Technical Considerations
of Server 2003 Migration Four Steps to Smooth the Journey WRITTEN BY CLIVE ANTHONY
W
HETHER you’re a large enterprise or a small business, migrating successfully
from Windows Server 2003 to Server 2012 R2 requires detailed planning and execution. If you haven’t begun server OS
migration planning by now, you’re running out of time: On July 14, 2015, Microsoft will end support for Server 2003. No more bug and security patches, no more updates, no more support, no nothing. Server 2003 will be at final, full end of life. There simply isn’t a sound business case (never mind technology case) for staying on an outdated, unsupported server platform. Planning your migration to
Windows Server 2012 is essential because the technical considerations can be overwhelming—especially if you wait until the last minute to begin the process. Delay is asking for panic, chaos, and disaster over the next few months. Is that how you want to spend your spring? Paul LaChance, Worldwide Data
Center Consulting Portfolio Strategist for HP Technology Services, offered a few tips for enterprises migrating to Server 2012. LaChance recommends a four-step approach: 1. The initial step should be
discovery—a “very critical phase,” he says—in which data is collected regarding the number and location of servers in the enterprise, along with which services and applications are running on specific servers in the data center. Discovery is about figuring out what has to be moved from where, and is pretty important information for a major server OS migration. 2. Next comes an assessment, in
which the internal migration team and service providers establish migration priorities, determining the order in which services and applications are transitioned from Server 2003. Categorize your applications by type, criticality, complexity, and risk.
3. Targeting should be the third
phase of the migration process, LaChance says. As an enterprise customer, where do you want your workloads to be? Unlike 12 years ago, when Server 2003 was new, there are numerous options: on-site server deployments, off-site public and private clouds, and hybrids. 4. Once the first three phases
are complete, migration can begin. “If you’ve done all your planning well through the discovery, assessment and targeting phases, the migration should go fairly smoothly,” LaChance says. Whether you plan well, however,
is largely contingent upon how much time you give yourself to migrate to a modern server OS. If you slap together a plan to migrate Active Directory— or other crucial business and network
services—eventually you will jeopardize business continuity. The technical considerations
involved in a server migration require careful thought and planning. HP offers migration software, services and education to guide enterprise customers through the most significant server migration in a dozen years—just in time to meet the requirements of the mobile-, cloud-, and data-based economy.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Clive Anthony is a Product Manager for the HP Enterprise Group at PC Connection with more than five years of experience in servers and virtualization, storage, data center, and converged infrastructure. Discover more of Anthony’s insights on PC Connection’s official blog, Connected, at
www.pcconnection.com/blog
Don’t Wait for the End July 14, 2015 is the final support day for Server 2003. Begin planning your exit
strategy now and be ready to migrate before it’s too late. Start with our helpful tool and find the right upgrade path for your unique environment, applications, and workloads.
Visit
www.pcconnection.com/WindowsServerEOS to get started. 12
WWW.PCCONNECTION.COM 1.800.800.0014
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