Yes. http://www.amahi.org

Similar functionality, and more. It’s not WHS, but an alternative. Similar, yet different. I run both.

I assume you can build your own appliances as well?

ROFL. Is that an anti-Microsoft mad lib with VAIL in all the blank spots?

@Rafael

This looks quite interesting. I know someone with a server this might cater to.

I especially like that the console will be more customizable.

I’d also love to see more work done toward making WHS a home information hub. Would be nice to have some built in features for family functions like calendar – maybe some form of simplified sharepoint integration. I know I can get SP installed on WHS right now, but it takes some doing to get everything going right.

On media center capability, it would be nice to have as an option. Personally, I like having my media center separate (we have a WMC computer that records video for the whole house and we access it from various locations), if for no other reason than that it gets backed up to the WHS every night. But it would be nice for a lot of people to have an all-in-one device.

As far as an e-mail server goes, I just can’t see Microsoft bothering with this. The number of homes or very small businesses that want to run their own server must be very small. And for companies that do, the full version of SBS with Exchange is perfect.

Do any other vendors have similar functionality? Possibly running on Linux?

Nothing here would indicate some form of Media Center integration. Not sure that is absolutely necessary anymore as Media Center PCs are relatively inexpensive and now with CableCard opened up for most MC PCs to install…there isn’t as much of a pressing need. That said, there are real issues that I believe WHS could resolve around DRM and library management. What I want is to be able to play protected TV recordings from any connected HomeGroup PC. The issue with protected content is that I believe it can only be played back/streamed from the PC that recorded it. If you have a laptop…you are not going to install a cablecard tuner…it just isn’t a practical thing. However, running Media Center on my laptop, I should be able to browse recordings as if they were recorded locally. And if I schedule a recording from that laptop…it gets handled by the actually Media Center “server”. WHS would be a logical place to host a shared database of all TV recordings and facilitiated remote scheduling. The final piece would be a Silverlight app for remote scheduling.

I agree with two of your points but the bulk of the comments are not relevant. WHS is designed to be a fit and forget box that just sits quietly doing its job. Its for the average home consumer not techies – we just like to play.

I don’t get this ask. Exchange is a 4 gig heavy hitter on any server and you want it on Vail? Microsoft doesn’t have any other mail server to give you, so exactly what do you want? Not to mention admin’ing a mail server isn’t trivial.

Let’s NOT forget, even though the data corruption design defect was first acknowledged in April 3, 2007. Dave Sobel, CEO of Evolve Technologies, a Fairfax, Va.-based solution provider, says his biggest concern is that the glitch could interfere with the primary purpose of Windows Home Server — i.e. backing up data.

Which Microsoft had waited until December 21, 2007 to warn the public (KB946676) and it wasn’t until July 21, 2009 did they release a patch in Power Pack 1! When you restore files and folders from a Home Computer Backup, the process may stop when it is 79% to 81% percent complete. This wasn’t fixed until WHS Power Pack 2! It wasn’t until Power Pack 3 was released did WHS administrative console display correctly on netbooks.

In addition, even with Power Pack 1, there remains no way to back up the installed server operating system, nor the backup images from client machines. How does something like this serious data corruption flaw get through to RTM public release? Why did Microsoft continue to sell WHS with a proven design flaw, that causes data corruption?

If you were one of those WHS customers, WHS leaves the purchaser with two choices: 1) lose valuable data or 2) live in mortal fear of losing valuable data!

My point is: if people don’t stand up to this fraud, corporations like Microsoft just get away with anything these days, even data corruption by having us end up paying for our own data destruction.

Now you see how long it takes for $M closed source proprietary to provide you with a solution such as their data corruption flaw! WHS was supposed to be that backup agent, instead of the cause of data loss, right?

So what will be the verdict using VAIL, will this product be locking you into its problematic proprietary?

Will VAIL be basically isolating your data to the VAIL vault?
Will VAIL support USB v3 bandwidth I/O throughput… instead of the WHS 36,854 Days Remaining experience?
Will VAIL be capable of streaming 1080p HD content, MKv, Ogg, FLV, MP4, H.264 video codecs?
Will VAIL provide 802.11.N wireless connectivity for router connections?
Will VAIL provide HDMI or DVI ports?
Will VAIL support DRM, denying your media to be moved around from product to product?
Will VAIL provide Wake Over LAN/Internet support, so I could Remote Desktop from my client PC?
Will VAIL follow the same stupid method of requiring all new USB HDD’s to FIRST be wiped and formatted?
Will VAIL allow sharing client data without requiring the data to be transferred FIRST to VAIL, to be made available?
Will VAIL finally include it’s own email server support?
Will VAIL support OpenGL or DirectX only?
Will VAIL backup it’s operating system so as to restore on new and different hardware, like Acronis does?
Will VAIL be safe to trust your data on?
Will VAIL support Ext4, HFS+ and other file formats or Microsoft NTFS only?
Will VAIL provide MESH networking?

What will your answers be……………..?