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Relocating Windows Server 2003 Workloads
An Opportunity to Optimize
On July 14, 2015 Microsoft will withdraw
extended support for Windows Server
2003 after twelve years of reliable service.
Those who are still running workloads on
Windows Server 2003 will need to move
their workloads elsewhere. Those who are
currently running Windows Server 2008
R2 may also be looking to upgrade to the
current version.
When you migrate your current Windows
Server 2003 or 2008 workloads, for the
very first time you will have many choices
available to you, not just the next new
version. You may, in fact, decide to assign
various workloads to several of these
choices to optimize performance, reduce
operating costs, or both.
In the next section, we’ll discuss why it’s crucial to migrate off of Windows Server 2003.
You should, however, see this transition as an opportunity to optimize and dramatically
improve your ability to manage your data to achieve greater results. As Microsoft Technet
suggests, “Pause to look carefully at your options. This is one of the largest IT opportuni-
ties of this decade, and the next opportunity to innovate not only in the datacenter, but also
in the delivery and production of applications that drive today’s businesses.”
There is much you need to know before you upgrade to a new server platform, and
time is running out for you to plan and execute what you will shortly see amounts to a
mandatory migration.
From Complex Change to an Opportunity to Optimize
Why This Migration Should be Considered Mandatory
Before you move anything, however, you’ll
need to collect a great deal of detailed
information about your existing environment
to make the best possible choices. The goals
of this white paper are to:
1. Inform you as to why it is critical to move
off Windows Server 2003 before July 14,
2015
2. Explore how this migration presents great
opportunities to optimize and improve
3. Clearly identify what data you need to
collect and analyze about your existing
environment before you proceed to migrate
4. Examine options and toolsets that assure
comprehensive data collection and accurate
analysis
2
The SituationWhat Does it Mean When Extended Support is Withdrawn
When Mainstream Support was withdrawn, the only services still available were no-charge incident support, warranty claims, and design changes. Those all end on July 14, 2015. All Microsoft announcements about the impending withdrawal describe the potential business impact as follows:
“will mean no more updates or patches from Microsoft, which can result in a less stable and less
secure infrastructure for your organization.”
3
No Updates
Microsoft will no longer develop or release any
updates after ending support. To put this in
perspective—37 critical updates were released
extended support. Imagine what impact zero
updates will have on your infrastructure.
No Compliance
After support ends, your organization will likely
fail to meet most industry-wide compliance
standards and regulations. This could result
in lost business or dramatically increase the
cost of doing business, in the form of high
transaction fees and penalties.
No Savings
The costs of maintaining your legacy servers
can add up quickly. Maintenance costs for aging
hardware will likely increase, and you will have
to deal with added costs for intrusion detection
systems, more advanced firewalls, and network
segmentation—all simply to isolate 2003
servers. Staying put will likely cost more in the
end.”
But they all go on to state that, “The end of
signal the beginning of a new stage in your
organization’s evolution.” Before you can begin
that new stage, you’ll need to know much
more about your environment than you know
today.
initial release & beginning of support cycle
end of mainstream
support period
end of extended
support period
2006March
2010July
2015July
Looking Ahead
4
Opportunities and Challenges
12 Years of Innovation
Technology today has come a long way since 2003, especially server technology. But rather
than just focus on the many things that have improved since then, let’s start by pointing out that
there are over 140 features in Windows Server 2012 R2 that didn’t even exist in 2003.
There have been over 140 features added to the Windows Server
family since the release of Windows Server 2003.140+
In addition to the significant security and operational risks inherent in remaining on Windows
Server 2003 there are also some very powerful opportunities, benefits that will come from
upgrading to a new, modern operating system and platform.
VirtualizationMulti-Tenant High-Density
Websites
Network Access
Protection
Feature-Rich Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
Low-Cost Storage
Active Directory Federation
ServicesPowerShell Dynamic
Access Control
Joining a Domain from Off-Premises
Hybrid Applications DirectAccess ...and over 130
more features
Looking AheadOpportunities and Challenges
The Cloud
Cloud Computing wasn’t being talked about beyond a few computer laboratories working on the
earliest virtualization technologies in 2003. Today many workloads can be more closely managed
for higher performance at lower cost than ever before. Advances in Active Directory Federation
Services (ADFS) now make it seamless to run some workloads on-premise and others in the cloud,
keeping it completely transparent to users. They simply login to the network and have access to
resources wherever they are located.
Many cloud service providers (CSPs) offer Windows Server 2012 R2 in the cloud.
The Challenge
The biggest challenge you face today is time. Very little time remains between now and July 14,
2015 for companies to conduct the necessary due diligence, discovery, and planning required for
an effective and efficient migration to a new operating system running on a modern platform.
Again, from TechNet:
The opportunities to advance are not marked by mere lift-and-shift actions, but the
consideration of how each and every application, workload, embedded system, is or is
not meeting the demands of today. This is a leaps and bounds moment that will require
effort on all fronts of IT, and once embraced, will benefit IT, the business, employees, and
customers in ways that were not previously possible. This is your moment to innovate
within infrastructure and applications.
