Microsoft Server 2012 End-of-Life Countdown
If you have a sense of déjà vu, it’s for good reasons, you might have read this alert almost exactly one year ago… Consistent with Microsoft’s long-held business practices, Microsoft will stop supporting MS Server 2012 and 2012 R2 on October 10th, 2023.
How quickly a year can fly by, and yet, the longer we wait to tackle this inevitable project, the riskier and more challenging it becomes.
Many businesses depend on Microsoft servers for mission-critical and business-critical operations. These upgrade transitions happen every few years. They are predictable and necessary and yet there is a remarkable level of procrastination that causes these transitions to be painful for the companies that do not build a strategic plan for their upgrade. To help with this transition, Electronic Office is beginning the countdown now.
We understand that upgrading a server that is still working can feel like a distraction that you can put on the back burner. That’s the wrong mindset because today’s cybercriminals will start looking for hacking opportunities as soon they know that Microsoft is no longer providing security patches for the MS 2012 server. The bad guys are every bit as aware of this countdown as we are.
Here is the good news, businesses that plan for this transition early are going to view the upgrade as a great opportunity for business operations improvement. It’s only a difficult experience for companies that wait too long and then try to move too quickly to avoid a catastrophe.
For many companies, this upgrade will be well-timed to develop and execute a strategic integration of cloud computing capabilities. MS Azure is a cloud service that will work seamlessly with the new Windows Server 2022(tm) making this server upgrade the most beneficial upgrade in history.
If you missed EO Advisor’s article about Cloud Migration Strategy, take a moment now to understand all of the advantages that can be recognized while we are working together to upgrade from MS Server 2012 to the best and most strategic solution for your business.
IT leaders consistently emphasize the risks that come with trying to pull off a business-critical server upgrade at the last minute. In today’s climate, the most intense risk is the erosion of cybersecurity protection. Criminal hackers will be seeking out opportunities to exploit old servers that have reached their end-of-life support as soon as MS 2012 expires.
Our goal with the timing of this note is to focus on the benefits — especially the benefits of being proactive. This is an opportunity to deliver a set of financial and operational benefits that the post-pandemic, hybrid working environment demands.
