By Philip Churchill on February 04th, 2011
SBS 2011 Essentials RC Available
With all the excitement of Windows Home Server 2011 RC being released yesterday it nearly slipped under our radar that the RC of Small Business Server 2011 Essentials (also known as codename Aurora) also became available too.
Ideal as a first server for small businesses with up to 25 users, you can learn more by viewing the 15 3-5 minute videos which focus on Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials core features and functionality.
To help beta test or evaluate, you can find a copy on Microsoft’s beta Connect website.
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Microsoft has removed option for a self-service certificate from Essentials so users should expect to purchase an SSL certificate to complete the “Getting Started” requirements. Of course you can just choose to not get one as part of the testing of this release candidate, or get one but I would suggest one with the option to change as needed. The latter is possible with http://www.trustico.com but I do not know if that is the case with Microsoft’s two preferred providers.
If you go ahead and use Microsoft to provide a domain name by committing a windows live id you’ll end up with a domain name for remote access such as https://yourchoice.remoteaccess.com so although a self-service certificate is not a choice the latter really helps out; of course the domain names that Microsoft will allow are naturally limited.