To begin the process for this transition, you’ll need to conduct a careful, thorough assessment of
your current state.
5
Due Dilligence
6
Step 1 - Inventory & Characterize Your
Existing Workloads
Before you begin moving workloads, you’ll
need to know exactly what workloads you
have, and characterize each based on what
resources they require to perform optimally.
You need to identify short-term peaks and
long-term peak loads rather than averages
and ensure you provision resources for these
correctly during your infrastructure migration.
Disregarding peaks while provisioning will only
cause performance degradation. In order to
incorporate performance peaks properly into
your analysis, you need to gather detailed
workload historical data.
Performing deeper analysis of each workload
will also help you determine if each application
is memory intensive or CPU intensive, and
what specification of capacity will give you
the performance you need. In terms of storage,
it’s important for your systems managers to
understand which storage volumes should go
to instance-store vs. EBS, provisioned IOPS, or
S3. They will also need to move your network
attached storage (NAS), storage area network
(SAN) and translate that into required cloud
storage capacity. For your network, you will
need to know how much throughput you will
get, and how your costs will differ for internal
vs. external traffic.
Step 2 - Determine Optimal Infrastructure
Settings Based on Your Performance Targets
Cloud Service Providers like Amazon Web
Services (AWS) provide multiple server
“instance” types and pricing plans each
designed to accommodate specific uses.
A server “instance” includes different
combinations of processor (CPU) power,
memory, network throughput, and storage
capacity to give you the optimal resources for
each of your workloads.
How much processor, memory, network, and
storage capacity you set will depend not only
upon the nature and requirements of each
specific workload, but also on your performance
goals for that workload. Choosing the wrong
settings can result in overprovisioning, which
causes you to spend more than is required for
satisfactory performance of a less significant
workload, or underprovisioning which can result
in poor and inadequate performance.
Accurate decisions regarding optimal settings
to achieve your performance goals requires
that you evaluate each available option against
accurate data regarding the specific workload
characteristics and performance requirements
of each individual workload.
The only way to obtain accurate data regarding
workload characteristics and performance
Conducting a Thorough Current State Assessment
Due DilligenceConducting a Thorough Current State Assessment
requirements involves exhaustive data
collection and analysis of each workload in
your environment, performance benchmarking,
and predictive analytics. Many attempt to do
this manually on spreadsheets, but without the
right tools this can quickly become complex
and time-consuming. Armed with the right tools,
however, this key process can be accomplished
far more quickly, and deliver far greater insights
into your performance opportunities.
Step 3 - Determine Optimal Pricing Plans
Every cloud service provider offers a variety of
pricing plan options to accommodate varying
workloads and requirements. For example, on
AWS you can use a pay-as-you-go model called
the On-Demand pricing plan, or by paying some
upfront costs, lower your overall hourly rate.
There are also a few different types of plans
that allow you to reserve capacity for future
use.
One of the great advantages of cloud
computing services is that you only pay for
what you use. Since you can obtain resources
rapidly only when you need them, and release
them rapidly once you are finished using
them, effective management of resources and
requirements results in significant cost savings.
Once you become familiar with the available
pricing plan options, you’ll need to identify and
understand the pattern of “On/Off” times and
“Active/Idle” times for each of your workloads.
Based on the usage pattern, you can then
determine the optimal pricing plan that is most
cost-effective for your configuration.
7
The ToolsWhy Choose Amazon Web Services (AWS)
As stated earlier, for the first time ever users
have options, choices of where to move their
workloads for optimum efficiency when they
perform the necessary migration away from
Windows Server 2003 before July 14, 2015.
Choices such as what operating system to
move to, and what platform to run those
operating systems on. Making the right
choices can dramatically increase service
levels while, at the same time, reducing
operating expense. Developers can find more
or fewer advantages, utilities, and other useful
tools depending upon choice of platform.
These choices come from a variety of
providers, including Microsoft, Amazon, Google
and others. Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
(Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides
resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It is
designed to make web-scale computing easier
for developers.
Amazon EC2’s simple web service interface
allows you to obtain and configure capacity
with minimal friction. It provides you with
complete control of your computing resources
and lets you run on Amazon’s proven
computing environment. Amazon EC2 reduces
the time required to obtain and boot new
server instances to minutes, allowing you to
quickly scale capacity, both up and down, as
your computing requirements change. Amazon
EC2 changes the economics of computing by
allowing you to pay only for capacity that you
actually use. Amazon EC2 provides developers
the tools to build failure resilient applications
and isolate themselves from common failure
scenarios.
According to NetworkComputing, quoting The
451 Group’s Carl Brooks, “Amazon stands alone
in cloud infrastructure delivery, and everyone
else is following behind or carving out their
own niche.”
Amazon EC2 Running Windows Server
Amazon EC2 running Microsoft Windows
Server® (2003 R2, 2008, 2008 R2, 2012
and 2012 R2) is a fast and dependable
environment for deploying applications using
the Microsoft Web Platform, including ASP.
