In this day and age when support extensions are a rare animal, Microsoft has given a line of an extra year-and-a-half to businesses that are on Windows Server 2008.
The company has extended mainstream support for its server operating system by another 18 months, and the older date has been extended to January 13, 2015. It was earlier set to end on July 9 next year.
Microsoft announced the extension in its support lifecycle newsletter, stating:
“Support for Windows Server 2008 will transition from Mainstream Support to Extended Support on January 15, 2015. This update follows the Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy for Business and Developer products. The Microsoft policy provides a minimum of five years of Mainstream Support or two years of Mainstream Support after the successor product ships, whichever is longer”.Even though Windows Server 2008 was succeeded by Server 2008 R2 in 2009, Microsoft considers Windows Server 2012 the true heir to the crown. The latest version debuted in September this year, giving customers and businesses on the older version of the server OS extra breathing room. As most of you may already be aware, mainstream support for Microsoft products usually runs the first 5 years of the lifecycle of its software products. This is the time when the company actively releases security patches, general fixes and sometimes even feature updates. The remaining 5 years are labeled as extended support, committing Microsoft to only release security updates free of cost, with an option for paid fixes for non-security bugs. The late release of Windows Server 2012 resulted in a shift of dates. Syncs like these are somewhat unprecedented, but not totally out of the norm. Considering how hard a job it is for businesses to integrate a new server setup, this is a welcome relief for them as they plan their switch to the latest version of Microsoft’s server operating system.]]>
