov-2016 00:15
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Grundignz:

 

You are correct i need to investigate the calendar side more

 

It was the extra calender's that get setup which if i understand correctly each one then becomes an extra mail box which would then run into $1000's/year more

 

Sounds like a slightly odd concept to me, but it might make sense if I saw it.

 

In case you were unaware, Exchange on Office 365 has a neat thing called a Shared Mailbox.  It's a fully functional mailbox (e.g. it can send and receive email and calendar requests) that you cannot log into directly, but can be attached to any other account to be viewed in Outlook.  It cannot be viewed on smartphones and tablets, except when you are using Webmail in a browser.  The cost, you might ask?  Free.  For us, when a client has a staff member depart, their paid mailbox is turned into a free shared mailbox with a couple of mouse clicks, and attached to their Manager's account (so the historical email appears below their own folders in Outlook).  This may be suitable, and I am unaware of any limits on the number of these shared mailboxes.

 

Not trying to give you the hard sell.  Just a possibility you could explore if you felt it worthwhile.

 

For Disaster Recovery purposes, having email in the cloud makes good sense for an SMB, even if it is slightly more expensive when costed out over 3 or 5 years.  SBS was brilliant and I remain a big fan, but after being very slow to come around I have become an evangelist for Exchange Online.  (It's a shame there's next to no money in it!)  Other Office 365 or Azure components I'm less in love with or on the fence about.





“Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.” Douglas Adams

 

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geekiegeek
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  #1676531 24-Nov-2016 08:41
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"I do like the 365 system but for most of my customers its not required. Also instead of putting $10000/year into Microsoft's pocket i prefer it to stay in mine"

 

 

 

Wow, glad you're not my IT support. What are you going to do when SBS2011 is end of life? Sell them separate Exchange and Domain controllers? Instead of just focusing on email how about taking a holistic look at all of their business functions and using the other tools that are avaible within the O365 suite such as SharePoint to deliver shared calander functionality and file services. If they are a small oufit with no bespoke applications they could be totally based out of the cloud which could provide them a nmber of benifits around security and anywhere anytime access not to mention never having to worry about backups again.

 

 


Paul1977
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  #1677239 25-Nov-2016 09:38
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Grundignz:

 

This is for Small company with a server(like SBS was marketed to)so think VM will be overkill

 

 

There are many other advantages to virtualizing and could probably be done on the existing hardware (you said it's an HP server, I'm assuming a Proliant in a small business). The idea is not overkill in general, but would be a big step to fix a single problem.




networkn
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  #1677248 25-Nov-2016 09:52
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Paul1977:

 

Grundignz:

 

This is for Small company with a server(like SBS was marketed to)so think VM will be overkill

 

 

There are many other advantages to virtualizing and could probably be done on the existing hardware (you said it's an HP server, I'm assuming a Proliant in a small business). The idea is not overkill in general, but would be a big step to fix a single problem.

 

 

 

 

Virtualizing to fix a VSS error is like driving a nail into wood, with a tactical nuke.

 

 


Paul1977
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  #1677251 25-Nov-2016 09:58
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networkn:

 

Paul1977:

 

Grundignz:

 

This is for Small company with a server(like SBS was marketed to)so think VM will be overkill

 

 

There are many other advantages to virtualizing and could probably be done on the existing hardware (you said it's an HP server, I'm assuming a Proliant in a small business). The idea is not overkill in general, but would be a big step to fix a single problem.

 

 

 Virtualizing to fix a VSS error is like driving a nail into wood, with a tactical nuke.

 

 

 

I was more just disagreeing with the idea that virtualization was overkill for a small business, in a general sense. I agree that it would be a drastic thing to do to fix a single problem.

 

Don't agree with your analogy though - a tactical nuke would destroy the nail, the wood, the builder, and the city he lived in!


Dynamic
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  #1677255 25-Nov-2016 10:05
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Virtualising anything creates its own small set of issues, as you have just added another OS to maintain and another layer that can misbehave.

 

We had a client call late Wednesday advising their network drives were not accessible.  It appeared the guest OS was unable to communicate with the LAN, even though we were able to communicate with the host OS on the same network card just fine.  A reboot of the host server got the guest back online and we scheduled some time this weekend to work on the issue.  Unfortunately the same issue happened half an hour ago and another quick reboot has got it back online once again.  This is on a server that has been in place for just about a year and has behaved flawlessly until now.

 

Considering computers are just a giant pocket calculator, more than their fair share of witchcraft is required.  Especially if you don't want to 'release the magic smoke' as one of my team amusingly chimes in with occasionally.





“Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.” Douglas Adams

 

Referral links to services I use, really like, and may be rewarded if you sign up:
PocketSmith for budgeting and personal finance management.  A great Kiwi company.


networkn
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  #1677257 25-Nov-2016 10:10
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I would generally quite strongly recommend against virtualizing SBS, or Exchange (Makes sense in large deployments to a degree). As @dynamic has said, it has it's own set of complexities, licensing headaches etc.

