Sandeep & Bert
CAVEAT: I AM NOT NEARLY AS GOOD WITH HARDWARE AND ITS SANDEEP'S SETUP ANYWAY. NEVER USED SBS 2011, BUT I CAN ANSWER SOME QUESTIONS:
Progress report -- if you are interested. Please don't feel obliged to answer; I can probably work this out by myself, but it is very helpful to have your input if you are willing.
Changing to SBS Essentials is not too hard, I think, but I am going very slowly, so as not to upset what already works very well. It is not, however, a piece of cake.
It's not a piece of cake, because you have never set up a server. Also, you are using SSDs. Again, never used 2011 and/or SSDs on a server.
At Sandeep's recommendation I got a SuperMicro server board and E3-1230 Xeon Ivy Bridge processor. Also Crucial 256G SSD for main drive and conventional 1TB drive for backup. Decided I could add a second Crucial drive and a RAID card later if this whole thing works, but wanted to minimize complexity at first.
I could be wrong, but I believe you would have difficulty adding the RAID card later. I would set up your RAID in the beginning. I wouldn't run a server without RAID for redundancy.
Glitch #1 -- put it all together, powered up, and got 4 short beeps. Nothing else. SuperMicro has nothing anywhere about 4 short beeps in their error code list, but dredging the Internet, I discover it is an undocumented beep-code that means "unrecognized processor".
Turns out, the motherboard comes in two versions, just like the E3-1230 CPU, and you have to upgrade the BIOS to make v1 work with v2 Ivy Bridge processor. It's just that you can't tell by looking at the box or the motherboard which version you have (Newegg doesn't know), and you can't upgrade v1 board unless you have the "recognized" Sandy Bridge version of the CPU! SHAME SuperMicro. I bought a Sandy Bridge processor, and hope that NewEgg will take the Ivy Bridge back on RMA. Server works fine, and I'm sticking with Sandy Bridge, v1!
NewEgg will take it back. But, there has to be a way to know the version. I don't build any PCs, generally, without running it by Gary. I may have run it by Sandeep. Not giving you are hard time.
Glitch#2 -- Called Medware (Sage, nowdays) to get some help putting our venerable Medware program on the server. They said it COULDN'T BE DONE, don't even try, and they won't help --so then I am left racking my brains -- how am I going to run a Workgroup for Medware and a Domain for the AC Server in our little office? Can't have two computers at everyone's desk! That won't work.
Medware/Sage/Vitera will run on ANYTHING. It will run on your kitchen table. It is one of the few programs left that doesn't need to install to the registry. Imagine grabbing Word's folder and moving it to another computer. You can put Medware on a flash drive. You could put it on a client and run it from there. They are probably talking about 32-bit vs 64-bit, but you can run it using WOW in the x86 folder. Crazy.
Turns out, Medware will run just fine, so far as I can tell in my testing so far, on the domain, on SBS Essentials -- as long as all the clients that use it are signed in as Administrators. A little security problem, but tolerable in a small office. But sort of makes the Domain into a peer-to-peer network, so not sure what we have gained. Maybe someday the practice management part of AC will actually be useful (my hope is to eventually have it all together anyway) -- running two programs is a little clumsy, but the staff has adapted.
I think you are confused. I don't understand what you are saying. First, sure, it is best practice for users to run as local users, but in reality, that can be a pain in the [censored]. I run every computer as a local admin. But, it shouldn't matter. Just put Medware anywhere, map the drive from you living room
and you should be good to go. WHETHER USERS ARE ON LOCAL ADMIN OR DOMAIN ADMIN, YOU ARE STILL ON A DOMAIN. HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT THE USERS ARE. THE DOMAIN DEPENDS ON USING ACTIVE DIRECTORY AND BEING AUTHENTICATED INTO THE SERVER AND USING DNS AND A MILLION OTHER THINGS SUCH AS ALL CLIENTS JOINING THE DOMAIN.