NET, ASP.NET AJAX, Silverlight™, and Internet
Information Server (IIS). Amazon EC2 enables
you to run any compatible Windows-based
solution on our high-performance, reliable,
cost-effective, cloud computing platform.
Common use cases include Windows-based
application hosting, website and web-service
hosting, data processing, media transcoding,
distributed testing, ASP.NET application
hosting, and any other application requiring
Windows software.
AWS provides pre-configured machine
images (AMIs), which enable customers
8
The ToolsWhy Choose Amazon Web Services (AWS)
to start running fully supported Windows
Server virtual machine instances in minutes.
You have a choice of many versions of the
software, with or without SQL Server. By
using one of our AMIs, the Microsoft software
licensing is handled by AWS and included in
the monthly bill.
Amazon EC2 running Windows Server provides
seamless integration with existing Amazon
EC2 features like Amazon Elastic Block Store
(EBS), Amazon CloudWatch, Elastic Load
Balancing, and Elastic IPs.
Amazon EC2 benefits include:
Elastic Web-Scale Computing - Amazon EC2
enables you to increase or decrease capacity
within minutes, not hours or days. You can
commission one, hundreds or even thousands
of server instances simultaneously. Of course,
because this is all controlled with web service
APIs, your application can automatically scale
itself up and down depending on its needs.
Completely Controlled - You have complete
control of your instances. You have root
access to each one, and you can interact with
them as you would any machine. You can stop
your instance while retaining the data on your
boot partition and then subsequently restart
the same instance using web service APIs.
Instances can be rebooted remotely using web
service APIs. You also have access to console
output of your instances.
Flexible Cloud Hosting Services - You
have the choice of multiple instance
types, operating systems, and software
packages. Amazon EC2 allows you to select
a configuration of memory, CPU, instance
storage, and the boot partition size that is
optimal for your choice of operating system
and application. For example, your choice of
operating systems includes numerous Linux
distributions, and Microsoft Windows Server.
Reliable - Amazon EC2 offers a highly reliable
environment where replacement instances can
be rapidly and predictably commissioned. The
service runs within Amazon’s proven network
infrastructure and data centers. The Amazon
EC2 Service Level Agreement commitment
is 99.95% availability for each Amazon EC2
Region.
Secure - Amazon EC2 works in conjunction
with Amazon VPC to provide security and
robust networking functionality for your
compute resources.
Inexpensive - Amazon EC2 passes on to you
the financial benefits of Amazon’s scale. You
pay a very low rate for the compute capacity
you actually consume.
9
This use-case involves a Cloudamize customer in the large financial industry. Their environment
included a total of 1,100 server instances, or “virtual machines,” all running Windows workloads,
with 75% running on Window Server 2003.
To understand the current environment, assess costs, and determine the best strategy for migra-
tion to AWS, Cloudamize collected data about their infrastructure over a 30-day period. This
was used to generate a clear understanding of what their infrastructure would look like in AWS,
what improvements they could expect in performance, and how much they could anticipate in
cost reductions.
Cloudamize produced a high-level cost analysis to support the necessary business decisions
and provide detailed migration settings.
By transitioning from on-premise to a cloud solution on AWS, the company reduced their annual IT
spend by over 45%, a savings of over $800,000.
reduction in annual IT spending
savings achieved by
moving to AWS
Windows Server 2003 environment
migrated to AWS
Start with the right tool for your assessment: Cloudamize Assessment Tool for AWS.
10
The Cloudamize Solution
Success Story: Large Financial Company Cuts Costs by 45%
45% 800K 75%
Cloudamize Assessment Tool enables you to measure your existing workloads, project optimal
sizing in the cloud to support performance goals, understand total cost of ownership (TCO),
and support a highly efficient migration process by defining requirements and providing the
corresponding AWS settings for the new environment.
Cloudamize collects data from your existing on-premise environment, both physical servers and
virtual machines, and maps each to specific AWS options, finding the best AWS configuration for
that specific workload, and providing the best performance at the lowest possible cost.
Get Started - Plan Your AWS Migration with Cloudamize
11
Planning your migration from Windows Server 2003 requires more time and more work than you
may anticipate. With less than a month until withdrawal of extended support, the time is now to
begin using Cloudamize Assessment Tool to collect and analyze the data that will help you plan
your most cost-effective and performance enhancing upgrade.
Get started today. Visit www.cloudamize.com for more in-depth information about making the
most of your move from Windows Server 2003.
Cloudamize, Inc.
1735 Market StreetSuite 2502 Philadelphia, PA 19103 215-557-3735 www.cloudamize.com
©2015 Cloudamize, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
About Cloudamize
Cloudamize is a cloud analytics company that helps businesses make data-driven
decisions at every stage of the cloud lifecycle. Customers and partners utilize the
SaaS application to effectively assess, plan, and manage workloads within the cloud.
With Cloudamize, companies have experienced significant monthly savings on their
cloud deployment, while simultaneously increasing performance. With more than half
a million servers analyzed to date, customers trust Cloudamize to provide detailed
visibility into their workload metrics and recommend optimal strategies to actively
manage their cloud infrastructure.