Server 2003 and Exchange licensing

BB enterprise is Black Berry Enterprise server.

Ahh..alright, I know it as BES, licensing for you BES server will be based on number of users of course and the price of the user...If you are using Exchange, why not use Exchange Active Sync if you pay for the license to use exchange for your users, you don't have to pay for BlackBerry licenses as well...of course if you are bought into Blackberry and have lots of those devices, there would be costs associated with moving over the user devices to windows mobile...

My company has 25 people right now, and we don't plan on growing beyond 35. What would be the advantage to going to Windows Server 2003 instead of staying with SBS 2003? Can I  assume I won't need the transition pack if i stay with SBS?

SBS has the limitations of only allowing up to 75 users, has to be the DC for the domain, the domain has to be the only domain, can not have child domains. Don't think that it can be clustered and such.

You get a lot more flexibility by using the Standard and more with the Enterprise versions of Windows 2003 server but you have to pay more for licensing.  SBS was targeted for small organization that do not have large IT departments or the space and knowledge to run mulitple servers and platforms.

If you would move to Windows 2003 the first thing I would do is plan your licensing and ensure tha to you sign into a licensing contract with MIcrosoft.  This will ensure you get the best support, cost and operability.  I did a quick licensing assesment on the MS site and pulled this report, these are just rough numbers.  it is attached...this type of licensing give you a lot of added benefits, training for your users, and administrators of server products, home use program.  Can all be financed on a montly basis or you can pay it Annually too i believe over two years, or three years...

You stated having four servers to work with so I would plan the following;

Server 1 - smallest server
Domain Controller
DNS
DHCP

Server 2 - some horsepower with lots of drive space and mulitple partitions. to separate, transaction logs and store databases
Exchange server

Server 3
SQL server - assuming you only use it for SharePoint
SharePoint
Fileserver

Server 4 - Tool server of sorts
Anti-virus server
Blackberry server
Backup server - not sure what you are using for back up?

oh by the way I would also try to add another Domain Controller in your sight too...

I see you already have SQL on a seperate box so ignore SQL in the above comment, you obviously have a seperate SQL license for it rather than part of SBS.

We're leaning towards Windows Server 2003. I'm still trying to price/figure out  the transition pack as a more economical solution for licensing.  Here's a breakdown of my current server configuration, and what I have planned. I'm wondering if I should have asked for one more server!   My 'Server 2' is a 1U rack server, but is barely strong enough to run WIn XP, so I wont be using it in the network.  Thanks for all your help!

CURRENT SETUP:

Server 1 - PIII 1.4ghz (x2) / 3gb ram /  (6) 18gb drives (RAID5)  SBS 2003 25 CALs
  - Exchange, DC, DNS, DHCP, AV, file server ...etc    
                                                                       
Server 2 - PIII 650mhz /  1GB ram  Windows Server 2003
 - BES
 - MSSQL
 - MS Backup



NEW SETUP:

Server 1 - PIII 1.4ghz (x2) / 3 GB ram /  (6) 18gb drives (RAID5)
-      Domain Controller
-      DNS
-      DHCP
-      Anit virus


Server 2 - PIII 650mhz /  1 GB ram  / (2) 18gb drives Windows Server 2003


Server 3 - Core2 Duo / 4 GB ram / (4) 72gb drives
-      Exchange
-      SharePoint
-      Fileserver


Server 4 - Core2Duo / 2 GB ram / (2) 160gb
-      BES
-      MSSQL
-      MS Backup