With the end of life fast approaching, on July 14 2015, for Microsoft Server 2003 it will be hard for many organizations to make the move to a new Server Operating System, not unlike the pain many organizations are feeling with the move from Microsoft Windows XP.
There are many business related reasons that companies need to start now with their migration to server 2012R2. For example when customers made the move from Windows XP, many found they should have planned more in advance, because many migrations can take 8 months or longer depending on the size and complexity of the environment. Security alone should be a big enough business reason to move to a supported platform, in 2013 Microsoft released 37 critical updates for Windows Server 2003, once end of life happens there will not be any more patches released. By not patching the server environment, you now run the risk malicious attacks, system bugs and PCI compliance.
The good news is that while the move might be painful, in the long run it will be worth the trouble. Microsoft Server 2012R2 offers so many enhancements and new features, that once you have completed the migration and become familiar with Microsoft Server 2012R2 you will probably wonder why you waited so long.
Microsoft Server 2012R2 offers many enhancements, including
- PowerShell 4.0 – PowerShell 3.0 alone has 2300 more cmdlets than PowerShell 2.0
- Hyper-V 3.0 – Supports 64 processors and 1Tb of Memory. Also supports VHDX format for large disk capacity and live migrations
- SMB 3.02 – Server 2003 supports SMB 1.0
- Work Folders – Brings the functionality of Dropbox to your corporate servers
- Desired State Configuration – Lets you maintain server configuration across the board with baselines
- Storage Tiering – Dynamically move chunks of stored data between slower and higher drives
- Data Deduplication – Data compression and now with Server 2012R2 you can run Data Deduplication on Virtual Machines also is great for VDI environments.
- Workplace Join – Allows users to register personal devices with Active Directory gain certificate based authentication and single sign on to the domain.
You can see from just these features how far Microsoft Server OS has come over the last 10 years. Scalability, Speed, Virtualization, Mobile Device Management and Cloud Computing have been vastly improved or were not possible with Microsoft Server 2003.
With current trends moving towards organizations embracing a user centric environment and moving to cloud computing, Server 2012R2 is a stepping stone in the right direction.
So while the migration to Microsoft Server 2012R2 may be painful, all will be forgotten once the organization and Server Administrators, can utilize the new features and notice the new ease of daily management activities.