Now -
Problems to work out before I really deploy this so-far test bed:
1. Backup. Can AC be made to put the automatic backup somewhere other than in the AmazingCharts folder on the main drive? That fills up really fast, especially since SBS only gives me a 60GB partition to put all the programs in. I have to go in and manually delete the old backups, or it won't even work to back up to other, larger drives.
No, it can't. You can use a script or a 3rd party program to get rid of them. I still don't understand the 60GB partition. I guess it's due to the lack of Exchange and SharePoint and the SQL server to run them.
2. I don't understand how SBS partitions the main drive. What is Drive D for? Programs all install on C, and D seems to be reserved for things that SBS does for itself.
The D: drive or partition is for other things. Usually it is for your data such as Medware's databases and AC's databases and any other data you can't afford to lose. It is the key thing to back up. I have C for OS, D for Data, E for installs, F for Other and local backups.
3. I thought I could use the 1TB drive as a backup for Medware and AC -- but if I assign it to SBS backup, the operating system just takes the whole drive and makes it disappear. What? I partitioned the drive, hoping half could be SBS and half AC and Medware -- but no go. SBS wants the whole thing.
If you are using the server to do an image backup, unlike any other backup program, it will convert the hard drive you choose into a backup drive that you can only use for backups. Not sure why you would want to back up Medware and AC with the server backup. Plus, you would want to grab an external drive. Backups to internal drives are fast and independent of the OS if an entirely different drive, but if anything happens to the server (someone grabs it or it fries), your backups are gone. Even if you could partition the drive that SBS backup uses, do you really need 500GBs to backup AC and Medware? Generally, SBS Backup will default to incremental anyway. You will be able to back up five years worth. Why not have AC data and Medware data on your D: drive? Then back up your ENTIRE server or your ENTIRE D: drive to an external drive. You can still do the backups which are included with Medware and AC to an external drive or your extra drive. I would use the TB drive for storage. If AC folder is on D: drive and Medware databases are on D: drive, when you back it up, you will have backups of the backups. While you can't see it, if you go into computer management and give it a drive letter, you can see it.
4. Haven't got remote access working at all yet. Even with manually forwarding the port, the SBS remote access wizard won't work. I wonder if that is because I am still using the evaluation version, and I have to actually buy it to get whatever certificate it is that I need. And Remote Desktop behaves strangely -- at least on the local net. If I use RDP to access either the main server or a client running AC, I can not run AC remotely. It automatically comes up on my local machine! Don't know if it works like that from outside over internet. This clearly will take some work.
I think you are doing too much at once. TS Gateway should be on your server which will allow authorized users to connect to remote computers. TS Gateway uses Remote Desktop Protocol with HTTPS. WIN 7 computers should come with RDC 6.1 and will just need to be configured. Directions can be found
here just above Terminal Services RemoteApp.
Why are you needing to manually forward the port? Once 2011 is installed, you need only set up your Remote Desktop Connection to connect remotely on the network or from the Internet IF you have access to each client computer. As the domain admin, you would by default. Can you give more of a description of how you remote into another computer to access AC, and it comes up on your machine. This will sound incredibly stupid, but when you remote to another computer maximized, the desktop will look very much like your own desktop. I could see where it would appear that AC is opening on your computer.
. If I finally get this test bed working -- this is all being done in parallel with our working office system; the domain doesn't seem to conflict with the workgroup even using the same router -- can I just use the key code on my purchased SBS software, or am I going to have to re-install everything from scratch with the paid-for version?
Yes. It shouldn't conflict unless they are all on the same subnet. But, if all clients are on like 192.168.1.x that would be an issue.
This is all very interesting, and I suppose a useful exercise. It is an intellectual challenge, but it sure sucks up a lot of time! Of course, I can hire my IT guy to do it all, but that isn't the point.
Cheers
_________________________
Tom Duncan
Family Practice
Astoria OR
