Tag: migration

Server 2003 nemesis looms

Posted on March 2, 2015 by - News

Microsoft campusMicrosoft abandons support for Windows Server 2003 on July the 14 this year and that means servergeddon for IT managers who don’t keep up with the upgrades.

In fact, according tech company Insight UK, there are five “power struggles” set to happen in enterprises and public organisations on Bastille Day – that’s the 14th of July.

Insight estimates that 24 million servers worldwide could well be affected – and nearly 40 percent of Server OSes are Windows 2003.

Microsoft wants people to use its Azure Data Centre Migration but many have left things too little and too late.

Insight thinks that migrating servers could take an estimated 18 months, and short term patches cause problems in the migration.

And another problem is lack of compatability and interoperability problems, while new environments will require time to get to grips sure.

Sure enough, this is leading Insight to one conclusion – it can help you out. “Panic is not an option,” said MD Emma de Sousa, after telling enterprises that they better had panic, and quickly.

 

Microsoft washes hands to seal XP’s fate

Posted on July 10, 2013 by - News

win8errorMicrosoft is slowly preparing for the inevitable demise of Windows XP.

Redmond will discontinue support for the venerable operating system next April and its warnings to partners are becoming a bit more vocal.

In an effort to ease the transition, Microsoft has already announced a range of programmes and initiatives to gently force customers to upgrade their XP boxes. But it is a daunting task – over the next 270 days Microsoft partners will have to upgrade an estimated 586,000 PCs per day and roughly a year from now we could see a spike in IT department suicides.

Microsoft plans to spend $40 million in fiscal 2014 to speed up its Windows Accelerate Programme, which doesn’t really sound like much from our perspective. In addition Redmond will extend its Get to Modern programme aimed at SMBs. Since it is believed that SMBs are still the biggest XP users, they will need the most help to get everything sorted and they don’t have that many resources to go around.

HP has also joined the fun, with an offer of specially priced HP ElitePad tablets with Windows 8, ZDnet reports.

Another related programme is TouchWins. Although it is not directly designed to speed up XP transition, it does offer incentives to makers of touch-enabled Windows 8 devices.

IT should use XP migration to boost infrastructure

Posted on July 1, 2013 by - News

framedwindowsWith support for Windows XP just around the corner, yet another company is shouting that businesses must have no illusions: sticking with unsupported software could be catastrophic.

Attachmate’s Barry Davis, UK sales director, said in a statement that businesses will be and should be migrating – and when they do they should take the migration as an incentive to evaluate security vulnerabilities in their infrastructure. “They can also reconcile and shrink the sprawl to a level their current IT staff can support,” Davis said.

Attachmate pointed out Accenture research that claims half of UK IT departments have no strategy for applications current running on Windows XP. And it warns that if businesses continue to run terminal emulators made for XP after upgrading, they could still be open to vulnerabilities.

“This is an opportunity to invest in future proofing, streamlining desktop emulation and mainframe access,” Davis said.

Attachmate advises businesses to take step by step best practice approaches to migration, based on standardisation, and starting with an inventory check to get all the data in place.

Firms face XP migration nightmare

Posted on June 24, 2013 by - News

framedwindowsWindows 8.1 is around the corner – a reshaping of Windows 8, which received a lukewarm reception since its October 2012 launch. However, critics warn that the key question for businesses will be migration from Windows XP, when support for that operating system ends in early 2014.

Considering the poor economic conditions of much of the world, particularly in Europe, there are plenty of companies who simply cannot afford to, or do not want to, upgrade from their Windows XP boxes. But they will have to.

UK based IT efficiency company, Sumir Karayi, believes that Windows 8.1 could well be the post-XP iteration of Windows that businesses will seriously consider.

As support runs out for XP, these organisations will be faced with sky-high support costs or migration to a newer operation system, and as such, most should be planning a migration strategy, Karayi says.

Aside from the daunting financial risk in keeping XP on life support, Microsoft will no longer be patching critical security flaws. As such, companies still running XP could find themselves exposed to disaster.

“Most large enterprises are unaware of all the software applications they already have, let alone how many are actually being used, and how many licences they should pay for during a migration process,” Karayi warns. “The licensing issues surrounding software applications are complicated”.

“There is little consistency in the agreements and businesses are often left paying for far more than they actually require,” Karayi says.

As companies upgrade, then, they should make sure their migration strategies are compatible with their software licences.

The message, then, is “loud and clear” according to Karayi – if IT decision makers are to avoid shooting themselves in the foot, organisations must move away from XP before the deadline’s up.