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In the spring, Microsoft ended support for Windows XP and Office 2003. And so, it shouldn’t come a surprise that now Microsoft has announced that the end of life (EOL) for Windows Server 2003 is July 14, 2015. Why does this matter to your business? As of July 15, 2015 you will no longer get Extended Support for WS 2003; #WS2003EOL, and that means your security will be at risk.
What does this really mean?
To be a little more specific, the EOL means there will be no more patches or security updates. New threates will not be addressed and your WS2003 systems, applications and business will be at risk. You will be facing a compliance nightmare.
Industry experts estimate that there are more than 10 million machines out there that are still running WS2003 and will soon be left without any support from Microsoft. And if you are in a regulated industry, a security risk means you will not be complying to industry standards and rules. That’s not okay.
What should you do?
There are a few choices to remedy this impending threat, and the choice you make can affect your datacentre strategy, so make sure to review all possible upgrade options. The most traditional method of modernizing your applications — that is, reinstalling, upgrading your machine or rebuilding — can be complex, time consuming and expensive. So, you can consider taking the newer approach of migrating applications onto a new operating system.
Complete disclosure: Brock Office Automation do not offer this service, so reach out to your IT advisors to resolve this issue. Everyone has a core competency, and trying to to do too much jeopardizes it all, so we prefer to work with your internal or contract IT team. But don’t wait too long to make this move; the sooner you act, the easier it will be to stay secure.
