RE: FYI: ISA on SBS
- From: "David V. Dellanno" <ddellanno@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "[ISAserver.org Discussion List]" <isalist@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 08:23:41 -0400
Hi Wayne,
I admit that SBS2003 is pretty kewl and has everything an admin
should have at his fingertips to run a small business with super simple
wizards and Server Management Console, plus making the admin who sets up
such a box a superstar, demonstrating how fast such a solution can be
completed. I will agree that initial price of the solution is
inexpensive for a small guy that will provide a big business solution
but I don't think that the whole cost solution about SBS is being
explained to the client about the initial install to the life-cycle
cost.
-------
$$$$$ The cost factor for just the basics.
A single server solution would require a complete redundancy
(power-supply, hot swap RAID-1, RAID-5, tons of memory, mult-proc, and
etc.)
What about have a spare SBS server in cast the server were to go down or
needs to be services that might take a day or two to be completed. This
would depend on the recovery policy you have agreed on. But if you
have 50 employees down for a day, that's 50 * 8hrs = $$$$$ lost
A backup solution for 50 users plus SBS Data storage and how long will
your backup retention period be?
Lets not forget Anti-virus solution.
Not to mention the number of workstations that would also be supported
and protected!
---------
When it comes to cost for a small guy, and I might be generalizing here,
but it seems that security takes the back seat. The company will
invest a pretty penny for what we would consider the essentials but I
would go out of my way to protect the services and resources by not
putting a firewall solution on the same server it does not make sense.
Yes, this would break SBS Server Management console, so you can't take
advantage completely of their monitor reporting tool but the advantage
of having your firewall separate from the resources you are protecting
and the extra cost to implement a two server solution would be well
worth it.
I know SBS2003 is using RRAS as their firewall and I understand the
advantage of ISA's caching capability is a huge benefit for you, but
this goes to show that Microsoft is making the responsible decision to
not have ISA on the same box and are concern about their products not
being secure enough. Just looking at the basic essential cost for both
HW & SW for SBS shows the argument for the need to have a Firewall
solution (either ISA 2000 or other firewall solutions) added to the cost
of SBS2003 would not impact the whole solution cost, it may be an extra
$2k-$4k.
I really like the idea of SBS but there is a significant cost to
implement, support, and the life-cycle for this solution. Singling out
ISA should not be the factor of keeping the cost down, it should be the
last thing to consider.
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