Survive Your Windows Server 2003 Migration

It’s clear that continuing to operate an unsupported server is a great security risk that could have a significant impact on your budget and productivity. But migrating to a new server is also a significant cost—and can be a risky prospect, especially when you’re already behind the ball. Windows Server migrations are inherently risky, requiring a unique set of skills, experience, and technologies to execute successfully.

Fortunately, you can mitigate most of the risk of migration with proper preparation. Organizations that want to streamline migrations from Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2012 need to accurately assess their risks and identify the exact skills required to migrate from Windows Server 2003. Careful planning and clear insights into the budget ramifications of an upgrade—which have driven the delays of most migration plans—can help your organization easily visualize the long-term cost benefits, and ultimately gain budget approvals for server migrations.

To avoid starting from scratch and taking the 200–300 days that are typical for server migrations, many enterprises are turning to online assessment tools to help them evaluate options and accelerate migration plans. Online assessments offer a disciplined approach for gathering the information necessary for server migration and receiving structured recommendations. They allow the enterprise to accelerate server migrations, which is particularly crucial at a time when servers will reach the end-of-support stage before the migration is complete.

Dell’s Windows Server 2003 Migration Risk Assessment gives you unique insights to help you simplify, improve, and streamline your infrastructure. Each free assessment is short, taking only a few minutes. Once completed, a custom PDF report is generated based on your feedback, identifying areas of risk for your IT project. You’ll also receive tailored recommendations to minimize those risks, accelerate project timelines, and improve ROI.

Migrating from Windows Server 2003 requires careful planning. You’ll want to take a close look at your existing infrastructure and consider the organization’s future needs so you can establish a Windows Server environment that will enable growth, deliver flexibility, and ensure security and availability. The initial questions in Dell’s Risk Assessment program are designed to assess your pre-migration preparation to identify your risk level during the migration phase.

Once your migration begins, you’ll need to ensure availability and coexistence with legacy systems while leveraging the tools and expertise necessary to complete your project on time and under budget. The next questions assess your execution plans to identify your risk level during this migration phase.

Perhaps most important to many enterprises, though, is whether or not you can continue maximize your ROI, ensure security, and effectively manage your new infrastructure after the migration. For this concern, the final set of questions are designed to assess your post-migration management plans to identify your risk level during the operational phase.

Based on your answers, your risk levels will be assessed for each phase: pre-migration planning, migration execution, and post-migration management. You will also be presented with recommendations for planning, migration, and management, and with resources that can you can utilize throughout your migration process.

The security, compliance, and operational risks of maintaining non-supported servers are frightening, so taking advantage of readily available tools like the Dell Windows Server 2003 Migration Risk Assessment can help you not only streamline your migration, but in some cases, transform an impossible task into a near-future reality for your enterprise.

With the end of support date for Windows Server 2003 fast approaching, there’s never been a better time to plan your data center transformation. Our experts have designed this helpful tool to get you started on the right upgrade path for your unique environment, applications, and workloads.