Need More Info on Server 2012 R2 Essentials

Question

I'm currently running Server 2008 R2 Foundation for my wife's (1 person) online business, and have been looking at 2012 R2 Foundation vs Essentials.  The latter sounds like a better fit, since in my absence, my wife has limited IT knowledge/experience, but
I need more information:
1) Can Essentials be run in a WORKGROUP instead of a domain?  I currently have my server that way, and it serves our needs very well.
2) I read in some of the forums that while essentials allows 25 users, only two can be logged in concurrently.  Is that true, or am I missing something?
3) Server 2012 R2 Foundation DOES NOT require CALs for local LAN users, is this also true with 2012 R2 Essentials?  Also, how much are the CALS for RDP users?
Capt. Dinosaur

Answer 1

Hi again, Grey, and thank you for your response.  I do appreciate your detail, and I'll answer them each in turn.
"1) http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn281793.aspxMust be the domain controller at the root of the forest and
domain, and must hold all the FSMO roles."
Well I guess if it must it must, although I don't understand why the (first) response above states emphatically that a workgroup can be used.  I prefer a workgroup because I understand it much better than a domain setup, and I don't understand Active
Directory etc.  When I bought my server in 2011 I hired someone to set up the os for me.  I also purchased Mark Minasi's book on 2008 R2, but so much of it was over my head.  Fifty five years in the computer business, and today I feel as though
I've never seen one before (hence the name Capt. Dinosaur).  I am, however, signed up for a course in Managing Windows Server 2012 which starts in January.  I hope that helps get through my aging grey matter.  All these initials and acronyms
are total confusion to me, along with my case of chronic CRS (Can't Remember Squat).
"2) If you say you have 3 different users logged into Foundation with RDP I
am not going to argue.  I know the license only allows for 2
administrative connections. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc770759.aspx 
The default connection (RDP-Tcp) only allows a maximum of two simultaneous
remote connections."
I currently have two licenses for 2008 R2 Foundation, and Ithe users who log in to those remotely are
NOT administrator accounts.   I don't know if that makes a difference, but I've had both users logged in from Florida and I was logged in (as an administrator) from a local workstation.  I had to test that early on to make sure
that my two users could log in concurrently, and that I could be logged in to manage the system.
"As a rule we do not suggest you use your server as a workstation. ..."
Maybe I misled you with something I said, but I/we do not use the server as a workstation.  Sometimes, though infrequently, I have to log in to the server directly (as Administrator) to do or fix something, but do not stay on it for
normal work.  When we're home my (Dell Precision Mobile) Workstation is connected to my LAN.  I also do software development on that workstation.  I have a development environment on an external eSATA drive attached to my workstation,
and both a beta and a live environment on the server; I use my workstation to operate all three.
"... And I really have no clue what would happen if you
restored your dell box to something else.  It may fail activation. 
Guess you need to try that sometime. ..."
I have tried it, albeit to another - but completely different Dell box, which is normally the only brand I use;  that's a holdover from my mainframe/minicomputer days when having a mixed shop was seriously avoided - with a clean bare HDD, and it
worked.  When the restoration was executed, True Image asked only that you provide the drivers for the new computer, and they do the rest.
" ... The advantage to the Essentials client backup is it will backup a whole lot of PC's to the server and use data dedupe to keep the backup database small.  So it would backup your wife's PC at
work and the 3 you have on the road."
I should explain that my wife's office is in our basement at home, in a separate room from my computer room.  My wife has a second business making gourmet wine infused jams, and we built a FDA certified canning kitchen
in the basement, and her workstation is there so that she can work at both businesses.  Her workstation, my server and my workstation are backed up weekly to hard drives in a docking station, and stored in a fire resistant safe.  The
computers we have on the road are my mobile workstation and her laptop.  When my daughter comes along, she also brings her laptop.  Since no company information is stored on any of the workstations, only the server data are mission critical. 
"But in any case if what
you have is doing what you want.  You don't seem to want what essentials
offers, Active Directory, Remote Access, or Client backup, so why change?"<o:p></o:p>
I guess I'm something like the man who bought a tuxedo and so now he has to start looking for formal dances to attend.  I should explain that we live in a very rural area - our town has a population of 1,000, 60% of the country is National
Forest, and my home is literally in in it, bordered by it on two sides - and have only a very small technical college here.  I need to learn all about the server OS and how to administer it so that I don't
have to hire someone when something needs to be done, and 2012 R2 is the only course available within 100 miles - up until this year they were only offering 2003, and even that was at a different campus 60 miles away (and over a 2,000' mountain). 
Since the course I'll be taking is for '12,  I'm simply looking to upgrade so that what I have is what the course covers.  All my other computers are running Windows 7 (Pro and/or Ultimate) 
"More on #1 Active Directory gives you group policy and more  control over file permissions than workgroup.  Say you had a folder shared and it had your bank.xls  You could give your wife permission to see it but not your daughter. 
Group Policy is probably not a big deal for one client PC.  The advantage is you can make one setting and it can be applied to hundreds of PC's"
Actually I have remote access now in '08 R2 Foundation, and I'm not sure what Active Directory will buy me, but that could, of course, change when I get into the course.  Not having Group Policies has been a small problem,
on one or two rare occasions, so that could be a game changer for me, but with what I have now, I've been able to set up my political campaign system such that
no one from one campaign can see or access any data for any other campaign.  Also I was able to set up the user accounts so that a remote user logging in
can not see nor execute anything except the campaign system.  Any attempt to do otherwise automatically logs them out.
In summation, you may just have convinced me that using a domain instead of a workgroup, with all it advantages might just be the way for me to go, since hopefully I'll learn all about that when I take that course.  The limitation of only two concurrent
RDS users, however, is still worrying me, and I'm not sure that I'm accurately communicating.  If the
two concurrent RDS user limitation ONLY refers to
Administrator accounts then there's no problem, because any user accounts other than those for my wife and myself,
would not be Administrator accounts.  I can't remember whether 2008 R2 foundation supports
"Power User" accounts, but if so, that would be the highest level any other users would have, and possibly not even that high.
Capt. Dinosaur