In the afterlife of Windows 2003 ...

How Westcoast's Professional Services can Fast Track your customer's Windows 2003 Server Migration

As you all probably know, on the 14th of July Microsoft ended support for its 12-year-old operating system, Windows Server 2003. In our previous blog post, we outlined a whole host of risks associated with staying put (read it again here) so it should come as no surprise to you that migration is no longer an option, but a necessity.

At the beginning of Q1 2015, more than 60% of businesses were still running Windows Server 2003, and with the level of migration not picking up pace this remains a major concern and a major opportunity for IT service providers....

How Safe is Your Business Critical Server?

So Windows Server 2003 End of Support has come and gone, and perhaps you’re wondering why you haven’t heard a media storm around a company that’s been hit hard due to not upgrading.

I think we all knew that lack of an upgrade plan wouldn’t cause huge disruptions straight away, but that’s not to say that those who have hung onto Windows Server 2003 are in the clear. In fact, the reality is quite the opposite. The last round of patches from Microsoft didn’t include Windows Server 2003 – so the situation for anyone holding on to this platform is much darker than they perhaps realise.

Server migration isn’t done in a week. In fact, it can take five months to fully complete a server and workload migration project, and even that’s optimistic depending on the size of your business. Organisations that haven’t yet started the upgrade process aren’t running late; they’re far past that point. The longer that businesses go without upgrading, the greater the security risk. On top of that, they’re taking the chance that Visa and MasterCard won’t do business with them due to Windows Server 2003 no longer being PCI compliant, which is bad news for anyone accepting card payments online.

Obviously, we’re talking bad-case scenarios here, but operating with an out of date infrastructure means that organisations are under threat. Every day on Windows Server 2003 is another day that issues can strike.

It’s not unusual for cyber attacks to target unsupported software, and really it makes perfect sense. If a global organisation is running outdated software, virus authors will naturally target it for a chance of fame. The grim reality is that by refusing to upgrade, an organisation is putting more than some data at risk; they’re actively threatening their own future. History is littered with organisations who have lost customer data – and as a result lost their customers too. It’s harsh reading, but it’s definitely worth thinking about.

To move onto happier things, End of Support has done a lot of good for businesses when customers have upgraded. The necessity of having to do something has allowed businesses to have a complete rethink of how they deal with their data, leading to some interesting choices. The most interesting is perhaps the rise of businesses using Cloud solutions. Gone are the times when migration meant a choice of which physical servers to keep in your basement. With the rise of Microsoft Azure and Office 365, organisations have been willing to not only try the cloud, but also consider both options as a valid choice when migrating from Windows Server 2003.

The main messaging to take from Windows Server 2003 EOS is that it’s never truly too late to upgrade. Mark Buckley, Senior Partner Sales Executive for Distribution at Microsoft, had this to say on the subject: ‘Support has now ended for Windows Server 2003, but it’s not too late to migrate. If your server goes down, how long is it until your business starts to lose money? Don’t wait for something to go wrong, and don’t learn the hard way.’

One thing is clear:  if businesses haven’t upgraded yet, it’s not too late. But the longer it’s left, the greater the risk is.

Watch our Windows Server 2003 EOS Video 

If you want to find out more about migration opportunities, contact your account manager or email: sales@westcoast.co.uk 

Businesses may be at risk from not migrating away from Windows Server 2003, says HP's Angela Cross

A significant percentage of businesses are putting their futures at risk and not migrating away from Windows Server 2003 as they think Microsoft aren’t serious about ending support on the 14^th July, says HP’s UK manager for servers. 

Angela Cross, HP’s server country manager for UK & Ireland, believes that an estimated 1 in 3 organisations have not migrated to Window Server 2012, despite the dangers surrounding security and compliance of retaining the soon-to-be obsolete operating system. "Customers are waiting for Microsoft to announce on the 14th July that support will be extended for another 12 months, but they have been very clear on this for the last six months that this will not happen. HP is concerned that customers are leaving themselves badly exposed."

