Licensing after swing migration and Users clarification 1

[DanielUK]

Hi,

Two questions, I'm a bit confused!

1. Before, I had a Win2k domain and made a swing migration to insert an SBS 2003 Box into the domain. That went well and has been up and running a few months now.

So now, as well as the original 15 Win2k cals, I have a correspondng amount of SBS 2003 CALS. I figured that once the SBS box took over the FSMO roles and global catalog (of which I have 2 x the original Win2k servers still acting as DCs with global catalog), that the workstaions would start using the SBS box cals as part of the new logon process.

Not so, my maximum usage (out of 15 cals) is only ever 3. However, if I look at the cal usage on my other two DCs I see the users are spread amongst these two. Why is that? Does this mean the money I spent on the extra SBS CALS was wasted?

2. Why are users I create on the SBS box put into a separate "MyBusiness" folder under Builtin when I try to find them on my win2k DCs, whereas on the SBS box they appear under Users. I thought there was a replication problem going on until I figured this out! Anything to be concerned about?

Thanks

Dan

 

[ShackDaddy]

When you added SBS, did you purchase "upgrade CALs" to upgrade the existing 15 CALs to be SBS CALs? The upgrade CALs are cheaper, and I assume you did that. Only the SBS CALs allow you to use Exchange for your users, so without them, you are not in license compliance.

My general counsel to you is to not worry so much about the license usage numbers; just make sure that on paper, you have the proper licenses for what you are using. The license tracking technology isn't very reliable, and it typically errs in your favor: I have a network with 93 current users on an SBS 2003 box, and it says there are only 72 licenses in use. We're doing a Transition Pack on it next week, but it just goes to show you that the license tracking is usually way off.

AD FSMO roles have absolutely no relation to the licensing mechanism, FWIW. The licenses were probably just allocated to each client by the first license-enabled DC that they communicated with, and since the SBS box came into the picture late, it doesn't have many used licenses to show, but don't confuse that picture with the real one, which is on paper: what you bought and what you are using.

In SBS 2008, they do away with the tracking mechanism altogether and the burden is completely paperwork-based: you need to be ready to show that you have purchased all the CALs you are using...

On your other question: in an SBS domain, the Group Policies and some of the deeper wizard functionality require that the users be put in the deeper OU: Domain\MyBusiness\Users\SBSUsers. You should do all user creation from here on out with the SBS wizards and you should put all domain users into that OU that I just mentioned. I don't use the ADUC very often for user management on SBS boxes, and you should try to avoid it unless you need some functionality that the SBS Console doesn't provide.

That's not me saying this as a person who tries to avoid anything except wizards: I came from an enterprise environment into SBS management and I quickly found that there's a lot of complexity under the hood with SBS that can easily get screwed up if the wizards aren't used as the primary method for management. It's not that I don't use ADUC, it's just that it's not usually necessary. I spend a lot of time in the Exchange section of the Advanced Management area...

Dave Shackelford
Shackelford Consulting

 

[DanielUK]

Thanks again Dave, I'll not worry about the CALS then as the paperwork works out.

I have used the wizard for the last two users since adding the SBS (which ended up in that OU), it's just all my existing pre SBS users are not in there with them...that's what confused me.

Thanks

Dan

 

[ShackDaddy]

You can go ahead and move your existing users into that OU, and your existing computers into a counterpart OU: MyBusiness\Computers\SBSComputers. That will make all the SBS Group Policies apply properly. They do some nifty things, like make sure that all your workstations can be remotely managed and that the proper local firewall exceptions are in place.

Dave Shackelford
Shackelford Consulting

 

[DanielUK]

Thanks Dave, when you say move is it a simple case of drag and drop?

Thanks

Dan

 

[ShackDaddy]

Select, right-click, choose Move from the fly-out menu.

Dave Shackelford
Shackelford Consulting