Small Business Server 2008

In Windows Small Business Server 2008, the biggest change will be memory. Microsoft recommended 1Gb of memory in SBS 2003. For SBS 2008, you’ll be installing a minimum of 4Gb. You’ll also need to double the clock speed – SBS 2003 had a recommended 1GHZ processor speed, and while the 2008 version will support that, a 2GHz speed is recommended. Much of the increase will be down to the 64-bit requirement – you’ll need a 64-bit machine to run SBS 2008, thanks to the inclusion of Exchange Server 2007.On the upside, whereas SBS 2003 required another license if you wanted to run a separate server for compute-intensive database applications, SBS 2008 Premium includes a license for a second server out of the box. The second server can be physical or virtual and like Windows Server Standard you get a 1+1 licence so that if your second server is running on a virtual machine you can also run a copy of the OS on a physical machine to host or manage it. If the second server is running virtually on the same machine, remember to increase the hardware specification significantly.