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bnoyzy

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Server Role Best Practises

In a small business environment of less than 75 clients (currently 40) what are your thoughts on best implementations for windows servers and their respective roles?
Currently at a new clients business there is one SBS2003 server acting as domain controller, application server and exchange server and for some profound reason an XP client as the current fileserver.
Anyway... with relation to speed and security is it best to create another SBS2003/2008 server joined to the domain and use it for the fileserver and exchange server and leave the initial server as the domain controller or is it valid to house all roles on a single central server?

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Mestha
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You cannot have two SBS servers on the network.
When going from an SBS Server the first thing that is usually spun out to its own machine is Exchange. Depending the size of the store that may well give you enough space to bring the file server functionality back on to the SBS server. If you purchase a transition pack you will retain the value in the licences that you already own.

Simon.
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Like Mestha said you can't have two SBS servers on the same domain. You can purchase a 2003 or 2008 standard edition which will allow you have another server on the domain.
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bnoyzy

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Thanks for the quick feedback. I totally forgot about that (2 x SBS Servers) as I was in fact reading the same thing the other day in another forum.
So to change my question a little... Are their any reasons (other than sharing system resource loads) to split the server roles over multiple servers?
I know its of course possible to run with SBS and have all roles on that server but are there any security benefits to run SBS server as the domain controller and say a server 2008 with the file, SQL, exchange etc server roles joined to the SBS domain.
Also on a side note... would different CALs be required in a mixed environment (SBS CALs with Server CALs).
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Mestha
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