SBSMigration.com

As a first time customer you may choose either a Technician Kit, a Technician Kit Professional or Duet Bundle to open your account as a membership at SBSmigration.com. View First Product Choices to see a comparison of these products.

The First Purchase Products each represent a "bundle" of features (or product elements) to provide you with a set of materials, support, and updates and access to the website to get you started. You have to right options for a single project solution, or a set of professional resources maintained over time. Members can then order additional features (product elements) individually as separately priced options as feature upgrades for your account and resources.

 

As a member, this is the central resource management feature. All of your accounts, project scenario library, support case credits and history are accessed from a single location uniquely for you or your company's resources.

This section of the website is not visible to the public, or to other members. Members have shared access to the Discussion Forums and related peer-to-peer discussions.

You can redeem a support credit from your First Purchase product or a separate purchase of a 1:1 Expert Support Case in order to receive detailed personal support on one project. A project is one "job" from start to finish using the documentation and tools for the applicable scenario.

 

Therefore a business migrating their own server would be "one project" in scope, or a consultant doing the work for that business can obtain support for that "one project". The scope of support is defined based upon the scenario reference. Issues and topics not included in the scenario scope are likely out of scope for the support case.

Your support case benefits include:

• Priority - Highest Technical Support Response
• Spans Full Project Scope - Improves accuracy and speed of support
• Persistent Case Management - maintained on your account
• Private Discussion Thread - not viewed in general forums
• Extended Support - Remote Access Diagnostic and Log Analysis
• Large Attachments - Provides Upload for large Zip/Logs (larger than general forum allows)

Whether your account is based upon owning a Technician Kit or a Subscription, you may continue using your aaccount quite easily if you establish a subscription.

The pricing and features will be the same in either case. Add a 12 month subscription and everything you have is maintained and extended for 12 months. Renew an active Subscription to maintain your resources with updates, use of the website resources and the best price on adding future products and scenarios.

For customers with an active account or returning with an expired account, SBSmigration.com also provides some additional product options sold individually.

Once you have an account established, your options to purchase individual element products separately allow cost-effective options to extend your account with:

• Logon Account(s)
• Website Access Subscription period
• 1:1 Expert Support Case credit
• Project Scenario materials (docs and tools for a specific scope of work)
• License to use the product materials you obtained

Our First Purchase products checkout sequence will register your product and establish an account on the website. This account allows you to immediately obtain your product as a download, to obtain online support, use of additional online technical resources and to manage your own account resources directly from the My Account section of the website.

When you make your purchase it will include at a minimum a combination of at least the following items:

• Logon Account(s)
• Website Access Subscription period
• 1:1 Expert Support Case credit
• Project Scenario materials (docs and tools for a specific scope of work)
• License to use the product materials you obtained

When you choose your product purchase you specify the project scenario you intend to work. A project scenario is defined by the endpoints of your project.

For instance, you may be interested in migrating an environment from 2003 to SBS 2008. That's a one scenario. A different scenario would be for 2000 to 2003. Here's a list of scenarios shown on the First Product Choices page, then tab select the Project Scenarios

Project Variations can be thought of as alternative paths of construction, or Microsoft product or media variations also supported by SBSmigration.com within the definition of a particular Project Scenario.

For instance, in considering the 2003 to SBS 2008 scenario, some common variations would be the choice to virtualize servers, choosing not to migrate an existing Exchange Organization, or to migrate while adding additional servers in the final operations.

When purchasing a Kit for yourself, by default you likely prefer to have a single account for managing your SBSmigration.com resources and designate the License Owner and the registered Technician as the same person, using one logon account. This is simple and convenient.

For a company having more than one account may may sense. It may be more practical to have unique logon accounts separately identifying the License Owner for the company, plus another logon account delegated by the company to be used by your staff member Technician. The License Owner account controls and maintains the ability to update the Technician Role registration if you need to indicate a different person is now your Technician. This allows a company to retain ownership and control of a license if your staff member leaves your company or is reassigned to different duties.

