Hi Ian -
A couple of points:
1) The SBS EULA specifically prohibits using SBS for any sort of
commercial hosting. So as long as these websites are your own, you're ok,
otherwise SBS isn't for you.
2) Are you just looking for a web server, or are you planning on using
this server in its intended role (to run your business on). If you're
planning on using this in your business, we strongly discourage using SBS to
host web sites. Sure the capability is there - but considering that SBS is
also your domain controller and most likely housing your business data,
using SBS also as a web server is a generally a bad idea.
3) Note that SBS licensing does allow you to use SQL to backend public
websites. However - any sort of authentication with the SBS (whether
integrated w/ AD or forms based via a web site or whatever) will legally
require an SBS CAL (the only situation where an SBS CAL is not required is a
pure anonymous connection). Note also that SBS does *NOT* allow a
concurrent connection licensing model, and we have an upper limit of 75 CALs
(either User or Device). As a result, if remote users are authenticating
with the SBS in any way, they will require a CAL - which means that you'll
have an upper limit of 75 unique users - period. CALs cannot be shared -
once a user authenticates and consumes a CAL, they retain that CAL even
after they disconnect. Now, technically speaking SBS does not have the
capacity to enforce this licensing model - but that's what the model is.
Almost always, SBS is not the solution if you're just looking for a web
hosting solution. While it may be cheaper than straight Windows Server and
SQL Server (if necessary) - you're better off in the long run going with
those products as they're better suited for web hosting.
--
Chad A. Gross - SBS MVP
SBS ROCKS!
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.msmvps.com/cgross" target="_blank">www.msmvps.com/cgross</a>
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.gosbs.org" target="_blank">www.gosbs.org</a>
Ian wrote:
> I'd really appreciate some advice on how to choose & set up a
> co-located web server. I need to know what OS / configuration to go
> for. We're going for our own, co-located server because we need total
> control of it. I work in a small team of experienced software
> developers with some technical knowledge (we maintain our own LAN) but
> we're not experts and setting up a web server is pretty new to us.
>
> The web server will be used to host websites only (asp.net based with
> forms authentication). We will require SQL server to support the
> websites and at least two of the sites will require SSL in some parts.
> There will probably be three web sites in total - one busy one, one
> fairly quiet and one very quiet - they will all be our own sites,
> we're not hosting any third party sites. These sites will be for
> public use.
>
> For economy, I am considering starting out with SBS 2003 as this has
> IIS and SQL server. I understand that the 75 CAL limit is not a
> problem if I'm only authenticating users with Forms Authentication.
>
> My concerns are over hosting multiple web sites. I understand that
> SBS can do this using host headers with one IP address but that will
> not work if more than one site uses SSL and so I deduced that we'd
> need a separate IP address for each website instead. Am I right so
> far? How do we configure the server to use multiple IP addresses?
>
> Are there any limits to using SBS in terms of the number of
> websites/IP addresses that it can host? If so, is Windows server 2003
> any different/better in this respect?
>
> Are there better/more suitable options that won't break the bank?
>
> Any advice is greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks
>
> Ian<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
>> Stay informed about: Setting up own web server - comments and advice sought ple.. 
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