End of Microsoft software’s life cycle represents an opportunity to modernize your IT infrastructure
Following the life cycle policy for its marketed software, Microsoft will discontinue support for Windows Server 2003 R2 on July 14, 2015. Likewise, SQL Server 2005, is currently in an extended support phase that will expire on April 2016. Joining them will be Small Business Server 2011, discontinued in 2013, among others. Although these changes may have a considerable impact on companies’ business, Microsoft intends to motivate its clients to migrate to more modern and secure solutions.
The end of support means the end of security updated and corrections as well as a loss of conformity of any Information Technology (IT) infrastructure that is running the software.
Beside the fact that maintenance of outdated IT infrastructures can be expensive, one of the main problems that IT managers must face is if they are willing to place their business/organization at risk by keeping a software solution past its life cycle. To avoid this, Eurotux recommends migrating to more recent versions, cloud services or datacenter.
To correctly address the challenge of migrating, it is necessary to establish goals and idealize the final state of the infrastructure that will be undergoing modernization. Next, an inventory of Windows environments is necessary, in order to understand how many of them are using versions that will be losing support and the respective workloads they are handling.
Once in possession of all this information, the applications that can be migrated with minimal effort and others that require more, should be determined. It is equally important to identify the applications that can be eliminated. Migrating applications that won’t be used represents unnecessary costs in both time and money.
The next step is an important business decision. Eurotux recommends that all options should be considered in order to choose the scenario that best adapts to each company/organization’s reality, specifically, if it makes sense to invest in virtualization, if migration to the cloud is a valid option (for example: Exchange for Office 365) and what platforms can be offered as a service (for example: web servers, databases, hosting).
According to an IDC study, many IT departments do not hone the necessary skill to carry out this kind of migration. This fact can be mitigated by resorting to Microsoft partners such as Eurotux, to aid the transition to new solutions.
The Eurotux team incorporates technicians certified by Microsoft, being qualified to help you in developing a migration plan with the goal of minimizing the impact on your company/organization.
