Microsoft to end support for SQL Server 2005 in 2016

Businesses only have six months left of updates warns vendor

Microsoft is encouraging businesses to upgrade from SQL Server 2005 as support and security updates end on April 12, 2016.

“Continuing to operate SQL Server 2005 without security updates and hot fixes from Microsoft may put your organisation at risk for business disruptions, security and compliance issues, and increased maintenance costs,” said Microsoft cloud and enterprise marketing corporate vice president Takeshi Numoto in a blog post.

“Upgrading to SQL Server 2014 before extended support ends next April is not only a necessary security and compliance decision, but a sound business decision as well,” he said.

According to Numoto, upgrading from SQL Server 2005 and Windows Server 2003 also means organisations can take advantage of security features such as Windows Server Core support or the ability to scale up to 640 processors on Windows Server 2012 R2.

Windows Server 2003

In June, Microsoft partner HP released figures showing that there were still 115,000 servers in Australia running Windows Server 2003 despite the July 14 cut-off support date.

The end of security fixes meant SMBs and enterprises that were still using the operating system could be vulnerable to attack, warned HP South Pacific enterprise group servers and converged systems director Raj Thakur at the time.

“There will be no incident report and you could get penalised for having non-compliant software. You have software that is not supported and that’s a vicious cycle,” said Thakur.

Thakur acknowledged budget constraints could be holding some SMBs back from upgrading to Windows Server 2012.

“There are some great enhancements in the new version including performance and scale. There are also better recovery options and protection against outages,” he said.

Join the newsletter!

Or

Sign up to gain exclusive access to email subscriptions, event invitations, competitions, giveaways, and much more.

Membership is free, and your security and privacy remain protected. View our privacy policy before signing up.

Error: Please check your email address.

Tags Microsoftsql serverwindows server 2003SQL server 2005

More about HPMicrosoft

Show Comments
[]