CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Clive Anthony Jonathan Clark Josh Feinburg Camden Haley Kevin O'Connor Dave Olivier Lane Shelton Bill Virtue


EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Kristine Holloran


CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Katie Collimore Tom Ireland Emily Kudla James Miles


SENIOR ART DIRECTOR Jenn Ste. Marie


ART DIRECTOR Ron X. Dulong


PRINCIPAL GRAPHIC DESIGNER Matthew Wheeler


SENIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Deborah Grisson Jessica Lee


GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Sharon McElroy Lauren Miller Carolyn Taylor


PRODUCTION MANAGER Peter Grube


PRODUCTION Jess Beaudet


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EOS Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg Smooth Sailing for


Windows Server 2003 Migration A


S Windows Server 2003 reaches the end of support (EOS) later this year, we’re helping Microsoft customers


prepare for another seismic event. But just how big of an event remains to be seen. When our teams first began talking


to our customers about it, we took a very traditional approach. First, identify 2003 servers, measure them, and figure out how to migrate them to a new OS—whether it was 2008 R2, 2012, or even 2012 R2. Next, find them, remediate them, and replace them, and they would be done. But as our discussions deepened, it became clear that the Windows Server 2003 end of support event was really just the tip of the iceberg for this journey. We quickly realized that the event could


open up new opportunities. It forced us to look at alternatives to the traditional find-and-replace methods. We could make another unnerving situation better, and we went on to discover some very positive things for customers. To summarize, new compute pathways,


particularly the many varieties of cloud solutions out there, present new and potentially better alternatives for the workloads and applications behind the server OS. That makes data more accessible to end-users, more secure, reduces costs, and pretty much offers everything today’s shops are looking for in IT delivery. As multiple workloads enter the picture, we saw a new vision for the next iteration of the data center. It’s not really magical; we can’t wave


our IT wand and create one answer, one vision. Every customer is different, and especially in the data center there are no one-size-fits-all solutions. For example,


IMAGES © ADIMAS / FOTOLIA


traditional physical boxes and/or VMs running workloads on a new OS may be the best answer. Or maybe there are gains to be had with elements of private cloud solutions opened up by Windows 2012 R2. Maybe elements of a public cloud solution, of which there are many, are perfect for a specific workload or set of workloads. Maybe this, maybe that—you should think twice about a ready-made solution. Here’s the takeaway: anyone whoever


says “X is the right answer for every question” is not looking deep enough at what a customer is trying to accomplish. Please don’t be fooled by anyone’s magic wand. The complexity of each unique environment does not lend itself to a simple conversation—but at the same time that conversation has to start somewhere. This edition of Connection is the start


of some very important dialogue. We have dedicated the entire issue to removing the complexity out of the complex Server 2003 EOS situation. I hope you value this discussion by our experts around what comes after Windows 2003 and appreciate the manageable framework we set out to create. Our goal is to find the best pathway


for 2003 workloads based on your desired business outcomes. Our tools and services to help identify the technologies with the best fit for specific workloads, or even a combination of workloads. Happy reading, and be sure to call on our


team for the expert advice and guidance to steer clear of the iceberg.


Lane Shelton Vice President of Software Business Development at PC Connection


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