 

 


 
 
 

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lxsw20
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  #1677280 25-Nov-2016 11:12
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Exchange on a hypervisor has been supported since at least 2010. Can't really think of any good reasons you would want to run it on physical tin now days. Especially if you're splitting out the rolls. 

 

SBS needs to die a death (it pretty much has from MS's POV), it's just not a good product. The mention of it makes most admins i know shudder. 


Dynamic
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  #1677295 25-Nov-2016 11:41
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lxsw20:

 

SBS needs to die a death (it pretty much has from MS's POV), it's just not a good product. The mention of it makes most admins i know shudder. 

 

For a lot of Kiwi SMBs, SBS was (pretty close to) the right product, at the right price, at the right time.  It wasn't without issues, but when you are looking after a couple of dozen of them you get used to it.  The sun is now setting on SBS installations, and while I was initially disappointed, I have since accepted this as a good idea.





“Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.” Douglas Adams

 

Referral links to services I use, really like, and may be rewarded if you sign up:
PocketSmith for budgeting and personal finance management.  A great Kiwi company.


lxsw20
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  #1677299 25-Nov-2016 11:45
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Not a good product is probably a little harsh. More that there are better options for the $ now days which don't involve running many many services on one box.


networkn
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  #1677301 25-Nov-2016 11:48
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Customers who bought decent hardware and didn't underspec rarely had issues in my experience. A lot of admins I know who had issue with SBS had so on "principle" or because they tried to circumvent the management tools in favour of their own "wisdom".

 

We looked after a lot of SBS Servers over the years and whilst like any software it had it's issues, it was great value and provided pretty good stability. 

 

 


Paul1977
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  #1677386 25-Nov-2016 12:35
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lxsw20:

 

Not a good product is probably a little harsh. More that there are better options for the $ now days which don't involve running many many services on one box.

 

 

SBS was a great way to get Exchange for a reasonable price. And before virtualization became so mainstream small businesses needed it all on one box, as to buy multiple physical servers was too expensive. I personally think for small/medium businesses it has been a great product.

 

Of course everything now is cloud, cloud, cloud. And much of the move for SMBs to the cloud is a direct result of MS discontinuing SBS.

 

Anyway, this has gotten way off topic!


CYaBro
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  #1677428 25-Nov-2016 13:56
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Have you removed any other backup software that may have been on there, like Acronis, ShadowProtect, Backupexec etc?

 

Are all VSS writers in a stable state?

 

 





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Grundignz

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  #1677732 26-Nov-2016 00:36
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geekiegeek:

 

"I do like the 365 system but for most of my customers its not required. Also instead of putting $10000/year into Microsoft's pocket i prefer it to stay in mine"

 

 

 

Wow, glad you're not my IT support. What are you going to do when SBS2011 is end of life? Sell them separate Exchange and Domain controllers? Instead of just focusing on email how about taking a holistic look at all of their business functions and using the other tools that are avaible within the O365 suite such as SharePoint to deliver shared calander functionality and file services. If they are a small oufit with no bespoke applications they could be totally based out of the cloud which could provide them a nmber of benifits around security and anywhere anytime access not to mention never having to worry about backups again.

 

 

 

 

What i am saying that 99% of the company that i deal with don't need anything but standard mail features!!

 

I have set them up on a Cloud VM using IMAP accounts and they are happy!!

 

If you take the 500+ email accounts i have got over lots of small business that i look after.

 

Office 365 email @ $6/month * 500 accounts = $36000/year which will give users all these extra features they won't end up using!!

 

I have some customers that use 365 and are happy but its there choice for the extra expense


billgates
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  #1677782 26-Nov-2016 10:02
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Dynamic:

 

Virtualising anything creates its own small set of issues, as you have just added another OS to maintain and another layer that can misbehave.

 

We had a client call late Wednesday advising their network drives were not accessible.  It appeared the guest OS was unable to communicate with the LAN, even though we were able to communicate with the host OS on the same network card just fine.  A reboot of the host server got the guest back online and we scheduled some time this weekend to work on the issue.  Unfortunately the same issue happened half an hour ago and another quick reboot has got it back online once again.  This is on a server that has been in place for just about a year and has behaved flawlessly until now.

 

Considering computers are just a giant pocket calculator, more than their fair share of witchcraft is required.  Especially if you don't want to 'release the magic smoke' as one of my team amusingly chimes in with occasionally.

 

 

Virtualization does not add issues but you rather save on power, resources and physical space. Event logs is the key to your issues. From the issue you are describing it sounds like you need ot turn off.

 

https://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/124202-how-to-disable-vmq-with-powershell





Do whatever you want to do man.

  

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