As a grizzled veteran of many desktop migrations, I remember (all too well) the many pitfalls and challenges in migrating to Windows XP. Even worse, I also remember migrating to Windows 200. Which is really showing my age. Time to move on? No way. We are getting pretty good now at migrating desktops. We have automated workstation builds, large scale deployment platforms applications and we seem to get getting the update process working without causing major service outages with each month.
Now it is time to focus on our server platforms. Microsoft has a rolling lifecycle policy that details when each platform will receive mainstream support, extended support and also details the final day of patches and bug-fixes to the specified platform. I have included an image from Microsoft’s support lifecycle web page that details the basic structure of how Microsoft supports its applications and development platforms.
As you can see from the chart below, for Microsoft’s Windows 2003 (R2) mainstream support has already ended. This means that though the platform will still receive security updates, Microsoft will no longer respond to feature requests. And, no more complimentary (free) support for Windows 2003. Here are some of the details on the support lifecycle for Windows Server 2003.
Migrating to Windows 7 from Windows XP was a big problem with a host of associated technical and logistical challenges including;
- refresh of desktop hardware was required
- application compatibility issues were a significant technical challenge
- potential complications from a new, more restricted security model were possible
- a browser change (from IE6 to IE 7 or IE10) caused unforeseen migration issues
Now, with the current impetus to migrate from Windows 2003, we are again facing all these issues and the following additional challenges;
- hand-crafted server builds and application installations are difficult to replicate
- there is an increased business risk to higher numbers of users affected by server outages
- database and other server connections and dependencies are more likely and more complex
- older applications may no longer be supported
- cross-dependency issues are exacerbated on newer 64-bit platforms
And if Windows 2003 end-of-life support wasn't enough of an issue, the following other technologies will expire also on the same day (July 15th, 2015);
- Compute Cluster Pack: 14 July 2015
- Forefront Client Security: 14 July 2015
- Host Integration Server 2004: 13 January 2015 (I haven’t heard of this one inyears)
- Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2004 Enterprise Edition: 14 April 2015
- Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2004 Standard Edition: 14 October 2014
- Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005: 13 January 2015
- Systems Management Server 2003 and 2003 R2: 13 January 2015
- Virtual Server 2005 and Virtual Server 2005 R2: 13 January 2015
According to HP, over 11 million systems are currently running Windows server 2003. That’s over 25,000 servers that need to be migrated each day before extended support expires.
The time to start planning is now!
