When it comes to Windows Server 2003's end of life the doom mongers are out in full force and another report has been released showing the unpreparedness of UK enterprises.
Cloud firm Exponential-e found that 35% of UK companies are not suitably prepared for Windows Server 2003's fast approaching end of life date on July 14 and it has put together a four point plan for enterprises to cope with the transition.
The survey of UK IT professionals also found that 63% don't know what Windows Server 2003's demise means for their business and this pushed Exponential-e to lay out its plan for companies looking to move on.
To kick things off enterprises should catalogue software and workloads by noting down exactly what is running in their organisation. Once this is clear, apps and workloads have to be categorised by type and then how critical each one is plus the level of risk or complexity attached to each.
Big security worry
By finding all this out it will point enterprises in the direction of the best "target destination" that will comprise an on-premise solution or cloud deployments across Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). Once all that is done, the migration will kick off using tools and resources that are at the right level to handle it effectively and efficiently.
Estimates on the amount of enterprises still running Windows Server 2003 vary hugely depending on where you look from a relatively low 2.6 million to a whopping 11 million. For this reason it has been called the "biggest security threat of 2015" and right now it's not clear whether firms will cough up to extend support in the same way the UK government did with Windows XP.
- Check it out: How to fight the end of life
