All, Thought this might help at least some of you ... this knowledge has certainly helped me plan for my future as well ... https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/window-server-docs/essentials/get-starte... As you'll notice ... essentials now supports multiple domains; I've yet to determine what this means for those using the essentials Experience role within a Standard edition or Datacenter Edition environment, but at least for those wanting to keep their skills up outside of work, or who might run a small business, and either don't have the budget or the MSDN subscription to grab every single Microsoft product in the book, this could be an option for you guys. In 2012 R2, I tried the Essentials Dashboard, and I'd recommend for accessibility's sake, you ignore the simplified functionality, or at best, use PowerShell scripts (every configuration available via GUI is available via PS), or just use the normal Server Manager tools. With these domain-related enhancements, I might be able to cut out an entire swath of servers I thought I might have had to deploy. (separate file server, separate Direct Access connection). I'll look at this more, and if I find anything interesting either in articles or in my own testing, I'll let you know.