{"id":70794,"date":"2014-07-29T21:09:21","date_gmt":"2014-07-30T01:09:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbachnet.wwwmi3-ss40.a2hosted.com\/index.php\/"},"modified":"2022-03-19T16:00:40","modified_gmt":"2022-03-19T20:00:40","slug":"clock-ticking-on-server-2003-deployments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/clock-ticking-on-server-2003-deployments\/","title":{"rendered":"Clock Ticking on Windows Server 2003 Deployments"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Clock<\/a>Now that everybody has worked Windows XP out of the PC fleet (LOL<\/a>), another Redmond deadline looms.\u00a0Microsoft<\/a> (MSFT<\/a>) will be ending all support on the venerable workhorse of many organizations, Windows Server 2003.\u00a0Windows Server 2003 (and R2)<\/strong> will cease to be supported by Microsoft on July 14, 2015<\/strong>. Yeap that is less than one year.<\/p>\n

\"Windows<\/a>Paul Mah<\/a> at FierceCIO<\/em><\/a> explains<\/a> that Windows Server 2003<\/a> will be end-of-support<\/a> phase on July 14, 2015, and will no longer be updated with security patches and bug fixes<\/strong>. He points out that companies that continue to run Windows Server 2003 July 14, 2015, will start to fail standard compliance audits. Regulations such as HIPAA<\/a>, PCI<\/a>, and SOX<\/a> require regulated industries to run on supported platforms. Michael Cobb at SearchSecurity<\/em><\/a> reminds us that most compliance and regulatory standards consider running end-of-life software as a control failure.<\/p>\n

FierceCIO<\/em> estimates that custom support agreements<\/strong> for Windows Server 2003 will have a hefty price tag of $200,000 per year<\/strong>. The article quotes Brad Anderson<\/a>, Microsoft corporate vice president of Windows Server and System Center, “If new issues do happen to be found, the only way to receive additional updates will be through a custom support agreement.”<\/p>\n

\"End<\/a>Compliance considerations aside Windows Server 2003 would have been in operation for 12 years at that point. The article says companies that continue to use an unsupported platform could find support for some server applications suspended–including all Microsoft applications.<\/p>\n

Microsoft is expecting a large number of existing deployments to be migrated to its latest Windows Server 2012 platform. This mandatory migration could help MSFT with its market share against is virtual nemesis VMware<\/a> (VMW<\/a>). Mr. Anderson says a lot of Server 2003 machines need to be upgraded.<\/p>\n

The fact of the matter is that there is a significant amount of Windows Server 2003 to upgrade around the world. We estimate that there are more than 15 million physical servers that are likely to be upgraded over the next 12 months.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Windows<\/a>Migrating millions of servers to Windows Server 2012 gives Microsoft’s virtualization technology, Hyper-V, a big boost, noted eWeek<\/em><\/a>. This is because Windows Server 2003 doesn’t have any virtualization technology<\/strong> baked in, unlike Server 2012 which comes with Hyper-V for support for up to 1,024 active virtual machines (VM) and up to 1TB of memory per VM.<\/p>\n

The clock is ticking though for companies looking to make the switch. The FierceCIO<\/em> article reports the average Windows Server migration takes 200 days<\/a><\/strong>. This means that organizations looking to get started very soon, or risk running out of time.<\/p>\n

Over at SearchSecurity,<\/em><\/a> Michael Cobb, CISSP<\/a>, offers a starting point<\/a> for migrating from Windows Server 2003.<\/p>\n

\"Upgrade<\/a>Start now –<\/strong> Mr. Cobb warms that phasing out Windows Server 2003 will be a complicated process<\/strong> there are choices that must be made that will affect infrastructure strategies for the foreseeable future<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Hosted Services<\/strong> – Organizations using hosted services will have no choice but to update their legacy software<\/strong>. Mr. Cobb says providers will ultimately force customers to upgrade from Windows Server 2003 so that they can continue to provide the support and security promised in their service-level agreements.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Enterprises have a couple of upgrade options when it comes to retiring Windows Server 2003 according to Mr. Cobb.<\/p>\n