SBS beta and WHS Vail release candidate released
- Monday, 16 August 2010 17:20
Microsoft has released new previews of three of its server products: the first betas of the new cloud-based Small Business Server Aurora and its bigger brother Small Business Server 7, and an updated beta of the second version of Windows Home Server, codenamed "Vail."
The first beta of Vail was released in April. The new version of Windows Home Server provides more robust storage management and better backup options, including the ability to back up Mac OS X computers. Peculiarly, the initial announcement from Microsoft described this new build as Release Candidate 0, but this language has since been removed; this is just another beta after all.
This is just as well; this build contains several known data-loss bugs, so clearly has some way to go before being release quality. As always with a beta, Microsoft advises against using this in any production capacity, and with such flaws in this build, that's probably good advice.
Small Business Server 7 is the next version of Small Business Server, updated to include among other things Windows Server 2008 R2, and Exchange Server 2010. Aurora is a new product that simplifies the configuration and installation, using cloud services for Exchange e-mail and SharePoint collaboration.
Both betas can be had from their respective Connect sites, Aurora here and Vail here.
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