Each scenario you purchase includes materials (docs and tools) which are licensed for continuing use by the person registered with SBSmigration.com.

All products currently offered from SBSmigration.com include a license "to use forever" on as many projects (jobs or occasions) as you wish, but only work performed by the person registered to this license.

For a consultant this means you may do work for as many customers, servers, domains or projects as you wish, but the license and materials cannot be transferred.

For a company you have the option license just one person, or more than one person can be added to the licensing via purchase of an additional Staff License. The Staff License registers another person to have use of the SBSmigration.com website with their own logon account, and access to the same library your company has established. Expired Staff Licenses retain the same continued use for the person registered.

For any license established at SBSmigration.com you can revise the registration as long as your account is active, but once an account expires the registration remains static to the person we show in our registration database, it's not transferable.

For a company with more than one technician doing migration projects it makes sense to add a Staff License for each technician doing work.

This provides them a separate logon account and online resource tracking, but still sharing use of the Library materials the company has already established. Staff Licenses must be renewed individually on an annual basis.

Upon completing your purchase, you proceed into the My Account section of the website which is available only to customers with an active account.

The Library is your resource organizer and includes links and information about each Project Scenario available and those scenarios you have selected to use from your purchases.

The Duet Bundle Subscription provides a discount price bundle that includes 1 scenario you choose during your purchase, plus two additional Library Credits established for your option to redeem later.

Redeeming a Library Credit is quite simple. The Library indicates any credits you have, and any available scenarios you have not yet added to your Library. You can click on a resource you want to add, accept the option to redeem a credit and that resource is immediately available to you.

Any active account can also make a separate purchase of a single Library Credit if you want to use an additional scenario that is not included in your Library from a previous purchase.

Any first purchase activates your account for an initial subscription period. Technician Kits create an account active for 90 days, Duet Bundle Subscriptions open a 12 months subscription.

Either way, you account can be extended with a 12 month Subscription renewal, or an "upgrade bundle" that includes additional subscription time.

Your account Library will contain at least the one scenario from your initial purchase as long as you maintain your account under a subscription. If you allow your account to expire you will forfeit the maintenance of your Library, and your account will no longer provide access to the Library or other member support resources on the website.

SBSmigration.com offers a 30 day grace period following the expiration date of an account. During the grace period your logon account can access the renewal purchase options and obtain the same pricing offered to an active account.

However, your accounts no longer gain access to the Library, Discussion Forums or other technical resources. If you renew during Grace Period your account retains all your previously established resources and normal access resumes.

Prior to the expiration date you will receive "online" renewal notifications in your My Account section, and you are notified by email to alert you of the option to renew before the expiration date.

Renewal options apply to an account that is active (or in Grace Period) and extends the current features and benefits.

Reactivating an account is required once an account has expired. The account becomes accessible to the owner following a new purchase, but some previous resources and maintenance of previously purchased online scenario will not be reinstated.

If you maintain an account as an active account (never becoming expired) your Library of resource are maintained with updated information as it becomes available.

If you allow your account to expire, you can reactivate your account with a new purchase. As a returning customer you will receive courtesy pricing options. However, in reactivating your account your Library will only include the project scenario materials from your new purchase. (The previously expired materials will not be in your library unless you choose to repurchase them again.)

Your account history and management will remain available from previous activation and purchases. This means you will not need to recreate contact and logon settings, but your licensed materials will require repurchase.

SBSmigration.com recognizes the incredible value provided by local IT Pro groups who meet and exchange ideas among the membership. And yet, it's a challenge to identify just where the payoff is until you actually look into it yourself. For this reason, we offer a Sponsored Group discount for those participating in a local group to encourage and reward that community effort.

SBSmigration.com welcomes contact by group leaders who would like to obtain a sponsorship for their group, you can get more information or register on the IT Pro Communities information page.

Please note that SBSmigration.com does not provide discount codes directly to members, this is arranged only by contact to the group leadership. It is up to the group to determine the qualifications necessary and to provide the discount code to those who qualify to that groups criteria and benefits arrangements.