The reason behind this reluctance to upgrade, suspects Cross, is a combination of Microsoft’s track record in extending the life of PC operating systems and the cost to businesses of migrating away from XP last year, which has stretched budgets. "I think there is probably in excess of at least 30 per cent of the market (in the UK), if not considerably higher, that have done nothing.” said Cross.

Westcoast continues to offer services for HP partners looking to help end users migrate from Windows Server 2003, including a webinar covering best practices on the 21^st July and an incentive for purchasers of new Gen9 servers or Windows Server 2012 to win tickets to the forthcoming Rugby World Cup. 

Highlighting Westcoast’s work in helping resellers to provide migration via the Windows EOS program and Upgrade And Win campaign, Cross added, “I don't think it's for any lack of communication. Some end users have decided not to migrate.”

Microsoft has made several warnings that continued use of Windows Server 2003 will bring risks to the security and compliance of business systems, yet as of January this year it was estimated that over 400,000 servers were still waiting to be updated.  "There are potentially customers that are very exposed to huge vulnerabilities," Angela said. "I think businesses take the view that such servers are probably only doing file and print tasks, they’re not frontline so it’s not critical – but it's still an access route into their network and therefore their business, so they are a weak point in their systems."

It is this sheer number of servers yet to be updated, with end users feeling they lack time or resources to undertake critical migrations, that Cross believes presents an opportunity to the channel. “A customer might have perhaps 20 or 30 servers but understanding the vulnerabilities they may contain is difficult if they don't have a sophisticated IT capability. And that scales all the way up to organisations running tens of thousands of servers. Where do you start?"

"Windows 2003, from an HP perspective, is probably running on at least generation 5 or older, so if you had 10 Gen5 servers, you probably need just one Gen9 server to deliver the same performance today. It isn't a hardware-heavy refresh; it's a consulting and transformation project, which is where partners can work with Westcoast to provide professional migration services to their customers and help them move away from retaining a server operating system that will soon become a risk to their operations”

A Time for Change – The Windows 2003 EOS Opportunity is knocking!

From the day this blog has been posted, there are just 130 days until Windows Server 2003 support is ending on July 14, 2015.

Now, for many of you, it comes as no surprise (we hope!) and I'm sure it's something you've been hearing about for the last year.

However, this opportunity for change is now just around the corner and with 900K instances still running in the UK, let alone the millions worldwide, it has been described as one of the largest IT opportunities of this decade.

The Windows 2003 EOS could signal the beginning of a new stage in the evolution of many organisations which is a HUGE opportunity for partners to innovate not only their customers' datacentres, but across the delivery and production of applications that drive their business too.

From hardware/software refreshes to assessment and migration services, the opportunity spans across Windows Server 2003, SBS 2003, SQL Server 2005 and older versions of Exchange for partners to help plan the updates and ensure customers' understand the options.

That all sounds good news for partners..... so what about the challenge?

Well, when we take a look at the migration time estimates (and bear in mind these are on the rather optimistic side!) you will really see that it's no longer 130 days of waiting but 130 days of getting out there and keeping your customers current.

For small to mid-size businesses, a Server Migration is estimated at 30-90 days and an Application Migration can take 60+ days!

2 down, 1 to go!

To help partners prepare for Windows Server 2003 migration, Westcoast has been busy hosting regional roadshows to provide them with everything they need to help them successfully migrate customers from Windows 2003.

The first two roadshows in Birmingham and London have been a great success and have been described as “Excellent and Informative”. Therefore we'd firstly like to thank all those that have attended already and wish you every success in the opportunity that the Server 2003 EOS date is providing!

BUT.... We aren't finished yet! It's not too late to find out what Server 2003 EOS means for your customers.

Please refer your colleagues to come to the next ones or if you haven't managed to attend yet we hope to see you at our final event:

Thursday 12th March – Manchester

Register for your place here