Last year, all the noise was, rightly, about the Windows 10 end-of-life deadline. We talked about the importance of preparing for this deadline and the implications of ignoring it. Luckily, while not ideal, anyone who failed to meet the deadline has the safety net of Microsoft’s extended security updates (ESU) programme, even though Microsoft describes ESU as “a last resort option for customers who need to run certain legacy Microsoft products past the end of support”.
For Windows 10, the ESU period runs until October next year. But there is another deadline approaching this year – although you’d be forgiven for not knowing, given it’s getting little to no coverage online. Even more importantly, there is no last resort option for this one.
In less than three months, the ESU end date for Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 will arrive. After this deadline, no more updates will be available or sent out by Windows. Being aware of the deadline is the first step to preparing for it. Most companies will then be focused on ensuring their servers are upgraded to a supported version.
More than just an upgrade
Microsoft’s solution is to migrate any existing server workloads as they are to its cloud Azure Virtual Machine or, otherwise, upgrade on-premise servers to the latest version. These are sensible solutions. (The alternative is to pay for an ESU subscription, which is of course an expensive option.) But the deadline brings into question wider problems.
Many companies oversee large, complex IT estates with a range of servers, both on-premise and in the cloud. How do they know what servers need upgrading across their estate? How do they monitor this change and ensure all servers are up-to-date? And finally, how do they continue to ensure security and compliance by building ongoing visibility into change across their network?
These questions illustrate why gaining live visibility of an IT estate – as soon as possible – is integral to ensuring all servers are secure and not vulnerable to security breaches or outages once the deadline passes.
The importance of ongoing visibility
When organisations have so many endpoints in their network, and are often using various third-party providers, trying to keep systems up-to-date with various end-of-support deadlines can be a real challenge. IT teams need to know, firstly, what servers need upgrading, and secondly, if upgrades have been rolled out consistently.
There’s also the issue of critical business applications with complex dependencies not working on the new server version. Without visibility, these interactions can go undetected, and that’s where outages are likely to happen later down the line.
Some companies, however, will be put off by the cost of upgrading their servers, while other IT leaders might struggle to gain buy-in and budget from the C-suite. But the financial, reputational and regulatory damage from an outage or cyberattack will be much more costly. In the last couple of months alone, several major banks have experienced outages, while cyberattacks continue to be a critical threat. That is the message that IT leaders need to get across to decision makers.
What many people don’t realise is that most outages originate from a small, untracked change that goes unnoticed. The ability to evidence and track these changes is vital for preventing cyber incidents. And this audit trail is also integral for maintaining compliance. If companies fail to update their servers or ensure they remain up-to-date, for instance, they will also not be eligible for Cyber Essentials certification, which is a benchmark for operational resilience.
Enter Guardian and continuous modernisation
Guardian provides IT teams with a central platform that can automatically and continuously monitor their entire infrastructure and, in this case, servers. Users can easily identify servers that are approaching end-of-support and then evaluate the appropriate upgrade actions to take. They can monitor change and understand when servers have been updated and by whom. This subsequently makes it easier to spot any areas that might be at risk of not meeting the deadline and to take swift action to remedy this.
From a wider perspective, Guardian enables teams to monitor for configuration change across their IT estate at forensic level. The platform automatically detects any change that happens anywhere in their network and provides an evidence log of activity to ensure that all changes are recorded and authorised. This builds a proactive approach to security that helps to quickly identify and remediate incidents before they escalate, while also offering continuous audit trails that can be exported for any regulator on demand.
What this creates is an ongoing mindset of modernisation where teams can align budgets and resources with end-of-support deadlines so that upgrades can be conducted in a timely and cost-effective way.
With the deadline fast approaching, any server that is not upgraded or secured before that date will immediately become a security risk and a cyberattack target. Estate-wide change visibility can make all the difference in ensuring this risk is averted.
Find out more about how Guardian can help you prepare for the Windows 2012 Server ESU here.
