Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 and Interaction with Small Business Server 2011 Essentials

I know I have talked before about Windows MultiPoint Server 2011, and how it can help your Small Business with thin clients, old clients, seasonal employees and even reducing the number of machines in the office by getting one nice one.

I wanted to touch on this again, now that the Release Candidate of Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials is available. With this release of SBS 2011 Essentials, a new level of integration between MultiPoint 2011 Premium and SBS 2011 Essentials is here. MultiPoint has some features that just work well with SBS, and vice versa. Let’s take a look at those so you know what to expect. You are required to get MultiPoint 2011 Premium for these features to work as that's the version that allows domain join.

1. MultiPoint Server Premium can Join the SBS 2011 Essentials Server

That’s right, MultiPoint can go straight to http://server/connect and join just as if it was a client computer. As the MultiPoint administrator on one of the local sessions, simply browse to the server /connect page and click the Join this Windows PC. The join is pretty seamless, which then brings us to the next point…

2. Domain users can log into the MultiPoint 2011 Premium Server

Once domain joined, the MultiPoint server allows all domain users to log in as standard users to the server. This includes local sessions or remote TS sessions. This can essentially render the Users tab of MultiPoint useless to you, but now you can manage your users from inside the Small Business Server 2011 dashboard.

3. MultiPoint Server shows up in the SBS 2011 Essentials Server Dashboard

Yep, you can see your MultiPoint server in the dashboard, just along with your other clients, it appears online or offline depending on the state of the server.

This now brings me to my next point, because you probably saw that the backup status of this MultiPoint server is Successful

4. MultiPoint 2011 is backed up by SBS 2011 Essentials

Yep, as if it’s a client computer, the MultiPoint 2011 Server is backed up as if it’s a client computer. In fact, it’s the *only* server operating system that can be backed up by the SBS 2011 Essentials backup engine.

5. MultiPoint appears in the Remote Web Access of SBS 2011 Essentials

Last but not least, the MultiPoint 2011 server automatically appears in the Remote Web Access for SBS 2011 Essentials, and users can connect directly to this server remotely.

Using the SBS 2011 Essentials dashboard, you can control which users have access to this computer simply on their user properties object

There you have it. As mentioned before, MultiPoint is a TS-in-App-Sharing server on steroids. You can use local settings via USB, or remote sessions using either thin clients, remote computers, or just local computers you don’t want to upgrade to Windows 7, but still have this experience. The more users you configure to connect, the better the hardware you should configure.

While this is all content that applies to RTM, currently SBS 2011 and MultiPoint 2011 are in Beta.