What is Microsoft Centro?

Microsoft has taken the wraps off its a new cut of Windows Server, targeted squarely at midsize businesses, promising to make life easier for system admins who are stretched thin and short on time. 

I was fortunate enough to travel to the Windows Server 2008 Technical Workshop at Microsoft's campus in Redmond to learn about it and bring the news back to APCers.

Previously codenamed “Centro”, the product’s official name is “Windows Essential Business Server”.

Microsoft says it made Centro because although many medium-sized businesses need just as much (if not more) IT support than large corporations, they usually only have a small contingent of full-time IT staff, who are often stretched thin.

These staff are usually supporting a large user base, along with various hardware platforms, printers, photocopiers and even phones.

According to Microsoft, these small and midsize businesses account for around 67% of global server users.

Another major problem for these businesses is that when time for implementation and support is at such a premium, misconfiguration often creeps into the IT environment, resulting in network and server health issues (which become increasingly difficult to track down and resolve) and even a mistrust in your own operating setup.

So Centro -- Windows Essential Business Server -- aims to tackle all these problems.

What you get

The product comes in two editions – Standard and Premium. The Standard version comes with three server types – Management Server, Messaging Server and Security Server.

The Premium version has all these three servers plus a Database Server.

Unlike installing a full version of Windows Server, where as an administrator you need all the necessary time and knowledge to understand the implications of each server module and setting, as well as install all the extra packages like SQL or Exchange yourself, the Essential Business Servers are essentially bundled, pre-configured systems which you install and customise for your own environment.

• Management Server comes with Windows Server 2008 networking services and AD, as well as Microsoft System Center Essentials
• Messaging Server comes with Windows Server 2008 AD, Exchange Server 2007 and Forefront Security for Exchange Server
• Security Server features Exchange Server 2007 and the latest version of ISA (Internet Security and Acceleration) Server
• Database Server comes with SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition
  

Would you like a server with that?

To make life as easy as possible, the deployment process has been streamlined to guide administrators through the most commonly-implemented scenarios.

There are intelligence checks and environment health checks made all the way along the line to minimise the chance of misconfiguration, and yet the whole process has been made quicker.

Microsoft estimates that Essential Business Server only has a maximum of six hours configuration, down from a potential maximum of eighty hours, and 28 data entry screens, down from 129.

Faster server deployment for today's busy admin

One down, two to go

The licensing model has also been simplified – there’s a unified server license and CAL (Client Access License) which licenses you for all the server products you’ve purchased plus user connections (up to a maximum of 250), and the licensing situation is easily monitored through the unified admin console.

The console lets administrators monitor the health of all connected servers from a single location, and points administrators in the right direction to get tasks accomplished, track down problems and keep things running.

The console is also extensible, with some third-party vendors like CA, Citrix, FullArmor and Symantec writing add-ins to enabled Essential Business Server admins control their products easily.

The suite also includes a Remote Web Workplace – very similar to the Terminal Services Gateway in Server 2008 – which gives users an easy method of remotely accessing email and shared resources.

Web Workplace - all your remote needs

Although it has a slight feeling of being a dumbed-down operating environment, many administrators in small teams will be grateful of the simple interface.

As an administrator in a large environment with a small support team, I can certainly vouch for the fact that there are times when you really don’t want to have a read a whitepaper just to check whether you’re doing the right thing.

Having a system which gets you to where you need to be quickly and with a minimum of fuss sounds pretty great.

The only drawback is that I feel Microsoft may have under-estimated what size environment counts as midsize, or that there might be some business networks which are much larger than the 250-user upper limit of Essential Business Server which would nevertheless benefit from such a product (like large schools).

It would be good to see a licensing option made available to cover this section of the market.

A useful thing to know about Essential Business Server is that it’s not a stripped-down version of Server 2008/Exchange/SQL. All the products are full versions which have simply been limited under the license. If a business expands beyond the 250-license upper limit, there is an upgrade license available which simply unlocks the full functionality of all the server products.

James Bannan travelled to Microsoft's Redmond campus as a guest of Microsoft.