Chapter 3. Migrating and "Upgrading" to Small Business Server 2008

As of the publication of this book, less than 5 percent of the small-business world has upgraded from Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 to Microsoft Small Business Server 2008. There are many reasons for this: SBS 2003 still works perfectly well; certain businesses do not need all the features and functions of SBS 2008; and, based on the age-old adage that serves nearly all of systems administration, if not information technology, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

But if you've purchased this book, there is a strong chance either you are a small business looking to upgrade from your current infrastructure or you are an information technology professional interested in understanding how to migrate from one SBS infrastructure to another. The key concept in that sentence is the word migrate. There is no direct way to upgrade from SBS 2003 to SBS 2008, mainly because SBS 2008 uses a 64-bit architecture, rather than a 32-bit infrastructure. Moreover, the Active Directory infrastructure has changed a lot since Windows Server 2003, so overall, the idea of simply migrating to a new server, rather than upgrading, is a sound concept. This way, you won't have to deal with the annoyance of upgrading to a new version of the operating system and having legacy aspects of the old system bog down the new system. Just imagine what used to happen when people upgraded from Windows 98 and 2000 to Windows XP Professional but on a server level!