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Hosting and Designs LLC has made the recommendation that dedicated server managers and administrators “think seriously” about upgrading to Windows Server 2008 Enterprise to avoid “security vulnerabilities” due to lack patches. The Hillsboro, Oregon-based company offers a range of value-added services such as DDoS protection, Firewalls, and security software alongside WordPress hosting and design services, CentOS VPS hosting and dedicated server options. Its recommendation comes as extended support for Microsoft Windows Server 2003 ends in July 2015.
Windows Server is an Operating System for dedicated servers. Microsoft ending its support for Windows Server 2003 means the corporation will no longer be providing security patches for the solution. This will potentially leave it open to a range of threats that undermine server security. Beyond July 2015, Microsoft will still provide “custom support” for the solution, but at a cost of $200,000 per year - a price which is beyond the finances of most businesses. As such, Hosting and Designs suggests upgrading to Microsoft Windows 2008 Enterprise may “make better sense”. Alongside the cost, “fewer applications and software will support the outdated Windows server 2003”.
“Unfortunately many businesses are afraid of migrating and thinking that the saying “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it” applies to them,” explained the company’s blog. “However, if it should happen that the server does become “broken” due to the outdated Operating System, the results can be painful in many ways, including its finances, stature or image, and uptime or online presence”.
“One main challenge to upgrading from Windows 2003 is the change from 32Bit to the more popular 64Bit,” added the blog. “While this should not be a dead-end problem with no applications and software supporting 64Bit, it is not an impossible scenario. However, worth noting is that if the applications running on the Windows 2003 (32Bit edition) server at the present time are not able to use the newer 64Bit architecture, it should also say something about the applications being used at the time and if they are still an ideal solution for any dedicated server administrator. Applications that cannot use 64Bit architecture is not a good sign”.
Hosting and Designs recommends before migration begins it is best to determine which software and workloads should have priority as these are likely most important to a company’s daily operations. In addition, migration gives companies the opportunity to consider migrating to another Operating System such as Linux or Unix. Alternatively, companies could consider migrating to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or Cloud options.
Is migration to Windows Server 2008 Enterprise edition advisable? What are your thoughts? Add your comments below.
