[Today's post comes to us courtesy of Jim Holtzman] 

Greetings. I'm a technical writer on the EBS/SBS User Assistance team. I want to learn EBS well so I can write about it with some product knowledge. I currently run SBS2003 at home. I love SBS. Really love it. I want to love EBS. EBS and I need to go out on a date. Here's my plan:

1. Set a budget of $2000 to purchase a server capable of running EBS virtually. I also love virtualization.
2. Research hardware requirements for a new server.
3. Find a server that meets my budget and requirements.
4. Purchase the server.
5. Research virtualizing EBS.
6. Prepare the server for virtualization and EBS.
7. Install EBS.
8. Migrate SBS2003 to the new server.
9. Evaluate the dating experience.
   

I plan on doing a running journal of this process on the blog. This post starts the journal.

Please note: this journal is by no means an accurate representation of what you, the customer, would go through in a production environment. First, you're much smarter than me. Second, you have more budget than me. Third, you have much more IT experience at the mid-market level than I do. So, this experience should be taken for what it is - setting up EBS to run on a home network, virtually.

Let the dating begin!