Exchange 2003 SP2 I Can't wait

It's time to go to sleep here in Ireland, but I had to blog about this, What's the excitement about a service pack I hear you say well simply this, as soon as you apply Service Pack 2 for Exchange 2003 http://tinyurl.com/boew3 scheduled for release second half of this year


the single mailbox store limit in Exchange which has always been 16gb will increase to 75 GB that's a huge increase I think you will agree, does this apply to SBS http://www.microsoft.com/sbs well yes it does, will this make a huge difference you betcha it now means more SBS consultants can with confidence chase larger clients knowing that Exchange will not be the weak link anymore. Lets be clear 16GB 7 years ago was more than enough for 50 or 60 users however given how we use our mailboxes today it's not enough and to be honest this limit has stopped me on more than one occasion putting in SBS and I am delighted to see Microsoft http://www.microsoft.com have addressed this issue finally. Michael Klein in the new Advanced Windows Small Business Server 2003 Best Practices book http://www.smbnation.com/smbPubsSBS2003.shtml published by Harry B's SMB Nation highlights this as a major squeeze point for larger companies.

Talking about the book I am really impressed how detailed and techie the content is, coming from an enterprise background I expected the content to be good but I didn't expect to be pushed hard technically, boy was I wrong, I have to say all the chapters I have read so far have been fantastic, Kevin's on faxing was spot on, Susan's on security blew me away http://www.sbsdiva.com very detailed and a huge number of great tools mentioned. Susan I think you managed to teach and catch that fish !. Michael's exchange chapter gave me loads of new material and made me really enjoy learning new tricks with Exchange.

To be honest I cannot seem to get away from SBS and how working with it and it's users still manages to keep my enterprise skills sharp. To be honest I beginning to think an SBS consultant has to work harder for a living than his or her large enterprise peer.

Comments. heckling any feedback all welcome

Mark