Windows 2003 enterprise end of life

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Customer Success Stories. Industry Accolades. Security Experts. Corporate Social Responsibility. Trust Center. Internet Safety and Cybersecurity Education. Content added to Folio Folio 0 close. Save to Folio. On July 14, , this widely deployed Microsoft operating system will reach its end of life—a long run since its launch in April Estimates on the number of still-active Windows Server users vary from 2.

But this new end of life will raise a whole new set of challenges. Organizations depend on it to run critical business applications and support their internal services like Active Directory, File Sharing, and hosting internal websites. Typically, security issues would be resolved by regular support for an operating system, which involves: Getting security updates to protect against vulnerabilities Getting regular support on almost any issue with the product Getting non-security updates, i.

Organizations like yours must prepare to deal with missing security updates, compliance issues, fighting malware, and other non-security bugs. You will no longer receive patches for security issues or notifications of vulnerabilities.

And you will no longer know when there are vulnerabilities that affect your servers. At the time of launch, Windows was as a much safer alternative to Windows Over time, it became clear that it had its own share of vulnerabilities. Without notifications to help monitor and measure the risk associated with these vulnerabilities, you may be left facing a big hole in your server security.

There have been several vulnerabilities reported in other versions of Windows operating systems since then. The implications are if they don't migrate, they are exposed on the app side and may not have the resources to fix it. The other thing is from external risks that may be discovered after support ends," he said. Many companies not making the migration cite cost as the reason; either they can't afford it or they haven't got the budget this year but will later in the year or next year.

If you are in such a scenario, you should still begin preparing for the eventual move and not wait until you have the money to begin planning. That way you have a plan ready for execution when the funds are there. Bit9 recommends several steps in the process:. Don't do it alone: A smooth transition to a new platform will require full buy-in and agreement from any and all impacted stakeholders. That means not just the IT department, but the business units impacted and the budgeting finance team.

Dedicate time for project scoping: The average migration project will take over days to implement, from assessment, to migration, to debugging.

You're not just copying files, there is much more to the migration. So find the potential pitfalls early on and not get tripped up during the migration. Work within your budget: If you are not making the move for financial reasons, then you likely already have a good idea of your finances.

You will need a clear picture of potential project risks, costs and buy-in for the necessary human resource requirements. Set a realistic timeline: As said above, a migration takes on average days.

Some can be worse, others easier. Rushing will only make a mess. It will lead to mistakes, cost overruns and resource misallocation. For organizations not making the move but cognizant of the potential exposure, there are some steps you can take. Mind you, there will eventually come a tipping point where you are spending more money to shore up your antiquated WS servers than it would cost to migrate, so keep that in mind when considering the following:.

Lock down services and limit access to the physical server, and make sure all logging is turned on to monitor for unusual activity or unauthorized access. Make sure permissions and user access is as limited as possible," said Tsai. You should be very active and aggressive in backing up your data for many reasons, not just because of potential compromise, but simply the fact that WS won't be fixed in any way, and an unpatched bug could cause data loss or corruption.

So make sure the server is regularly and thoroughly backed up if it is not already. So if you don't have a plan for failed hardware or failed OS, you're up a creek. At least a backup solution will allow you to restore from a device in case your others fail," said Jeff Denworth, senior vice president of marketing for CTERA, a cloud storage platform provider that is working with Server customers to migrate their backup solutions. Also, be careful with your backup solutions because they may end up costing more than a Server migration.

That's a cabinet's worth of servers. Consider isolating your Server servers from central services. Segment those machines from the rest of the network. Cut off any connection to the Internet unless it's absolutely necessary," said Tsai. So it will work for isolated departments or teams, but for email, domain, Web and other typical solutions, this method won't work very well.

Application whitelisting is a security model that says what apps may run, rather than the blacklisting method that says what apps are not allowed to run. Blacklisting is the method used in antivirus programs, and since blacklisting relies on knowing what the badware is in the first place, it's why your antivirus program updates two or three times a day and is still often behind the bad guys.

Application whitelisting is a very effective method for application control because only the permitted apps can run. By ensuring only trusted software is allowed to run on the server, application whitelisting will lock out zero-day exploits and other malware. However, McMullin notes it can be a problem is the app whitelisting if done by IP addresses and you have a mobile force, since IP addresses will change as they move. With the End-Of-Life rapidly approaching are you ready to upgrade or migrate your environment to Windows Server R2?

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