Windows Small Business Server (SBS) 2011 Standard may not look much different than Windows Server 2008 R2, but it packs a ready-to-go offering for the small infrastructure. When you install SBS 2011, you’ll see that a number of defaults are in place; Group Policy, in particular, has a lot of ready-to-go configuration items for typical environments. The Group Policy configuration has the built-in organizational unit (OU) structure (Figure A) with a default installation of SBS 2011.
Figure A
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Figure A shows every OU expanded, and the SBS computer account that functions as a domain controller.
Numerous default group policy objects (GPOs) are linked to the various OUs of a default SBS installation; most of these GPOs configure many of the default settings of Windows servers and clients that are in line with the ready-to-go placement of SBS. The Windows SBS Client Policy GPO is created by default in the MyBusiness | Computers | SBSComputers OU. This GPO (Figure B) contains a number of settings, including a firewall section, a remote desktop authentication level, and SBS specific settings for Outlook mailboxes.
Figure B
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If you’re making the transition from the mainstream versions of Windows Server, you’ll be pleased to see that a number of other behaviors go along with SBS. For example, joining a member server to the Active Directory domain is mostly unchanged compared to that of mainstream versions except the computer account is not put in the top-level Computers OU. Once the computer account arrives in this OU, a number of default GPOs kick in; one of which is the Update Services Server Computers Policy GPO (Figure C), which will configure automatic updates (download and notify) at a specified time.
Figure C
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This GPO, as well as a number of other GPOs, is a good framework for addressing settings such as remote desktop, Windows Firewall, update policy, Internet Explorer start page and favorites, as well as a folder redirection framework.
Not all of the GPOs automatically enforce their settings. For instance, the folder redirection settings in the Small Business Server Folder Redirection Policy GPO need to have a filter applied to certain security groups or usernames to make it kick in.
If you have tinkered with SBS 2011, share your experiences in the discussion.
