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back to article Windows Server 2003 custom support could cost MILLIONS

Business leaders who dismissed calls from the IT department to migrate off Windows Server 2003 as nothing more than a maintenance exercise could be left rueing a potentially costly seven-figure financial howler. Extended support for the OS expires on 14 July, meaning no more security patches or updates from Microsoft after …

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  1. 's water music

    Shirley

    Shirley people still running WS2k3 have either got it adequately isolated or else they have no need for 'upgrades of other things, careful testing and finally rolling it out in batches of server in phases' before rollout.

    1 1 Reply
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Move off Server 2003? you have to be kidding.

    One of my customers uses it and when I proposed a migration to Server 2012R2 I was laughed at.

    This means that they will have to spend money not only on Software but on Hardware as well.

    Their existing software is 32Bit and the underlying hardware has very limited expansion capability. Some of the products they use (no support contract) are only 64bit for Server 2012 and they will have to pay for the whole license again. That is some $200K alone.

    They a bunch of Scrooges. They even had to suffer a 36hour outage due to a PSU failure to invest in an MSCS solution rather than a single node.

    I know that they are not unique. In an industry that can pay close to $50M for an operating unit, they won't spend a dime on any optional support.

    thankfully the customers in places like Egypt, Doha, Indonesia are far more receptive to upgraded. One even had a three year upgrade cycle in their operational plan.

    0 1 Reply
    1. Barnie
      Reply Icon

      Re: Move off Server 2003? you have to be kidding.

      I've had similar situations. Solution: Linux + Samba (possibly using an all in one like Zentyal) and create a virtual 32bit environment for the legacy stuff.

      4 1 Reply
  3. billium

    Although some of those servers are specialised, I would imagine alot of those servers are just file and mail servers that will just migrate without problem. One of my new customers has one and probably does not even know what it does. I will just migrate his stuff to a linux server.

    2 1 Reply
  4. Mage Silver badge
    Happy

    Win 2003 Server

    We installed it and found it very bloated compared to Win2K Advanced Server, so in 2011 we migrated to Linux for all servers. (Been using some since 1999). We'd already put mySQL, Apache and PHP on Win2k instead of IIS and MSSQL earlier.

    Don't miss Win Server. But then we migrated from Exchange in 1998 and never used Sharepoint. Both horrible.

    Columbia Internet never installed Server 2003

    Wonderful cartoon documentary about a small Canadian ISP

    0 0 Reply

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