Virtualization of EBS

What does this mean to the business decision maker? Well, you may not need to install EBS Standard on three physical servers, thus lowering you hardware costs. Virtualizing EBS allows easier maintainance and replacement of your physical servers.

Please read more about Virtualization and Hyper-V at http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/default.mspx. Feel free to ask me questions though.

-Chris

Essentail Business Server for Mid-size Businesses

Are you looking for a platform to support your business as you grow in the mid-size market? As a business owner, you may not findyour networking infrastructure very interesting until it effects your line of business applications or email. Do you want a solution designed with best practices in mind?

EBS provides a mid-size business (25 to 300 clients, i.e. laptops, desktops, mobile devices, etc.) with a core infrastructure solution which is easier to set-up and maintain throughout its lifecycle. EBS simplifies many of an IT professional's tasks, so that he or she may focus more of their energy on planning and supporting core business functions. EBS leverages best practices to integrate technologies for a mid-size business. EBS Premium even provides a fourth server with MS SQL Server 2008 for Line of Business applications.

EBS Standard which is a three server solution:
Windows Server 2008 technologies
Networkingetworking
Active Directory
File and Print
Ssytem Center Essentials
Exhange Server 2007
Forefront Secutirty for Exchange Server Standard Edition
Newest Version of Microsoft Internet Security & Acceleration Server

Essential Business Server website

The EBS website is multiplyyourpower.com.

I will start blogging about the exciting opportunities EBS provides for IT Professionals and our partners. I will also blog about the business value EBS delivers to a mid-size business, 25-300 IT users.

Stay tuned!

blogging at Microsoft

I just came out of a meeting discussing blogs with the Windows Essential Server Solutions team. We are brainstorming the launch of a blog to be hosted on microsoft.com. There is a lot of excitement around blogging which is great, but I am concerned about capturing the sense of trust and community with an "official" blog. I had four blogs for two products at my former company, 2 internal and 2 external. While I was not as active on my external blogs due to our sales strategy, my internal blogs were very informal and quickly became 2 of the top 10 blogs.

What are your thoughts on a combined Small Business Server and Essential Business Server (Mid-size business) hosted by microsoft.com? Who do you think the target audience should be? Are there any objects you want included? What are your concerns or criticisms about current blogs hosted by Micorsoft?

My initial thoughts are that each product should have a blog for each community. As the Product Manager for EBS, my initial thoughts are to:
1) Keep my unofficial blog so that I have an informal blog where you can get to know me and the product. I want you to know who you are blogging with.
2) EBS blog hosted by Microsoft for the IT Pros which may build a community theme around becoming a Hero at your company.
3) EBS blog for buiness decision maker, partners and OEMs to dsicuss the business values of EBS.

Cheers,

Chris

Product Manager for EBS

Hi,

I am the Product Manager for Windows Essential Business Server (EBS). While we have other more official product blogs for EBS, I am launching this blog to generate an informal setting to chat about the product and get your feedback. This blog does not replace Micorsoft Connect for our Technology Adoption Partners nor the newsgroup for the Public Preview offering of EBS. While those communities include a bunch of developer and IT professional technical discussions, I hope this blog will include more business decision maker discussion, i.e. the business value of features, reasons to deploy EBS, success sotries, testimonials, etc. I would not only appreciate postings of product strengths, but also gaps.

Cheers,

Chris