[ad_1]
Microsoft dangles three years of additional support for clients running Windows Server 2008 or SQL Server 2008 when they move server workloads to Azure's cloud-based Redmond server.
SQL Server 2008 – and its follow-up, SQL Server 2008 R2 – leave the support on July 9, 2019, or less than a year from now. After these dates, the server software will not receive security updates, making it vulnerable to hacker attacks exploiting uncorrected security vulnerabilities.
In an effort to entice customers to migrate to the cloud, Microsoft announced last week that it would provide an additional three years of support for Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 when the workloads of these systems would migrate to managed Azure or Azure SQL Database Instance virtual machines, respectively. (The latter is a new service to be launched in the fourth quarter.) Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 workloads transferred to Azure will receive fixes for vulnerabilities rated "Critical" or "Important" until January 2023 ; SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 will receive fixes for bugs designated as "Critical", with the end of additional support coming in July 2022.
Servers migrated to Azure must be covered by Software Assurance to be eligible for all three [19659002] This new system, called "Extended Security Updates", replaces a previous Microsoft Supplemental Support Program called "Premium Assurance" for Windows Server and SQL Server. The company Redmond, Wash. Launched Premium Insurance in December 2016 and began selling it three months later.
Premium Assurance has offered up to six years of additional support for a series of Windows editions and SQL Server – not only the 2008 varieties – prices up to 12% of the cost of licensing current per year. Premium Assurance was itself a replacement for the even older "Custom Support", a very individualistic program that extended support after the usual 10 years but was not generally discussed publicly in detail.
Now Premium Insurance is dead. "We will no longer sell Premium Insurance, but we will honor the terms of Premium Insurance for customers who have already purchased it," Microsoft said in an FAQ ( download PDF)
Although extended security updates are free If workloads are moved to Azure, customers must pay the usual fees for Azure VMs or the SQL Database managed instance. Azure costs can be reduced by taking advantage of Microsoft's Azure Hybrid Benefit service, which, according to the company, can reduce prices by 80% for transferring Windows Server workloads to the cloud and up to 55% for migrating SQL Server workloads. A savings calculator on the Microsoft website allows customers to determine how much they are saving.
Companies that do not move or can not move their Windows Server 2008 or SQL Server 2008 Azure workloads to site can also sign. for extended security updates, but the price is high: 75% of the total license costs annually. Under premium insurance, the customer would pay 12% of the license each year, which would make the new contract six times more expensive.
The same 75% is also the price that companies have to pay for extended security updates. use a third-party hosting service to park their Windows Server 2008 or SQL Server 2008 workloads.
Unsurprisingly, Microsoft has simultaneously invited companies to upgrade to the latest versions of Windows Server and SQL Server – 2016 for the first, 2017 for the latter – even though he touted the extensive security updates to avoid doing so.
"Now is the time to consider refreshing your server infrastructure," says Takeshi Numoto, a senior executive at Cloud-Enterprise Group. "Today's hyperconverged servers and solutions can provide important security features, as well as significant performance and cost-efficiency."
More information on removing Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 are available on the Microsoft Web site. Join the newsletter!
<! – Leading provider of daily news on the computer channel, covering business, technology, products and services. ->
Error: Check your email address.
