VirtualBox Microsoft Small Business Server 2011 Standard

[StephenSaid]

As far as I can understand, SBS2011 does not support Hyper-V.
Will I be able to run to VirtualBox with SBS2011 installed. Will I need additional licences for SBS2011?

Since this server is a live server, I need to make the necessary checks before going ahead with the install.

Thanks for any advice.

regards
Stephen

[scottgus1]

SBS2011 was based on Server 2008 r2, which was essentially Windows 7 with the server stuff & less eye candy (I think).
SBS2011 on the physical computer ought to run Virtualbox, and Virtualbox ought to run SBS2011 in a VM, too.

Virtualbox does not need Hyper-V. In fact so far Virtualbox runs better without Hyper-V, and common forum advice is to turn Hyper-V off.

Whatever OS you install in a VM from any hypervisor will need to be licensed properly. Windows OS's must be activated, just like on a real computer. Further licensing questions should be addressed to Microsoft.

FWIW, I ran SBS2003 as the office domain controller & Exchange/file/print server, in Virtualbox on a server-class computer running Windows 7 for several years. It was a swing migration reinstall from SBS2003 physically installed on an older server. It ran smooth as silk.

[BillG]

I assume that you want to run VirtualBox on an SBS physical server (since you mention that it does not support Hyper-V).

Microsoft's general advice in not to run any other programs on a DC. SBS is a special case and is to designed to run the other built-in services, but I would be reluctant to also expect it to support virtual machines unless it is lightly loaded.

You would not need any additional Microsoft licenses (unless you wanted to run Windows guests. They would need to be licensed).